I’ve eaten far too much of it.

This is non-fiction, by the way.  Just me talking about my life.  And eating candy.  There’s really not much else for me to say…I’ve been working, and the job is going alright.  Not the most excting thing, but it’s not bad, and I get paid.  I’ve been going down to Bakersfield roughly every other weekend.  I’ve been crocheting a blanket.  I’ve been writing.  And…that’s my life.  Not much terribly exciting.  But it’s not bad, really.

Hopefully sometime soonish I’ll find a full time job and be able to move out.  Until then…well, it’s actually really exciting to be able to save money.  I start paying off my student loans next month.  Then I won’t be able to save so much…but still a little.  And I’ll will be actually diminishing the amount of debt I have, which is exciting in and of itself.

Anyway.  I guess I don’t have much else to say.  This is a really boring post.  My apologies.  It’ll be better next time.  I promise.

Thus, Sarah and Joel lived quite happily together in her room for some time.  He would sneak food from the kitchen, and she would sneak food for him, and he would tell her stories of his own childhood as a young monster, and he seemed content.  Sarah had offered to take him to school with her, but he had declined, saying that it would get terribly stuffy in her backpack, and should someone discover him…

“But why did you come out of the closet at all, if you just want to hide away from people?”

Joel gave her a sly look.  “I needed a breath of air.  It gets stuffy in closets as well, you know.”  But he wouldn’t say anything else about it.

It was about a week after Joel had made his first appearance to Sarah that stranger things began happening.  (You see, to Sarah, living with a monster in her room had become quite normal).  If you can think back to the day that Sarah first met Joel, I mentioned that Sarah had detention that day in school, for hitting a boy named Tyler.  Tyler was, in fact, Sarah’s cousin, and generally a very nasty little boy.  He had become very good and figuring out exactly what to do that would drive you absolutely mad, and he would do it just enough to push you over the edge.  As a result, Sarah, who sometimes had trouble keeping her temper subdued, had detention quite a lot.

In any case, being cousins, they saw each other quite a bit.  On this particular evening, Tyler and his parents had come over for dinner.  Tyler’s parents, Sarah’s Aunt Ruth and Uncle Paul, were nice enough people, but had far too much money than was good for them.  The two were rather ruthless business people, and had few qualms about shortchanging their clients, but spared no expense when it came to their son.  The best toys, the best clothes, the best vacation, the best tutors.  When the school called, wanting to speak about how terribly Tyler was treating his classmates, his parents would hear none of it.  “There must be some mistake!” Aunt Ruth exclaimed, horror-struck, and “How dare you suggest that my son would do such a thing!” Uncle Paul fumed to the telephone.   In fact, they were planning on moving Tyler to a private school the next year, where hopefully the other students would not be so heartless to their poor Tyler, and would not make up such horrible lies to get him into trouble.

Tyler himself, simply put, was a bully.  His parents had spoiled him with anything and everything he had wanted growing up, which included food.  He was not overly fat, exactly, but he was quite large both in height and girth for his age.  He had a mess of brown hair, which at least started out the day neatly combed by his mother (but it never seemed to stay, much to the dismay of his mother), brown eyes, and a smile which could be sweet or menacing, depending on what Tyler was up to.  He was smart, though; not a big stupid kid picking on others because he had nothing better to do.  Tyler saw and understood more than most children his age, which made him a particularly dangerous.

Dinner was as most dinners are with a table full of grown-ups – you eat your food while they talk about horribly boring things.  And of course, you can’t go right when you finish, because they aren’t nearly done with your food, and they want to ask you all about school, and art class, and swimming lessons, and whatever else you might be doing.  And as grown up as Sarah was, she could not stand grown-up table talk.

So of course she got out of there as soon as she could.  Tyler followed her to her room, and Sarah turned around with her arms crossed over her chest.

“What?” he said, with a hint of a smile.

“I didn’t say you could come in my room.”

“You gonna make me leave?”

Sarah stared at him, seething.  He was bigger than she was.  A lot bigger.  (Or so it seemed to her).  She couldn’t make him do anything.

Just then there was a noise from the closet.  A sort of crash, like something falling off a shelf.  Sarah turned, her body tense, toward the closet.  Tyler’s eyes darted from the closet to Sarah and back, and a menacing smile stretched itself across his face.  “What’ve you got in there?” he asked.

