cuts

Today I finally landed a job. I got a pizza-delivery gig at a pizzeria about five minutes from home. It is NOT the fantasy role-playing game shop/pizza place where I interviewed a few days ago. In fact, on Monday I was offered a delivery position there but turned it down. I declined it for many of the reasons I stated previously, and aside from the manager being a tight ass, the atmosphere there seemed foul and somber, so I, taking a chance, declined the job. Luckily, this morning’s job interview/job offer happened. Before that occurred though, I had an interview at a temp agency. Ugh. Over the past few weeks I’ve learned one thing about the lower end of the job market: avoid spending any time at a location where the unemployed gather. It’s depressing. While waiting for my interview, I saw a haggard-looking man in his fifties ask for work. “What are you looking for, sir?” asked the attractive young woman behind the desk. “Meat cutter. I’m a meat cutter,” he replied, his voice stained by a million cigarettes. The woman tapped her keyboard and searched a job database, I assume. Finding nothing she offered the man an application and said, “If anything comes up we’ll give you a call.” “Nothing’s gonna come up,” he said with a dry chuckle. “I’ve been looking for work for eight months. I’m a meat cutter. That’s what I do. Nothing’s gonna come up.” He left, and soon a woman who appeared to be approaching sixty years replaced him. The agency didn’t have anything for her either. Then she left, and I wondered what happens to those people. The people who, like me, live paycheck to paycheck, but, unlike me, these people are fifty, fifty-five, even sixty years of age – how long have they been struggling? And how long will that struggle continue? What about their children? Their grandchildren? How will America color their struggles?

I’m sitting here drinking a Triple Sec Sunrise. I feel like shit. And I shouldn’t. Today was a good day. But I’m tired of the struggle. I feel as though I’ve struggled my entire life. I feel as though this labor will only continue. It won’t – at least it shouldn’t, because in seventeen months my name will be suffixed with “RN.” But fuck, those seventeen months seem a light year away, and, knowing my life, a setback will deal me a crushing blow, and then I’ll devise the grand exit I’ve morbidly fantasized about for years. Hell, why wait? Let’s do it now! Chop-chop! Bang-bang! But no, that’s just the goddamn melodramatics typing! But why? Why does this struggle feel like a permanent fixture around my neck? I lack confidence. I feel so goddamn incapable of accomplishing practically anything. As a child, I don’t recall receiving much encouragement from my parents. I’m not condemning them; I’m simply making an observation. I don’t recall getting the you-can-do-anything-if-you-just-set-your-mind-to-it speech. Shouldn’t parents encourage their children to—Fuck it. I’m not going down that path. Again, I’m not blaming my parents for anything, I’m my own man and yada yada, but I really wish I had more confidence in, well, everything. And this lack of confidence is going to be a huge hurdle to clear when I begin my course work in five weeks. I have absolutely no faith in my abilities to become a successful nurse. I don’t. I’ve heard “you’re going to make a great nurse” from a number of people – some friends, some acquaintances, others strangers. Does an ounce of integrity reside behind those wishes? I don’t know. I feel as though there is an immense rift between the face I present to literally everyone and the person I really am. I feel as if that gap will eventually eat itself and the inevitable collapse of me will reign in its aftermath.

That’s all I’ve got for tonight.

xx