My new air conditioner: A story of mental illness
As I write this it is 96 degrees outside. The hottest day of the year so far and the start of a weekend-long heat wave. It’s expected to go over 100. It sucks. I hate hot weather.
But I am cozy under a blankie in my 73 degree living room! Because this year I was prepared! We installed our shiny new air conditioner last Sunday replacing the 8 year old death-rattle machine, and have been living in an icy cold paradise ever since!
The actual weather
Indoor temperature!
Magic box of cold!
Here’s the crazy part: I bought the new AC in April. 2023. 15 months ago! It was delivered, I brought it inside, dropped in in the corner of the living room, and let it sit. At first it was unnecessary - it was still spring, I could wait a month. And then it was inticing - it called to me every day, like “you want to install me! You know you do!” but it was a two-person job and required Josh and I both awake and feeling ambitious and productive at the same time. As summer went on and the old machine’s death-rattle got louder, it taunted me- laughing at me and my executive dysfunction from the corner where it still sat. Over time it got covered with laundry baskets and yoga bricks and other pieces of randomness I couldn’t find a better place for. By fall it was furniture. By winter it was part of the living room’s landscape. It was still within view, right next to the tv. I could see it. But I didn’t see it anymore. It just blended in with the rest of the furniture and clutter and dog hair.
It started taunting me again in late May. Shorts weather was creeping in. My little house was turning into an oven. I knew the new AC was there, waiting to be installed, but thoughts of doom started to creep in. What if it doesn’t work? What if there’s some manufacturer’s defect I should have caught a year ago when I was still within my return window? What if I’ve unknowingly been storing it upsidown the whole time and all the coolant has leaked out? What if a family of squirrels has moved into the box? It was Schrödinger's air conditioner and I was better off not knowing. I turned the old AC back on and turned up the tv volume to drown out the death rattle and accepted my fate.
The new AC had become a symbol of my own crazy. My hyperfocus, when I spent months last winter researching the best possible air conditioning for my situation. The credit card debt I incurred because money is a tomorrow problem and tomorrow isn’t real. The executive dysfunction that kicked in because there were so many steps to installing it that I couldn’t do any of them. The transition from new shiny object to immovable doompile. It was a year and a half long story of everything wrong with my brain.
And then Josh, hero that he is, swooped in and saved the day! He has the amazing ability to decide to do something and then just do it! He decided last weekend that the we were swapping out the ACs. I woke up Sunday morning and the old one had already been removed! And together we installed the new one! And then our whole world became infinitely better!
There’s no lesson here. I mean, there is. Procrastination is bad. Air conditioning is good. Climate change is slowly killing us all. But mostly this is just me feeling very stupid for turning such a small task into such a big, long, giant, expensive, potential disaster of a problem. Because I can’t control my own stupid brain.
But at least I can control my weather! This magic box of cold has been keeping my house in the pleasant low 70s all week and I love it!!!
Midea U-Shaped Smart Inverter Window Air Conditioner. Highly recommended! (Affiliate link)
Also recommended: therapy. Maybe. I’ll save that problem for future me.
I was so enamored by the magic box of cold that I sketched it and posted it to Instagram as my drawing of the day!
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