“Tyler don’t – I’ll show you where the computer is, come on – ” Sarah grabbed his arm and tried to lead him out of the room.  But this was too much for Tyler: he knew there was something in the closet that Sarah didn’t want him to see.  Oh, what fun he could have if he could just find the thing she was hiding…

Tyler took a step toward the closet, and Sarah took in a breath, preparing herself to lunge toward him and pull him back.  But she never had the chance.  Just then the closet door opened of its own accord, not slowly and purposefully, as it had when Joel had first revealed himself to Sarah, but all the way at once, with a bang and a crash, and there stood before them something that neither of them had expected.

It was a man.

He was tall – very tall.  He wore a long, deep purple coat which would have looked ridiculous except that the man looked too terrifying for anything about him to be ridiculous.  He had wild white hair and a long white beard, and piercing blue eyes set in the old, wrinkled skin of his face.  He stood in the doorway, shoulders back, head held high, eyes darting about the room, taking in every detail, and falling to rest, finally, on the two children.  Then he smiled.

Oh, but it was a terrible smile, and there were lies behind it.

A voice came, muffled, from downstairs.  “Sarah!  Everything alright up there?”  Silence.  “Sarah!”

The adults had heard the door crash, of course.  Sarah heard muffled voices, and then footsteps on the stairs.

The old man took a step toward Sarah, and she took a step back.  Tyler was the first to gather his courage and speak: “Who are you?”

The old man chuckled.  “A friend of a friend, shall we say.”  He turned to Sarah.  “Where is Joel?”

Sarah swallowed hard.  “Who’s Joel?” she said.  She was a terrible liar.

The old man smiled his terrible smile again.  “I know he’s been here; I can see it in your eyes, my dear.  Now tell me where he is – don’t make me convince you.”

“Now see here, leave her alone,” Tyler said, to his own surprise, as well as Sarah’s.  It was one thing if he was bullying, but Sarah was his cousin after all, and he was beginning to be afraid this strange man would actually hurt her.

But there was no time for a response.  Joel suddenly appeared, leaping from beneath Sarah’s bed to her side.  He growled, a sound so low and powerful it seemed to come from the earth itself.

“Sarah?” came the voice of Sarah’s mother.  There were footsteps outside the door, and for a moment the attention of all four of them was at the slowly turning doorknob.

Then Joel lept, with a surprising amount of force for something so small, knocking the old man back into the closet.  There was a clash and bang, and Sarah ran to the closet after them, followed by Tyler.  Sarah’s mother entered the room to find both children staring into the empty closet.  “Everything alright in here?  What’s all this noise?”

“Something fell down…we were looking for something,” Sarah said weakly.

There was no trace of Joel or the old man.

This has nothing to do with the last little thing I wrote.  Just so you know.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Life and death.  And life and death.  And more life.

And more death.

So the world turns, and will keep turning, forever and ever amen.

It seems like a dream, sometimes.  Day in, day out, the same routine, the same people, the same dull job behind the same dull desk, the same sun, the same moon.  The world is black and white, a machine, each part doing what it does, and not paying any mind to anything else.

That was my life.  An endless pattern, a black and white day after day after day.  There is no movement toward anything, just a repeating pattern, a simulation of the idea of motion.  A shadow.  I was a shadow.

The day things started to change was the day I met Charles.

Imagine the eyes of a child of, oh, say five or six.  Curious to no end about the world about them, full of life and laughter, and (perhaps most of all) mischeif.  These are the eyes of Charles.  However, Charles was, when I met him, 86 years old.  86 years old and still with the eyes of a child.  I’ve no idea how he managed it, not letting the grief and greyness of this world beat all the joy out of him.  But he managed, and he managed well enough for the whole of humanity I think.

He was a short man, 5’6 or 5’7, although he had been taller in his youth.   A halo of white hair surrounded his bald head, although you’d never know he had such an alarming bald spot, because it was a rare occurance to see him without his hat, or “cap,” as he would say.  He was an old Englishman, and it suited him well.  Had a neatly trimmed gotee, and was generally to be seen in khaki pants and a sweater vest over a button up shirt, with a trenchcoat on if it was chilly outside.  He looked altogether English somehow, and it would have been much more of a shock to hear him speak with an American accent rather than an English one, even if you had never met him before.

He walked with a cane now and then – the one outward sign of anything resembling succoming to old age.  But he was incredibly spry when he wanted to be.  I think he enjoyed surprising people with it from time to time.  I suspect that his leg bothered him as the weather changed, and it was because of an injury rather than old age.

