I am listening to Of Monsters and Men and I thought what are monsters to me, nowadays? As an adult there are few things to really fear. Knowing there is no "cucuy" under the bed is a relief when your kid is scared, but the things that scare us, are really much worse.
I fear losing my job and then by default losing most everything we have built into what we call our life. I can't look at any one thing I own and say I absolutely care about this one thing, because things are just things. But combined, they are the journey we have been going through together as a family. The furniture we bought Boy signified we accepted he was a growing up, and I bought it with the slight realization that if he chose to leave, like I did my folks' home, he might be taking that bed and that dresser with him.
The table, lame as it sounds, I took a cue from King Arthur and bought a large round table. I talk a lot of silly crap about being the man of the house, but we are all equals when we sit to eat. What would I be without my wife, not a husband, or without my boys, not a father. We don't eat often on it, but we do sit there and gather with friends, and family. The table was a good decision, I hope people feel welcome whenever they join us for a meal.
Another thing I am starting to fear is our vehicles. None of them is new at this point, and recently my truck started up with transmission problems. It is going to cost a pretty penny to fix. Wife is driving around in a 2005 bug and I am driving our 2004 Excursion, which I did not want to be a daily driver, but no choice now. It's not that I care about them being old, It's that I fear my wife getting stranded by the side of the road, running back and forth for her job. I worry about going out of town and my vehicle giving out. Last week I changed the oil at Jiffy Lube because Ford said it was too late in the day to do it. They did something to the oil filter or maybe it was just a bad one from the factory, but I lost most of the oil, running to New Braunfels and back. If the trip had been a little further and I had run dry, then what? I certainly cannot afford a new vehicle right now. We were driving back at night and we had quite the trail of smoke, I realized what was happening but I was scared to stop and not be able to get going again. When I refilled it at home, it needed about four quarts, so I was down to two quarts before some big catastrophe.
These are some of the little things that scare me. Not being able to be the man of the house and doing the right things. So we will move to our smaller house, then if we do have a layoff, the other spouse can carry the load for awhile, and we can start looking into buying some new vehicles. Wife was driving a new vehicle every two years when we first got married, and maybe that is a bit much, but that is the kind of service you're supposed to get from a Big Mando.
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