I’m sorry, y’all. Been really struggling.
Guess it’s been almost a week since I’ve written.
I’ve continued my schedule adjusting, working 5 days a week now and more reasonable hours on the days that I’m working. Unfortunately, it has continued to be too little, too late, it appears. It doesn’t seem to matter how much time I take off. It’s a bit of a dramatic example, but I had someone yesterday express a bit of how I’m feeling in a way that I felt really captured the sentiment.
The vacation time and rest that I’m taking doesn’t feel like vacation or rest: It just feels like a stay of execution.
I’ve never been able to really rest from things that are pressing on me. In my mind, all that is happening is that I’m delaying resolving this thing that needs to be resolved, whatever it is. And that actually adds stress.
I wish I could turn off that part of me that’s like that, but I have and been successful. And with all of the things that I’m struggling with right now feeling like they have temporal deadlines, in a sense, every passing day compounds the struggle.
I keep feeling like I’m right on the edge of of making progress in these areas that have been the most challenging for me, but then… no. No progress.
Some days over the last couple weeks, it’s taken everything that I have to just go out and work.
I’m so lucky to have a good job.
So lucky to make a decent living.
I just am so… done.
Lucky, spoiled, first-world problems, but my mental health is in the toilet right now.
Summarizing the last week a little bit, on the 22nd, I did four cars. The 2006 Pontiac vibe that was a no-start I had worked on a few days prior, and for which I had tested the starter but it tested good, finally had the starter finished crapping out. So I replaced the starter in that one.
After that, I went to a 2011 Nissan Altima that was leaking coolant. Turned out that it needed a radiator, so I went ahead and replaced the radiator. He also had a power steering leak, but we set that up for another day.
Following the Altamonte was a 2015 Ford focus that was overheating. Turns out that it was an issue with a cracked main fuse that was sometimes connecting and allowing power to go through and sometimes not.
As simple as it sounds, that wasn’t the easiest to figure out.
Ford has had issues with those style of fuses getting little cracks in them but not blowing like normal fuses do.
The last car was down in Fayetteville and was a 2014 Mazda 3. The same car I had worked on last week and put a belt in. This time, it was acting really strangely, and I pulled off the battery cover, and the battery was so incredibly nasty that I figured that was probably the issue. I had to replace two of the battery cables because the corrosion was so bad that it couldn’t just be cleaned off.
Seemed to run fine after that, and I called it a day.
Friday the 23rd was another three cars. I went to a 2011 Nissan Sentra that was an intermittent no start, and after trying for probably 20 minutes to get it to not start and being just about to give up, as I was teaching her how to bypass some things if she got stranded again, the starter stopped working.
Perfect timing for her.
So I ordered the starter and scheduled the appointment to fix it for the following Monday.
After that, I had an emergency call from somebody at AutoZone with their Mercedes sprinter stuck in the parking lot. They were trying to get there battery out of the battery tray because they thought their battery was not good. I asked them, when I got there, if they had tested the battery, and they said they had read the voltage but they hadn’t tested the alternator. So I tested the alternator, and it turned out that the issue was actually with the alternator. All that they had asked help with was getting the battery out of the battery tray because the bolts that hold the battery in the tray were stripped out, and because of the way Mercedes designed their battery tray, if those bolts strip out, you have to actually drill into the battery tray itself and drill through the metal from the bottom of the vehicle to be able to even get the battery out.
So I spent a good long time working at getting the battery out, and I was going to change the alternator for them but they didn’t have one in stock, so I explained to him how to replace his alternator, and he went ahead and put in a new battery so he could at least drive it far enough to get where he needed to go.
He texted me later and let me know that he had successfully been able to change the alternator and thing to me for my assistance.
After that one, I went back to the 2011 Altima that I had done the radiator on and then spent the next several hours fighting tooth and nail to change the power steering pressure line.
Big big big pain in the butt.
But I got it done, with a full quarter jar if I even had one that I put a quarter in every time I let an expletive fly. 😅
Saturday and Sunday I took off.
🥳
I had big plans for the things I was going to accomplish, but I was exhausted and emotionally still struggling, so the only useful things that I did were cleaning up the garage a little bit more and fighting with my mom’s Nissan Juke to get the starter out.
It was a nightmare’s nightmare.
Getting to the starter wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I had to pull the front bumper off, all four headlight assemblies, the radiator fan assembly, and part of the radiator support, but I was able to get all of those things out without having to drain the coolant, which is what most people have to do. So it was nice and I’ll have to drain the coolant. Save some money for my mom there.
But even after I had cleared everything out of the way, and the starter was right there, It took another probably hour and a half just to get the starter out of its hole.
It was maddening.
I think I filled up two figurative expletive jars. 😅
By the time I got that done, I was completely spent. Emotionally, I was done, so I just veged the rest of the day.