I remember the day I met him.  It was raining out, making the dull job at the dull desk even duller.  I was working as a receptionist in the corporate headquarters of an advertising company.  Not the sort of thing I ever wanted to do, but I was in no position financially to pick up and go back to school, so I sauntered in to work every day, living each day as the one before it.  That day, the day I met Charles, had been no different.  I was doing something or other on the computer when he walked up.  I looked up at him, putting on the serene customer-service face that had convinced so many others that I was completely content with my life and my job.

And then I saw his eyes.

A child’s eyes.  A child’s exhuberance.

(I say that now, but I didn’t know what it was then.  His eyes were just different.  I couldn’t place it.)

“Good afternoon, my dear,” he said.  His accent fit him perfectly, and he looked at me with a kindness that made me pause for a moment.  Hardly anyone even took the time to look at me, they asked their question or dropped off a request and were on their way, cogs in the machine, never pausing or caring.

“I am in need of assistance,” he continued.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” I said with a smile.  A real smile.

“I don’t doubt it,” he said, and winked, which nearly made me giggle.  “I am in need of a grand tour of this magnificent building, ending in room…” and at this point he took a neatly folded piece of paper from his pocket.  “Room 347.”

“You’ve come to see Mr. Lankston?” I asked, somewhat surprised.  He was the CEO of the company, and the only visitors he got were suffy men in suits who only decended from their cloud of arrogance to speak to me if they spilled coffee on their tie and needed it taken to the cleaners before the meeting in the afternoon.

The old man smiled.  “I’ve come to see my grandson.”

I was surprised.  I somehow hadn’t imagined Mr. Lankston having any relatives.  He was young – very young to be a CEO, only thirty at most – and was married to his work.  I sometimes wondered if he left the office at all. 

“Now don’t give me a look like that, lass.  I may be old, but I’ve got more life in me than most people half my age.”  He winked again, which made me smile in spite of my embarrassment.  “Charles Lankston, at your service,” he said, and did a funny sort of bow. 

My smile turned into a suppressed giggle.   ”Jessica Olson.  Or Jess really, everyone calls me Jess.”  We shook hands, and I felt both the frailty of age and the strenth of spirit in his handshake.  He used both hands, encompassing my hand completely in his weathered palms.

“A pleasure, to be sure,” Charles said, with a sincerity which made me wonder if I had ever actually seen genuine sincerity before.  “But I do apologize, the grand tour will have to wait.  I believe I have found my grandson.”  He nodded behind me and I turned, to see the tall, stern figure of his grandson walking towards my desk.  It was an incredible sight, actually, because the moment I turned to see him, he looked up and saw his grandfather, and a great smile burst accross his face.  I had never before seen him smile like that.  Come to think of it, I don’t think that I’d seen him smile at all.  He had barely ever graced me with so much as a glance, much less with a smile. I was taken aback at the sight before me: years of worry suddenly vanished from his face.  Rather than being the stern, arrogant workaholic, he had suddenly transformed into a real live human being.  I even thought for a moment that he might laugh.

“Grandad!  What are you doing here?  God, it’s so good to see you.”  The two embraced, and I suddenly felt like an intruder. 

“Oh, I’ve just come for a visit.  Or perhaps more than a visit.  I’ll explain over dinner, but only after you, dear boy, tell me how you’ve been all these years.  Letters are one thing, but I want to hear you speak it all from your lips.”

Mr. Lankston smiled again - he looked so much better when he smiled - ”I was just about to grab some dinner, a great Italian deli down the street.” 

Charles nodded, accepting the invitation.  ”Perfect!”  I sat down qietly and started fiddling with my computer, hoping to go unnoticed as I always did.

But Charles is too good a man for that.

He turned to me.  “A pleasure, Jessica – Jess.  I look forward to our next meeing.”  He gave a nod, and I gave one back, wondering if there would ever be a next meeting, and watched the two stroll out of the lobby together, chatting like old friends long separated.  I smiled to myself.  I thought back to the days when my grandfather was alive, and we would sit on park benches and eat ice cream.  He would lean over with a sly little smile on his face, and say, “Don’t tell Grandma, she’d throw a fit!”  I’d giggle and take another bite of ice cream, relishing the secrets we shared.  Harmless secrets, of course, most of which I think Grandma was in on and I just didn’t realize it.  But Grandfather, oh he knew how to make life exciting for a six-year-old.

I had a feeling that Charles and Grandfather had the same spirit in them.

I’m sitting at work right now, again, waiting for someone to give me another project to do.  It’s alright…I’ve been really busy here the last week or so, so I guess it all evens out.

