I knew this day was coming for a long time, dear reader. You see, as I’ve gone from part-time at a school to pumping boat toilets to bagging bread at 2 a.m. back to schools then to offices and back to schools again, I’ve gotten to see what life is like for America’s vast and wildly different working class. I’ve struggled, I’ve gone hungry, I’ve worked 16-hour days and turned in seven W-2s at tax time. I’ve done exactly what my momma and my teachers told me I should: work hard, study, keep your nose clean, be yourself, and stand up for what you believe in, and the most it ever got me was $35,000 one year… and that felt like paradise.
I’m saying all of this because I need to admit that I was wrong about a lot of things. I was wrong about meritocracy paying off: turns out you can work yourself half to death, do everything right and the best reward you get is the opportunity to work harder. The worst is being shown the door. I was wrong about my conceptions of folks who have fallen on hard times, often through no fault of their own, because once I realized we were down there together I realized how absolutely broken our world is when it comes to helping billionaires instead of working poor.
Turns out that most of the kingmakers really only care about keeping their own cushy jobs, and will try to destroy anyone saying that folks like you and me deserve a better life. Stepping back to look at it now, it makes an awful lot of sense: when your guiding idea is that you need to do whatever it takes to get away from the blue collars and the waitresses and the jobs that used to be good, strong, union jobs… anyone coming along saying that those folks actually aren’t just dumb failures and in fact should be treated the same as some beltway hotshot is saying everything you worked for, every throat you cut and back you stabbed to get here, wasn’t the right way to live your life.
I came close to falling down that hole. A few more turns of the screw, a few more better paying jobs, I may have completely transformed into one of those insufferably smug types that always seem to live up on a hill, but instead I bagged bread with some of the best folks it was ever my pleasure to work with. We came from all walks of life and all points of the compass when it came to every idea under the sun… but we all worked together because in that hot basement bakery all of the pointless personality flair we carefully select and pin to our shirts has to go, because there’s work to do and we’ve all got to do this together.
Besides, you can’t have pins or buttons in a bakery. Health and safety hazard.
I am so, so happy every time I look in the mirror and remember that I didn’t go down that path. I’m happy I don’t have much money. I’m happy I’m in debt. Because at the end of the day I know my friends are here for me and my family loves me and I know not a single one of those emotions are driven by anything other than honesty. I don’t have to lie, and I don’t have to pretend. Sure, telling the truth and standing up to the powers that be has burned me more than once, but I’d rather get burned and come back as stronger steel than live my life weak and afraid of who I really am. Am I perfect? Is my life perfect? Heck no, but I can stand here and say I love every single one of you reading this, even the ones that leave the nasty comments, and I’m not about to stop anytime soon. It turns out, when you let go of all of that stuff we’re told we’re supposed to care about, you’re left with what really does matter.
Come joins us down here. We don’t have BMWs, but we have each other.
Leave a Reply