When Sunday came around, I had enough energy to put the car back together, and gratefully, it started and seems to be working okay. 🤞
Now that I know what I’m doing with that car, it wouldn’t be an awful issue to have to take the starter out again. Still a pain in the butt, but the biggest challenges that I had with it are now known quantities that I know exactly how to do that I didn’t know how to do before. Namely, Nissan packaged the wiring harness in such a way that it covered up one of the main starter bolts, and they had the wiring in case in plastics such that you couldn’t see how to disconnect the wiring harness from the starter itself.
So most of the reason it took an hour and a half to get the starter out of the car after finally getting to the point where I could see the starter was because I was trying to figure out a way of disconnecting all the wiring from the starter without breaking it when I had to do everything by braille because you couldn’t see where anything was attached, you could only feel it.
Crazy ridiculous design.
Just say no to Nissans.
I’ve edged the rest of the day after that, being completely unproductive.
By the time Monday rolled around, I was dreading going back to work. The weekend had done nothing to rejuvenate me, probably partly because I spent half the weekend fixing my mom’s car, but still, I just love the thought of walking out the house and having to go out and fix cars.
If I had a goal that I was working toward that I could hold on to but I felt like was meaningful, it probably wouldn’t be as bad. Then I would have feel like I had purpose. But I’ve lost my sense of purpose. I’ve lost my goals. So I’m aimlessly working for no reason other than… I have a job and have created a successful business and don’t want to throw it away for nothing without having anything to replace it with.
Anyway, Monday was four cars. Yesterday. The first one was a 2004 Acura TL that he said was making an awful grinding sound when driving down the road and breaking. Turned out to have issues with the rear caliper and pads, so I swapped out the rear brake pads and the rear driver side caliper. The sound went away, though I’m not 100% positive if there wasn’t something else going on, but I checked everything that I could, and nothing else seemed to be of issue.
I had been concerned that there might be an issue with the parking brake set up, and it was a pain in the butt to get to because I had to drill out the retainer bolts that hold the rotor on, unnecessary bolts that are put on at the factory just to hold the rotor in place while everything else is assembled on the assembly line. I always take them off because of exactly what happened today. They’re not necessary, and when they rest on, you end up having to drill them out.
Waste of time, energy, and more expense for the poor customers.
After the Acura, I went to a 2013 Toyota Camry that needed a blower motor installed. Fortunately, that was super easy, and I was able to have that done in about 20 minutes.
The 2011 Nissan Sentra that needed a starter was the next one. Even though the starter wasn’t exactly the same place as the Nissan Juke and was exactly the same design of starter, because they had actually engineered that car a little bit better, it took all of 20 minutes to remove the starter.
I didn’t have to remove a bunch of crazy things. Literally, I disconnected the battery, took off two nuts, undid two bolts, pulled the starter out, put the next one in, put everything in and tighten it down, and I was done.
20 minutes versus the many hours that I spent on that crazy Nissan Juke.
The last car of the day was a 2005 Toyota Corolla that needed brakes as well. He had just barely started to grind to the brakes, so there was just the tiniest little strip of ground rotor, so I recommended That he just replaced the brake pads. They were also wearing unevenly, and they could have replaced the caliper or something for him, but it was an older car, and I told him the options, and recommended that he just pad slap it and see what happens instead of spending all the extra money to try and fix the wearing problem.
He agreed, not wanting to spend much money on it, so I finished that up and headed out.
I headed over to a 2009 BMW 535i that was for sale. But I was second in line. I was the first to get there, but he had promised someone else that they would get first dibs, so I waited there and was ready to buy it if the other guy didn’t want it. The other guy got there, decided he wanted it, but tried to talk the owner down. I figured it that point, the car would be mine because I had already offered to give him full price, but I think he felt like he had some kind of responsibility to the first guy to sell it to him since he had promised him first did, even though he wasn’t going to get the full price out of it.
That was really frustrating. I didn’t understand why he felt like he still had an obligation to the first guy if the first guy wasn’t willing to give him what he was asking.
I had even offered to give him more than he was asking for it because he was selling the car for a crazy cheap price.
Anyway, that was super frustrating. I would have been disappointed only had the guy simply decided he wanted it and paid full price, but to watch the guy bargain down in front of me and then to have the owner be okay with bargaining down, I just… Didn’t understand and was pretty frustrated, though I didn’t say that to the owner of the car.
I simply left.
Kudos to the guy for having integrity and letting the first guy have first dibs, but first dibs… Shouldn’t mean that they get it if they want it even if they’re not willing to pay full price. Once you’re not willing to pay full price, then All bets are off, no?
Anyway… That’s actually the exact car that I’ve been wanting as my personal car for A little while now. So I was super cool to see one come up at such a great price, but really crappy to lose it. Being the first one there, but having a not be first come first serve, and then having that wacky sense of obligation on the part of the owner cause me to lose out.
Oh well…
So that’s been the week.
I’ve been tired. Worn out. Burned out. But still going. Trying to figure out how to get out of this rut.
And watching what’s happening in the world right now politically and socially is just… discouraging. So that hasn’t helped at all.
(sigh)
Love to all.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 