I’ve decided that when I’m bored here I’m going to write stories.  Just…because I can.  Why not?  You’ll probably be my audience.  Lucky you.   It wil probably jsut be a lot of silliness. 

So…here I go.  Story number one.  Or chapter one of the ongoing Kendra-is-bored-at-work story.  I dont’ think any of them will have titles, because titles are always the very last thing i do, because I’m terrible at thinking of good ones.  Feel free to make up your own titles as you see fit.

…………………………………………………………………………………..

It started off as quite an ordinary day, the day that Sarah discovered the monster in her closet.  It had been quite a long time since she had been frightened of such a thing happening – she was nine, after all, and nine was quite grown-up in her opinion.  She still liked to play with her dolls, of course, but she was being allowed to use the computer more, and she had her own bike now (which her parents let her ride to Kristen’s house all by herself), and having started the third grade, she knew lots of big words, like slumber.  Sarah liked this word, and used it whenever she could.  She had taken to announcing to her parents before going to bed that she was “going to slumber,” and her parents would give each other a funny little look out of the corners of their eyes, and Sarah was never quite sure what it meant.

At any rate, on this particular day, Sarah had gone to school, just like any other day.  She sat in the same seat, drew the same sorts of pictures during art time, accidentally bit off her eraser as she struggled to understand long division, and got in trouble for hitting Tyler (who, in her defense, would constantly poke her in the back with his pencil, and when she asked him to stop, he would smile a particularly evil little smile and do it some more), and had to sit in time out during her first recess.

She got home and threw her backpack on her floor, intending to watch tv until just before her parents got home – her older sister spent her time in her room, leaving Sarah to herself, and her parents would not trouble themselves with what she had been up to while they were gone if she appeared to be working studiously when they returned home.  This may seem manipulative, and perhaps it is, but anyone who was once a child knows that they themselves played such games, and anyone who is now an adult, if they have any sense, will realize that they have had such games played on them.

Today, however, she never got to the tv.  A noise from the closet startled her.  A great thud, as something fell off a shelf somewhere in its depths.  “Lizzy?” She said her sister’s name with less force than she had meant to.  Of course it was her sister, trying to scare her, as if she was some child.  Lizzy always treated her like a child – she didn’t seem to think that nine was quite so grown up after all.  Well, she was not a child anymore, she was a whole nine years old, that’s halfway to eighteen and being able to vote, and she was not going to be scared off like a little girl.

“Lizzy, you don’t scare me.  Come out of there!” 

Of course, nothing happened.

“Lizzy!”

And then the oddest thing.

The closet door opened, pushed out from the inside, not by Lizzy, but by a small furry creature which was the most incredible color of purple you have ever seen.  Sarah was frightened, of course, but much less so than you might expect.  She was just so incredibly curious.  The creature looked harmless enough, at about half of Sarah’s height, with the soft furr and large green eyes of a cuddly pet.  It crouched on all fours, and took a couple of halting steps forward, revealing a longish tail, rather like a cat’s.  In fact, it looked very much like a small lion, except its paws were bigger and more claw-like, it’s face was flat, and it had very large green eyes and a very large, wide mouth, filled with delicate looking but undoubtedly sharp and dangerous teeth.  There were also two rather small horns sprouting out of its head.

The two stood watching each other for quite some time.  Sarah stood stalk still, but the creature, whatever it was, switched its tail back and forth like a cat, and had a rather bemused expression on its face.  Finally, it spoke.

“Would you like to have some tea with me?”

Sarah was surprised, and for a moment didn’t know what to say.   She had never before heard of a monster who liked tea, or of one that sounded so completely harmless, and even friendly.

“Of course, I understand if you’d rather not, me being a sort of stranger and all, but I’ve heard an awful lot about peope drinking tea, and I’d like to try it.”

“I don’t really like tea…” said Sarah shyly.  She had tried it once and accidentally spit it out all over the kitchen floor.  Her mother had laughed in spite of herself, and Sarah had been terribly embarrased.  “But what about hot chocolate?  It’s really good…”

“Delightful.  My name is Joel, by the way.”

“My name’s Sarah,” she said, breaking into a sheepish grin.  “Nice to meet you,” and she held out her had and shook the monster’s claw-like paw, discovering that its fur was quite soft.  “Isn’t Joel kind of a strange name for a monster?”

“Oh no, not at all.  It’s quite common actually.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t worry.  Common misconception.  Shall we get some…what did you say?  Hot chocolate?”

