I've had the same job for 14 years. I work alone, I hardly have any human interaction, it's part time, all good things. I'm only the third person to have this job. The first guy died from brain cancer. The second guy had a stroke. We're all waiting to see what I get.
I have a boss, someone owns me, I rarely interact with them. They are not the people who hired me and I liked those people much more. My current bosses acquired me when they acquired the property. I stuck around assuming I'd not last long, and I am still here. I'm not fond of the current owners mostly because I don't like them, or how they run things or them.
There is another person on the premises who runs the bulk of the property and the current person is the FOURTH in a year. The first one, after MANY years of lies and neglect, finally got fired. Two more lovely people didn't last, one barely making it a month. They didn't last because the company who owns all this is horrible, the job an impossible task. Each of the dearly departed claim it is minimally a 15-hour/day endeavor. Not for me. I can get my shit done in about three hours. Per week.
The current person who runs the bulk of the property is a middle-aged woman with 16-year-old aesthetic. She is overwhelmed, always. They all were. It's how it's designed. Last week I listened to her cry for about twenty minutes while telling me her story about her drinking husband, his arrest, jail, early release, more drinking, holes punched in the door, property destroyed, more police intervention, and a crappy email she got at work. I listened, said little beyond gestures of empathy, and thought the entire time how grateful I am to be me.
I am a man of many flaws and many regrettable expressions of them. I carry those with me, I am heavy with them. I know my flaws like the back of my hand, and the front and all of my hand; I KNOW my flaws. Then I forget then I do them again then I regret then I forget and now I'm 61years old still going round and round. But now I don't hang out with people so it's pretty well managed.
I've never been smart enough to live outside - the "system." There's the classic line in the movie, "The Wild One" with Marlon Brando.
"Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?"
"Whatddya got?"
Who, adolescent or below, didn't want to be the anti-hero? Well, probably a lot of people, the ones who went on to be CEOs or conspiracy theorists or Fox News people. But I did, every pre-teen kid who tried cigarettes did, the idealists and artists, the seers, the people who stand up, the changemakers, the bored, and more. Glued to the outsider books and movies, learning how-to.
I wanted all my life to not care, but I cared. I never belonged and always felt the pang of that, versus being grateful even though being grateful for it was the goal. I couldn't let go. I needed too much: love? Approval? Acceptance? Validation? All the things I wasn't supposed to need to be a proper rebel.
I always knew I failed at achieving my ideal - until this moment, during this person's melt down. I realized I'd crossed a line I never thought I could, would, despite the eternal desire to do so. I wasn't THIS, that, her, at all: inside this MESS we opt to fill time, whatever mess we opt.
I was walking home from work one night last summer and I thought, nice night for a bike ride. I'd come to ride very little anymore, errands, and I was noticing my decline in even those. This sudden compulsion came from nowhere and I went out for a ride. And then something I didn't expect: I kept it up. I kept it up the entire winter when there were no nice nights anymore, just really cold and miserable ones. Twice a week. I'm up to about 25 miles per ride. Beyond the physical benefit of all this, something else happened. I shifted to outside, I think. Quietly, unbeknownst, even to myself. Until listening to my crying co-worker occupy wasted space.
I ride late. There is still traffic, but little. Most likely inebriated and that is how the third employee here will go. But mostly it's quiet. Like, deeply satisfyingly quiet. For miles. All I hear is the chainring. In the dark, in the night, in the quiet, the subtle machination of my own effort. I ride down unoccupied roads, wide streets, warmly lit houses, industrial deserts, stretches of overflowing bars, strips of closed mom-and-pops, groups of people laughing, live music, empty spaces, forgotten routes, roads no one cares about because there is nothing there, the very nothing that is everything. I ride and I ride.
There is an absolute stunningness to nothingness. I crave it and I am enamored by it and in awe of it when I am in it. It's the only time I am still, psychically. I ride through it in wonder, in reverence, in love, it is pure existence. We've piled it with so much noise, so many layers and variations of it. Like we can't just listen to the air and marvel with satisfaction at that.
