I am sitting in my apartment on an air mattress. The family is down from North Carolina - my sister in my bed and my mother curled on the sofa. I am in a room entitled "the cats room" because I adopted a friends cat and the "all-purpose room" is now his. The holidays went just fine. I worked most of it and went it car-less. I let my car overheat attempting to make a drug test for a temp job I had that went permanent with conditions. My car began to drag and putter so I parked it until I a. had the time to fix it b. had the right person to fix it and c. had the money to pay the right person to fix it as quickly as possible. After working Christmas Eve and being irritated with having to take care of so much I called out. I hadn't called out in my 90 days probationary period, many others had. I had pulled the weight of their repeated absences so I took my own. The reality is I was exhausted. I had made Christmas perfect by walking and carrying everything but the Christmas tree on my own two feet. My back wasn't happy with me. My feet ached. I was physically tired of being there. I had been doing everything to keep a job I absolutely hated and slowly losing my sanity, dignity and everything in-between. Everyone could tell how draining it all was especially my mother. So I figured let me take a day, sleep-in and get my car in for repairs. I took a muscle relaxer, woke at 7:30am versus 5:00am and text the powers that be.
I got a call back an hour later saying I was fired.
My boss was out of town so there was no explanation. I was just canceled out approximately two days from getting Warby Parker glasses for free.99. You could cut the devastation with a dull knife. I'd merely called out for having an aching air mattress induced back and the dire need to get my car into the shop. I wound up frantically applying for jobs from the said back killer and convincing my mother that I would simply sell my car. Whatever artificial joy we had mustered from xmas was officially ruined that day. My sister was baffled by the phone exchange. My mother in panic mode about how I was going to pay the rent. We piled into the van later that day to get my stuff. The contents of my desk, the bulletin board, the office and break room refrigerator all in one copy paper box. The wall art they forced me to buy was leaned on its side. All telling it was a cheap screen print of a compass in pastel, hipster colors. There were plenty of days I looked up at it trying to figure out what direction I was going in.
So on the first of the year, again - I am jobless. And for the first time ever it is fine.
I am imagining all the things and possibilities. I am giddy for so many unrealistic things like freedom. Last year with expenses paid and money in the bank I was more scared than I am now. Frankly, I have no idea what to expect from this particular year. The year prior I had no goals, some of the highest hopes and a shitton of distractions. Now the slate is completely clean. The same people I came into the year with are not here. The relationships and institutions I used to admire - revealed to be farce and fallen. I drank whiskey with these people and I could have saved the pours. Eerily similar to leaving in 2013 it was and still is the people I least expected to be there with me at my most defining moments. 2016 will be a new frontier. I feel prepared for it. I just need to gather my own set of troops to do same. For now. Right now. No one has won the Powerball so I am saving my car for that. Someone offered me buddy passes (more on that and this later) and I am not choosy so I'll go damn near anywhere but here. My mother is ready to leave the frozen tundra of N.C. and is prepared to get a passport before Trump forces us all into slavery. I am determined to do as I sat out to do on my now unpaid four day weekend. I am going to try to do something I realized way too late in life is ultimately my calling. It took a year of struggle, strife, joy and elation to figure it out. I knew age 4 but I needed another thirty years to be sure. Thanks 2015 for making me sure.
We come full circle...
No comments:
Post a Comment