Being a single dad wasn’t the plan.
But plans don’t matter when life decides to bulldoze your timeline.
You don’t get a vote. You get responsibilities.
I worked two jobs to keep a cramped apartment that always smelled like someone else’s dinner.
I scrubbed. I mopped. I opened the windows like fresh air could negotiate with the walls.
It never won.
By day, I rode a garbage truck and climbed into muddy holes with the city sanitation crew.
Broken mains. Overflowing dumpsters. Burst pipes. Everything messy, everything urgent.
At night, I cleaned quiet downtown offices that smelled like lemon cleaner and other people’s success.
I pushed a broom while empty monitors bounced screensavers like they had all the time in the world.
