Ever since the horrible week in which my mother and one of the Sober Husband's brothers both unexpectedly passed away on the very same day, I've been in a deep, dark depression. My forms of self-medication have involved sitting on the couch sipping prosecco (a day drink, thankyouverymuch) and eating home-made Chex mix, something I associate with my mother. The last time I was in the hospital, my mother sent me a batch of homemade Chex Mix; we made it a lot when I was growing up, and we developed our own recipe.
The other people in the house have been left to forage for themselves, as I haven't felt up to cooking. Frozen foods and Chex mix are the order of the day. I did rally for Thanksgiving, when we had an epic feast with eleven different dishes. Then I plunged back into my depression when our hot water heater broke the day after Thanksgiving, leaving us with a few days of no showers and no dishwasher and a nice $1,300 bill. It felt like something terrible was happening to us every day. My dentist told me to have expensive oral surgery, a recommendation I am ignoring, the day after the water heater trauma.
A few people suggested to me that we replace the hot water heater ourselves, but tellingly none of them live in San Francisco. Our house is on a very steep hill, so our hot water heater has to be lifted up over five feet to its inconvenient location and also it has to be made earthquake-safe. Also we don't own any vehicle that could possibly contain a hot water heater. I felt ashamed, but in the end, we had to admit we wouldn't have done such a good job. The professional owned a truck and had the right equipment to braze the gas lines and to drill into the exposed bedrock under our storage space.
In the background the Ferguson and New York grand juries failed miserably to see what was obvious to anyone else, which is that walking in a street or selling loose cigarettes are not capital offenses. Some people very dear to me had horrible things happen to them as well, things I won't write about as they are not my traumas to tell.
We're walking on tiptoes here, afraid of what each day holds.
4 comments:
I don't mean to make light of your depression. There are no easy or simple answers. But given the recent weather, I couldn't help but think of this.
http://youtu.be/9AFf0ysgNiM
I hope you can find your way back to feel the good things around you.
Some times I think we live parallel lives. Yes, my water heater began to give out the day before Thanksgiving, but we managed to avoid a total catastrophe until the plumber could come the day after, so at least we had showers that day. However, as if to make-up for the fact it didn't totally fail, the house demons decided to make sure my ovens weren't working properly; my pumpkin pie was a disaster. :(
Anyway, my point: my husband is an architect and he wouldn't DREAM of installing a water heater. This is something you call a plumber for. Don't beat yourself up over it. Truly, it's not something you should do yourself. Gas lines and all that...
I know you're hurting and I'm thinking of you.
Gas lines and laymen don't often mix with good results.
There's a theme running through the last several days among my friends. No one seems sad to see this year end.
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