Dear Luciana,

People think I’ve got this.

I shower. I shave. The emails I send at work still make sense if I write them before 10 a.m. Two years in and the single dad thing is supposedly grand.

It isn’t.

I’m skipping the grief part. Sick of talking about it.

I was backing out of the garage. You kept saying it from your car seat. “Door. Door. Daddy. Door.”

I was spacing out. The way I always do now. Your words washed over me like background music.

You were right. You’re almost three and you’re more put together than your father.

I backed out. Heard the crunch. The garage door caught the side of the car and bent the window frame.

What an unbelievably annoying thing.

This is what happens when you’re tired all the time.

So now I have to get the car fixed.

I tried normal places because I wanted to pay out of pocket. One guy said he’d have to replace the whole door. Another said he can’t do electric cars. The third said he didn’t do windows. He was afraid of breaking them.

I took it to the dealership willing to pay five billion dollars just to get a straight answer.

The dealership said they couldn’t fix it.

And it’s fine. The bent window frame isn’t dangerous to drive.

Unless it rains. Then it leaks all over you.

You would probably think that’s hilarious. Until Daddy needs to give you a bath.

This is a HUGE pain in the ass.

I have to take off work to drive to each place. I can’t do it after work because I’m watching you. I need help getting the car to each shop and dropping it off. That means dragging you along after daycare. Sitting in a car in traffic. Probably sitting in your own pee because I can’t change your diaper fast enough.

Also, the garage door battery died at the exact same time.

Beep. Every ten minutes. For over a day. Beep at 2 a.m. Beep at 2:10. Beep at 2:20.

It took me more than a day to figure out the beep was coming from the garage door. That’s how tired I am. An alarm went off in my own house and I couldn’t find it.

Apparently changing the battery takes five minutes. After an hour I’d touched two live wires and accomplished nothing. I paid someone to do it. It turned out all I had to do was open the compartment on the other side.

Today I went to the fifth body shop.

The guy bent the window back into shape in ten minutes. Did it for free.

I was so happy I gave him a hundred dollars in cash.

I can’t wear a sign that says I’M TIRED ALL THE TIME.

People think I’m fine. They only see the mask I wear in public.

Besitos,

Daddy