“Oh yes!” 

And so, on a chilly February afternoon, a day which had all the makings to be perfectly ordinary and rather boring, Sarah found herself doing what she never had imagined possible, even when she did believe in monsters hiding in closets: drinking hot chocolate and chatting (laughing, even!) with a jovial little beast named Joel, who had somehow wandered out of his own world, out of her closet, and into her own reality.  Years later, as an adult, whenever someone would tell her that something was impossible, she would think of that day, smile a funny little smile which no one else ever knew what to make of, and say, “No, actually.  It’s not.”

I know that sounds kind of terrible; like I’m shirking my duties or something.  Really, I have nothing to do right now, and nearly an hour left to be here.  Of course it’s entirely possible someone will walk to up to my desk  and ask me to do something, or a student walk in needing assistance, or something….but until that happens, I’ve finished everything I was working on, and am left to entertain myself.

The job is going well, if you want to know.  My honest opinion?  Being a receptionist is generally really boring.  But I’ve got something to do during the day, and I’m making some money, so I really can’t complain.   I actually look forward to the days when I read in the court reporting classes.  I think it’s kind of fun.  It’s harder than it sounds…you have to read while watching a stop watch, making sure you’re reading the right speed.  It’s like a game, almost.

I’ve felt better the last week and a half or so.  About my life in general, I mean.  Not to say that I haven’t shed a tear or two in that time, but I feel more hopeful and much less depressed in general.  I suppose part of it has to do with having a job and something to do all day, but really, I don’t think that’s it.  I’ve started repairing my relationship with Jesus.  I’ve spent more time with him lately.  More time with the Bible, reading, journaling.  It’s been incredibly good for me, and for the first time in a long time I feel like things are actually going to work out, one way or another, in a way that’s going to be good for me.  Maybe sometime I’ll transfer over some of what I’ve been writing about scripture over to here.  Just to share.  I’m reading through Matthew, and I think I’ll continue on to the rest of the gospels after that.  It’s sort of like reading the same thing four times…but it’s four different perspectives.  You learn just as much about the authors as about the subject, I think, and I really like going after stuff like that.

So, God is good.

What if the “mountains” are our own stubborn wills and ideas?  Our own inadequacies?  Our own faults and failures?

What if it’s not about changing your circumstances, but about changing yourself?

Just a thought.

My mom is convinced I’ll be moved out by the time spring rolls around.  I’m not so sure…not that I don’t want to get my own place, but I’ve lost a lot of faith in actually being able to find a full time gig.  But people keep telling me it’s easier to find a job when you have a job, so we’ll see, I guess.

In other news, my room is clean.  This means that my room is (by far) the cleanest room in my house currently.  I am awesome.

Closing comments: maybe this change will lead to more changes?  Bigger and better ones?  I can only hope…

1.  Teaching.  I know, I’ve spent the last several months ranting and raving about how I don’t want to teach.  But I can’t disregard it completely.  While I don’t think now is the time for me to pursue it, I may want to in the future.  Also, there is the fact that I did spend 5 years getting the degree and credential.  I don’t even want to talk about how much money was spent…..

2.  Photography.  I would enjoy this.  I’d need practice and education, but I do think it would be fun, and it would allow me to be creative on a daily basis.

3.  Writing…of some kind.  It’s something that I enjoy.   Not writing research papers for college classes, but I do enjoy blogging, and while this isn’t exactly anything that would ever be published for any reason, I express myself best through writing.  It wouldn’t be a stretch for me to use that to make a little money.

4.  Archaeology.  Or Paleontology.  When I was a kid I wanted to dig for dinosaur bones (which would be pretty cool, I’m not going to lie), but thinking about it now, I do think archaeology would be fun.  Digging up old things, and drawing conclusions from those things about the history of a people or a place….like some sort of giant puzzle.  It’s a different way of thinking about things, and I’m sure I would gain a different perspective on my own life about every other day.  But I enjoy questioning things, and searching for difficult answers.  It makes my mind feel alive and useful.  Also, this particular field could potentially give me reason to travel to really cool places.  THAT would be cool.

5.  Composing.  I actually think this is the least likely to occur.  Well, actually, least likely is archaeology.  But this is a close second.  I’m not practiced enough in theory to be able to compose well now; it would take a lot of work, a lot of trial and error, and I’ve no idea if I would even be good at it in the end.  I think I would have some really good ideas, but I don’t know that I would be able to transfer those ideas cohesively into good music.  I might give it a shot though, here and there.  I’ll have to steal of my theory books back from David’s office at some point…

6.  Receptionist!  Just kidding.  I mean, I don’t mind doing that for awhile to pay the bills and such…but I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting in an office somewhere.

