My lawyer was supposed to meet with the tax authorities on Thursday. He didn’t. “Soon,” he told me. When you owe $170,000 to the government, “soon” is a word that eats you alive.
At work, I spent the week improving a Telegram mini app my boss asked me to build. It works. But will it be useful? I don’t know. For months, I’ve been developing projects for him — one after another — and they end up in a drawer. The latest one, a real estate tokenization project, took me weeks. It’s ready. It’s waiting. All he needs to do is set up the company to launch it. But he doesn’t.
I know what it feels like to work in a vacuum. When you’re in debt, every hour has a price. Every effort that leads nowhere is an hour you didn’t spend paying back, building, moving forward. And that frustration — you can’t share it with anyone at the office.
So you go home.
My wife knows. About most of the debts, at least. But we don’t talk about it. It’s an unspoken agreement. The subject is there, between us, like a piece of furniture we walk around in silence. She had to go back to work. She doesn’t complain. Neither do I.
My four kids — ages 13 to 20 — can tell something has changed. We don’t go on vacation anymore. Dad works all the time. Evenings, weekends. They don’t ask questions, but they understand. The oldest especially. At 20, you start looking at your parents not as heroes, but as men. And I’m not sure I like what he sees.
The hardest part isn’t owing money. It’s the silence around the table. It’s being there, physically, but absent in your head — calculating, planning, searching for the next solution. My kids don’t deserve a half-present father. My wife doesn’t deserve a husband who carries this alone.
But that’s how I’m wired. I protect by staying quiet. Even though silence, sometimes, does more damage than the truth.
What today taught me: Waiting is the invisible enemy of the indebted. The lawyer who postpones, the boss who hesitates, the projects that stall — when you owe money, every day without progress is another day underwater. And all the while, your family is waiting for you too. Learn to say what needs to be said. Not for pity. So they don’t lose you.
Day 4.