I came back from a business trip a little under two weeks ago. The trip was incredibly difficult and draining for me. I missed my pugs. I missed my own bed. I wanted nothing more than to come home and have some awesome pug snuggles.

I got home and discovered my basement had leaked at some point while I was gone. There is a pool of standing water in one quadrant of the basement. I do not know where it originated. I believe, based on my forensic CSI skills that it came through a window in the corner of the basement, but I don’t know for sure.

My ex-husband helpfully boxed up most of my books in cardboard boxes that were helpfully soaking up a bunch of nasty contaminated water that was sitting in the basement.

I could not deal with it. I am still trying to deal with it.

I speak on here a bit about having depression. Having depression usually means that I either can’t deal with anything or I can deal with one thing at a time. I work from home. I need to keep my job. For the last few weeks, the only thing I have really been able to deal with is doing the things necessary to keep my job.

My basement is unfinished, so I believe if I throw away all of the wet and damp books and cardboard in the basement that there will be no long term damage to the house.

I am aware of the fact that this is a health hazard. I filled my garage can last week and didn’t have room for all of the rest of the stuff that is contaminating my basement. I know there was probably someone or something I could do to get that taken care of without me having to do it myself, but I can’t deal with that right now because all I can deal with is keeping my job.

I went on Twitter to commiserate about how sucky it was to come home to find a problem I had to deal with and I got a lot of finger wagging from people who seem to be under the impression that I am an idiot.

“You know that’s a health hazard, right?”

“Why don’t you have a sump pump?”

“Why do you live in a house? You should relocate to San Fransisco.”

People telling me these things makes me feel like a helpful neighbor telling me my garage is on fire and I should really do something about it while I am also trying to deal with my house being on fire. I am not stupid. I am fully aware of the fact that this is a problem. I know that I need to get that water out of my basement and throw away all the ruined things down there. I just can’t deal with it right now.