On the Eve of My 45th Birthday

Lately a lot of old friends I haven't seen for awhile have asked how I am doing.

It's a natural conversational standard in our culture. One that's usually just glossed over with as little true sincerity as its inquiry.

I've decided to answer honestly.

Not good.

First, somehow, miraculously, I've managed to avoid, escape, and cheat death for 45 years. I've had some close calls--we all have--and now I'm at an age that was biologically unnatural for my caveman ancestors, and one where other predecessors might have set me adrift on an ice floe.

Here's the kicker: no known male ancestor of mine has lived past eighty-eight.

From that perspective, forty-four wasn't so bad. It was a measurable halfway point, but now I'm definitely on the downward slide.

This leads into my second item of concern. Blame it on the recession, if you will, but some days I don't even feel like I'll make it to fifty.

After my wife's employer failed us, cutting her hours from full to part time, then doubling her health costs because "she was part time now", and my former employer's failures led to only cuts in hours when I needed to finally go full time, I accepted a grunt work position in a large grocery chain in Longmont, Colorado, where I am constantly devalued both as a person and an employee.

"Survival job" is the polite term being bandied about in the media, but I prefer the more accurate term "recession job", or even more optimistically, "transitional job".

Coming from a position where you had to actually have some knowledge and use your brain into such a hand-blackening, back-unfriendly one, surrounded by the least intelligent and capable group of my entire life has been consistently more demoralizing every day.

Even though the pay was bad at Borders, at least they were willing to offer me a civilized schedule, and allow time off for family concerns.

The middle schedule that I now work, with days off that can be usurped at any time by the stoner kid with more seniority, makes me feel like I hardly ever see my family, and short 45-year-olds were physically not meant to do stocking.

I seem to remember working my way through college so I wouldn't have to work jobs like this.

It wasn't that long ago you could just quit and find another job that was somewhat better, but not currently.

Growing up in California, you could work when you were 16, with a work permit. I started working one week after my sixteenth birthday, so next Friday marks my 29th year anniversary as a productive citizen.

Oh, boy.

In 29 years, I've been unemployed for a total of six weeks. In today's climate that's an amazing streak, and one that can be easily broken.

I know this sounds melancholy (or as they say now, "emo") but realistically, I'm tired.

I have friends who have lost, or are losing their homes, or been out of work for almost a year, and so far I've been able to hold off those outcomes.

But damn it, I'm tired. I'm tired of bosses who's sole attribute is longevity due to age and lack of any other ambitions, tired of weekly back, neck, and other pain, tired of being under appreciated, devalued, and demeaned. I did what I was supposed to: worked hard, went to school, was, and am, a much better father than mine and my father's father.

Virtue is damned in a world where everyone wants to be like Walmart.

I've never considered myself an optimist, but I'm actually amazed how optimistic, or at least hopeful, I am in my belief that eventually things will get better.

The ball has to bounce upward at some point. And the sooner, the better.

I'm sure we're all in agreement on that.

Well, if you read this far, thank you for letting a middle-aged man ramble.

I think I'm going to have a couple beers and wallow in the dark with some Otis Redding.

I hope we will all be in better places next year.

45 is only good as a bra size or a pistol,

Larry