Midnight reflection: need N-plus handymen

Need N-plus handymen

There is an awakening moment after your divorce. Nobody knows exactly when but you.

Maybe a thought: gosh, I need to pick the kids. No one else will do that. Or,

Shit, why am I so longing for someone lying on top of me or beside me? Or,

Fuck it, why are kids so annoying and demanding? What can I do with their breakup dramas or so many club activities?

See, life goes on and puts more on your plate. You can only indulge yourself in self-pity or bad emotions for so long. The sun rises, daily routines will keep you going on and on.

Needy moments

The summer has been hot and there was no rain for over a month, scorching the roof, lawn and human bodies. You may cool down the roof from inside, not necessarily helping the roof itself, but at least shelter yourself from that burning. Unfortunately, no sheltering services are for the lawn. Though no one hears grass whining, they must be. The deep green fades away over just a week, turning into mixed brown and then some grass simply dies. Doing research only confirms the need for more caring services. So, now, it is time to find a lawn care man. Lawn mowing, weed removal and grass feeding are the real needs that can use at least a few fresh masculine bodies.

God bless you that your house is in good shape. Somehow, the blessings may not be there. The heater can break, calling for emergency services. The AC is running, or maybe not running so efficiently. There are small issues with water sinks and faucets. There can be challenges with your car as it is your livelihood. Of course, when urged by your desire to live a brand-new life, a house renovation can be put on the to-do list, right?

See, the list of things to do is long and does not easily stop. Every once in a while at midnight, you revisit that list and put some more there before you surrender to melatonin.

The needs are real and some of them can be secured by service contracts. But some are harder to come by.

Need someone to love you? Need a new life? Need your own time and a steamy night? Well, you know what I am talking about. Those are true mountains to climb over, or maybe you just quietly quit.

Handymen as a metaphor

Maybe it is a nurtured expectation that you hope someone will be there to help you. After all, during the marriage, wouldn't there be someone to fulfill those roles? Now you are on your own, yet that hope remains, not for your ex, but more generally, for some masculine man who can be a chivalrous presence in your life. Well, if that is too much to ask, maybe handymen could be the answer.

The fantasy thoughts about handymen have been embraced by singles and housewives. Remembering the TV series Desperate Housewives, marrying a handyman is what people fight for in a probably even upper-middle class community.

Handymen can mow the lawn, fix the heater and AC, be a wonderful companion and probably offer even more generous gifts. Well, they can be such a big basket that all your dreams and more can be filled into it.

Stop, can they?

You may pay one handyman to de-winterize your sprinkler system, another to install and examine your AC, yet a third to put on a new heater. There are all kinds of handymen that you can pay for. Unfortunately, you can not squeeze all those good things into one. If you are able to do, that is called marriage.

Half of marriages end up with divorces. Guess even marriage can not weld those good things into one person. Marriage is a concealed and imperfect wholesale contract, whereas having handymen is just buying pieces.

The price tags are different. Marriages entail your emotional and economical involvement, to such an extent that you may lose sight of the price tag. People say it is about love. Well, it is and it isn't. You may love your cat while having no other expectations except their companionship. For a husband, you have to put into so much to get the wholesale deal, i.e. to get emotional and economical payoffs. Is it worth it? Could be for some time. But eventually it did not work out, right? Divorce is a good testament to its failure.

For handymen, the price tags are much clearer if you do some research on the market price. You may be scammed, but not on emotional damage. Most of the time, as long as they fix something well, you are happy to pay and let them go. So, the involvement is straightforward and much easier.

You are the decider.

Welcome back to the market where you are not doing the wholesale contracts, at least for some time, but buying pieces of service when needed. The calculation is much easier. It is just cost and benefit analysis. So, do not suck yourself into guilt or shame, and those costs are not covered in the market price.

You can decide what to buy. More importantly, you can learn to buy your own services. Many divorced women learn to mow their own lawn, fix their own computers and land their own jobs. You may still need N-plus handymen as we all do.

But that is OK. We are good at doing small negotiations in those pieces of buying decisions. Also, the door for wholesale contracts remains open and if you dare to try it, wholesale deals are there.

Just remember you have the final say.