129. Fight the Power

After I finished college, I wanted to stick around St. Louis so I got a job hostessing at the Applebee's up the street from my school.  It's still my favorite job I've ever had.  Seventy-five percent of it was standing at the door listening (dancing) to music and smiling at the people who came in.  Totally uncomplicated and mostly very pleasant.  It didn't pay much, but I was having fun, and that was more important than making ends meet (Oh how things change).

What I remember most about that job was what I learned about life working double shifts and closing at 1 a.m.  That was how much of adult life either obliges or obligates us to do exactly what we need to do to fit into society as is.

I have total recall of the moment, late one night, when I found myself standing at the door of the restaurant thinking how nice it would be if there were someone waiting for me at my apartment when I got home.  I had never had that thought before in my life.  But in this moment of tiredness, of over-workedness, of needing some sort of relief from my own life, what I wanted most of all was to fall into another person.  To have another living, breathing, bleeding human being to plug into and recharge myself, like some kind of existential CPR. 

I've had that feeling at other times since then, usually when I'm exhausted from a job or working on something I'd rather not be working on.  What's interesting is that it only comes at times when I'm sort of separated from myself.  When what I want to do and what I have to do are in long-term conflict and that "have to"s are winning day after day.  On the other hand, when I'm doing my own thing, when I'm writing or reading, or just wandering through the world, I can go for days without needing or wanting to hear from a single other soul.  Me in bed with a book at 3 a.m., the only waking thing in my world, is the absolute best of life that I know.

Meanwhile, if I were sentenced to bag groceries eight hours a day for ten years, I estimate that it would increase my likelihood of marrying and having a children by roughly 300%.  Fortunately, I don't see that happening.  But I do have to eat, and because VISA wants its money, I find myself working for pay at things I might not otherwise do, and craving anything but solitude at the end of the day.  Not every day, nor even most days, but often enough to impress upon me that "This is how it happens."

The other half of this equation is the debt I took on getting that degree I enjoyed so much that I wanted to stay in St. Louis when it was done.  I'll never regret the way I handled that... I've profitted too much from my time there.  But it's interesting how much of our productive lives we owe in return for the four years (or more) we spend in school.  I told my grandmother I was going to "retire" at 30.  I've had to push that back a bit, but not by much.  I only have so many "working" years in me.  My actual life is already fighting for the bulk of my attention.  I don't see how I could hold it off for more than a few more years.