12/29/78

Chris Joseph

source: nj.com

Today is my birthday.
I am forty-two years old.

At five, I wanted to work,

to have security and self-reliance.

At eleven, I worked my first paying job

folding pizza boxes for $2.00 per hour and all the pizza and soda I could consume.

at sixteen I got my first paycheck. From McDonalds.

I could walk there from my house, or ride my bike if I was running late.

At eighteen I got a girl in a different state pregnant, graduated high school,

got married, moved, got a temp job in a vegetarian meat factory.

At twenty, went to work lifting boxes and driving a forklift.

Before I could drink, we bought our first house and a dog and had another baby on the way.

I wanted more for us than constant hardscrabble—more than WIC, more than reserving the fresh fruit for the kids.

I took weekend tech support classes since there was an opening and it paid.

Before the classes ended, I parlayed my drive into a salary…the lowest legal salary at the time. Anything less and they’d have to put me back at hourly rates to stay above minimum wage.

Six years.

A whirlwind.

From one circus to the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, six months in DC away from my family, but I made a new friend in Firat.

Then the Steel Tool factory where I had an enemy I didn’t cultivate.

a full year there and then Municipal Insurance software support.

Three drudgy years, but the commute was a walk downtown and I made a new friend in Weird Dan.

Fired. First time ever. They said my job was off to San Antonio without me.

Off to corporate in Woonsocket. Again away from family, but sound paycheck.

Another year there before software consulting. I was hired as a software analyst. I did the job well and the pay was good and I got to see the country. They took good care of us all…but seven years…seven years of the same same same same same same same.

Enough.

Brattleboro, Vermont, and a promised goal of solving homelessness first in Boston, then the world. Three months. All it took to see these were promises and goals and no path to achievement.

Forty-One Years Old. March 2020.

The oldest son has moved out. The youngest is away at college.

We go on vacation. Planned four weeks on a pirate island in the sun. We leave the day COVID becomes a global crisis.

We spend three weeks secluded in paradise, but life pulls and we head home.

Back to work again at consulting…no more travel, no more office, working from home.

It is 12/29/2020.

Today is my birthday.
I am forty-two years old.

I desire.

So much more.

Chris Joseph writes to avoid his work, which is writing. Chris is published in Daily Drunk Mag and is a regular letter writer. @cujocon