Father For Sale

Friday! Finally!

Still been rolling my tired butt out of bed each morning at 5:30am to get my workout and exercises done so I feel like a true health queen. I’m even down a couple kgs, despite the twelve bowls of Cheerios I’ve been eating every day – I shouldn’t even be allowed to purchase cereal when I go so nuts on it (cereal is not a breakfast food; it’s perfect any time of the day) but I’m technically an adult now so there’s nobody around to say no to these sorts of things.

Last night was the first session of a 6 week program to improve our 5km running times. It was 400m repeats going at the quickest pace possible, with a 90sec break between, and by the end I had convinced myself that I was going to have a heart attack. Before the session began the coach explained that we could either do 6, 8, or 10 reps, depending on what level you feel you’re at, and of course me being me, I straight up went for the 10 reps and boy, It. Was. Hard. I was dead after 3 reps to be honest, but then I made it to 5 and I was like well I might as well go to 6 but then I got to 6 and I thought ‘I can’t possibly just do the minimum’ so I pushed myself to 8…guess what happened after the 8th rep? I figured I had to do just two more to make the full 10 because that’s what I had originally signed up for. Those two laps felt like the hardest running I’d ever done but the coach ran with me for the 9th rep and then another guy from the club who was also doing 10 ran with me for the final one which helped hugely because it’s impossible to give up when you’re getting constant encouragement the whole way. I damn near collapsed at the end but even managed to pick my butt up after a drink of warm water from the water tap (cold water doesn’t exist in summer here) and walk/slow run a 400m cool down to finish the session off. During the running, everything feels so hard but afterwards, I bloody love myself for pushing myself so hard. It feels like running is the only thing I’m passionate enough about to put in that sort of effort but I wish I could bring that passion and dedication to other areas of my life e.g. finding a career that I don’t absolutely hate.

I think another reason that I pushed myself so hard at training was that just before I left home, my dad dropped the bombshell that he had quit his job. This got me so mad and upset for so many reasons. 1) His excuse for quitting was because his boss had words with him about having his computer’s webcam open to record how many times an hour he’d  fall asleep at his desk…but come on, if my employee was not only falling asleep at work but also messing around with camera stuff when he was meant to be working, I’d be annoyed too! My Dad just doesn’t do well with people telling him what to do which is ridiculous because he bloody loves telling everyone else what to do! 2) Poor old Mum is already picking up extra shifts whenever she can and I can tell she’s exhausted. And now she’s got the added pressure of supporting all Dad’s wild spending habits too, plus all the usual bills etc. All because the dickhead has decided he wants to be retired! Mum sure as hell wants to be retired too but now she’s going to have to work twice as hard, while still doing literally everything around the house and for Dad’s lazy ass. It has driven me absolutely insane and while my relationship with him has never been great (there is not a single quality about him that I admire and when I was younger I would literally daydream about what it’d be like to have other male fathers in my life as my dad instead. How sad.), but this has just put the final nail in the coffin. I have never met a more selfish, lazy, pigheaded wanker in my life and I’m over him.

The pressure to get a better job so I can help Mum out more with money has doubled. I even applied for a job with a local council not because I particularly want it, but purely because the money with government jobs is really good and there’s loads of benefits.

Seeing my best friend from high school tonight for dinner; it’s been so nice reconnecting with her. Plus, I’ve been avoiding most of my other friends lately because I just can’t be bothered seeing them for whatever reason. It just seems as though we’ve grown apart a bit now that uni is over; I’m not so sure we have much in common anymore. Every catch up with them feels like a drag and just forced chitchat. It’s different with my high school friend though – we went through the most important years together and I think that’s enough to hold us together forever. I do feel bad for avoiding contact with the others…but not bad enough to actually do anything about it.

Ashleigh