At four in the morning, as I sit in front of my computer, I realize that there are some questions asked me by someone I love incredibly that I haven’t answered. It only sparks a fire in me because I know the answers for the most part, but in training myself to get along, long ago, I conditioned myself to keep such information to myself. If for no other reason than to avoid any additional drama, I hide the things that live so deeply inside me.

Why I am choosing to explain myself to her here, on my blog where anyone in the world can read it, I don’t know, but maybe on this stage I’ll be able to do what I either cannot or will not do otherwise.

I don’t feel like a selfish man, but others closest to me think I am in at least some ways. In truth, I probably would agree with them if I hadn’t learned to ignore those feelings years ago. I suppose that is the common thread in my life, the things I do now are dictated by the choices I made so long ago. I do not feel any regret for those choices as they have shaped who I am today, and I like who I am for the most part.

The question I am answering in particular was asked in a variety of ways, but to sum it up, I would have to say that I was asked “Why I make it so difficult to be somewhere, without actually being there”.

When I come home from work I am instantly greeted with a very appreciative “Hi Daddy” from my daughter, and an inevitable “Hey” from my wife. In my mind, my daughter is the first person I look for when I open that door, and before I even have a chance to move on from seeing her for the first time since the same time the night before, my wife has greeted me. It’s unfortunate for her because she gets a distracted leftover from my daughter.

As I’ve said before, my day consists of waking up, and having maybe an hour or so to get to work, where I will remain until at least 10:45 every night, then return home so I can see my daughter for a few minutes before she goes to bed, then eat and get on with my nightly routines. To me it’s all something that has to be done every day, but in such a way that it actually starts to feel like a burden to do so, not that I don’t enjoy it all, but as I approach that point in my evening all I can think is “time to go home”.

No more or less enthusiasm than that, regardless of how I actually act walking through that door. Now after all the difficult things my wife and I have gone through together, I’m still finding it hard to forget about it all and expect something different from her when I get home. That is likely the source of my frustration with coming home after work.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that when I get home I spend the rest of my night on the internet doing various things, and some even know how completely demanding I can be for my privacy while doing so. It was actually described as suspicious to me today that I do God knows what on the internet every night and refuse to do any of it while someone is in the room with me. I keep telling her that it’s only because I enjoy my privacy far more than I can tolerate someone watching over my shoulder, but she still has doubts.

I used to do some things online that I didn’t want anyone else to see because they were private and sensitive things, like running a porn site and trying to update it in front of someone who doesn’t already know that.

There are some nights when I feel that my time spent on the internet is more of an addiction than anything else, because I will hunt for something to do when I don’t have anything else left to do otherwise. But in reality I have become so accustomed to being at my computer and doing something from two years of spending 18 hours a day online building websites and learning how to code and program and design and whatever else I felt like learning, that now when I have so much less time to spend online, it feels like a huge part of my day is missing already because I haven’t accomplished anything new as I used to so often.

The main complaint I hear from this habit I’ve made of trying my best to regain that sense of completion or accomplishment is that when I get home, I might as well have just come home for lunch and gone back to work. In my house, my wife and I and our visitors only smoke in our bedroom, that’s because we put the computer in our bedroom and because we don’t feel comfortable smoking in the same room as our daughter. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is much better than the alternative.

So unless my wife comes to smoke a cigarette, then she really doesn’t see me unless I go to the restroom or get something to drink, or another pack of cigarettes. I haven’t gone to bed with her in six months, I know it’s been that long because that’s when I started the job I have now and began working the later hours that I do. My midnight is her 3 a.m.

Now the reason I am this way is because of all the crap that is going on in my life on any given day, the one place where that really doesn’t exist is online, whether it be writing blogs, designing something, playing with photography, or listening to music or watching videos, or even just managing my fantasy football team, I feel a brief reprieve from my very heavy load of bricks. It is the one time each day where I can set them down and relax without worrying about missing a step to get things right again, and let me tell you, things have been horribly wrong since I took a job paying half as much as my last job did.

The stress isn’t really anything new to me, as I had to deal with growing up as well, but it’s hitting me from a new direction than it ever has, now there is no one else to deal with it all if I don’t. My wife tries to take some of it on herself, but I don’t think she really does because it doesn’t affect her the same way, she says it does but I can see her laughing and having fun with the simplest of things and I know that she has found a way to let it go for a while. But I also think instead she may just have found in being around loved ones what I have when I get to my computer for the night.

Regardless, it’s something that does affect me and I try to hide it at all costs, because what kind of a man or husband or father does it make me to be weighed down by such crap as being behind on bills, or having to work my ass off a little extra so we can eat, have gas, buy cigarettes. To me life has become rather mundane and in the worst way for me personally.

The problem that really affects us is that even when we do get things in line, even if just for a month, I still continue my same routines as though we were still behind on everything. I know it’s because the habit is hard to break, and I know that I don’t want to break the habit until I don’t need it anymore. And in the meantime I have to continually explain myself to her for basically abandoning her and my daughter in the other room every night.

I wish there was another word for that, because that one makes it seem so harsh and callas, abandon. It’s a fitting word though, just not for anything but my own troubles and worries.

I write this in hope that she will find a new understanding of the things I do, while hoping most readers overlook the majority of this blog. In conclusion, while I haven’t answered this question as thoroughly as I wanted, I have made the point clear once again that I do what I do because I have reason, even if you don’t understand them, they are there and I keep you from understanding because it needs to be done. Shit …………