7.  Professional Musician.  I could play my crazy weird flute music.  It would be awesome.  Again, not likely.  Probably not even plausible, in real life.  But it would be SO cool.

In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter right now.  I’ve decided (although this, I suppose, is subject to change…much like everything else in my life) that I’m not going to go back to school until after my student loans are paid off.  No sense in going more into debt than I already am.  That will give me some time to figure things out.  Time to dabble in different disciplines, to see if my interest is anything close enough to passion that I would actually be able to pull something off.  Writing is a good bet, because at this point, I’m fairly certain it is necessary to my sanity, so regardless of whether I do it in the context of a job or not, it’s happening.  I may as well tailor it so I can get something published.  I could probably get some assistant time with a professional photographer (unpaid…but experience is priceless, yes?), and I can try my hand at composing when i get bored at home.  I’ll play around.  See what happens, see what I like, see what I decide I’d really like to do.

Who knows, maybe something will fall into my lap.

So what brings me out of my several month silence?  In all honesty, life hasn’t been to great lately, and my silence here has much in common with the reason why I’ve only had a handful of facebook status updates over the last few months: I don’t want everything I say to be complaints.  I’ve had a hard time lately…June was good, to give that some credit (ask me about it sometime, lots of good things happened that month), but since then, mostly I’ve just been looking for a job and not finding one.

Which has given me a lot of time to think.  Of course, most of my thoughts end up back in a small unanswered circle of questions, leading back to my unemployment.  But occasionally I think of something actually worth thinking about (and yes, this is about employment, but hey, at least I’m not just complaining, right?).

Allow me to remind you of my situation.

5 years in school as a music ed major.  I love my life.  I look forward to teaching.

1 semester student teaching.  I hate my life.  I decide not to teach.

1.5 month vacation/travel.

2 months (thus far) on the hunt for a job.

The real dilemma here is that I don’t know what I want to do with my life.  I don’t want to teach.  I’m fairly certain I would be absolutely miserable teaching.  But then, I don’t really want to be a receptionist either.  Although that would be a lot easier on me than teaching.  But this is not the root of the problem.  The root of it is that up until this point in my life, and perhaps even still, I have been an idealist.  I have been working under the assumption that if you do things right, then you pursue something that makes you happy, and you get a job you love, which is work, yes…but you love it…so it’s (obviously) not miserable.  It’s something you like to do.  Something you enjoy.  Aside from the fact that I obviously made a mistake somewhere along the line and picked the wrong field (or I’m a complete moron and just am freaking out for no reason…which I’m tempted to believe sometimes, mostly because none of this makes any sense to me), there’s a lot wrong with the assumption that you should be able to find a job you love.

I read this article earlier today, and it made me think.

If you are a Christian, there’s the matter of Genesis.  (Somehow my life always comes back to Genesis.  It weirds me out sometimes.)  Work is a punishment, part of a curse, of being cast out of Eden, out of Paradise, out of direct communion with God.  Work isn’t supposed to be fun.  It’s just something we have to do because…well, that’s how we live.  We don’t live in a garden where everything we need grows on trees.  The world is not paradise.  Work is the only way people can live.  The only way society functions.  Even if you don’t take Genesis literally (or if you don’t believe it at all, for that matter), and there was no literal “garden,” or “snake,” or “banishment,” there is still the fact that the people who wrote the story obviously believed that work was some sort of necessary evil.  In a perfect world it wouldn’t exist.  Or rather, it would be fun, something you enjoy doing….so yeah, in a perfect world you’d do stuff, but it wouldn’t be “work.”  God creating the universe was work in a way…He was doing it, obviously, and it took time and effort…but it was something He was invested in personally, a project He took on, nobody making him, no need in the sense that I need a job so I can pay to feed myself.  Not work…but a project, if you will.  Like when I decided to make a purse by hand out of old T-shirts.  It took time and effort, a lot of “work” you might say, but I did it because I wanted to.  It wasn’t work.  It was like having a hobby.

At any rate, somewhere along the line, this idea of “vocation” developed, and while I’m not debating the validity of the term or the idea, I am debating our interpretation of it.  When someone speaks of their vocation, especially in Christian circles, it’s like, here’s what God ordained for me to do in my life, and that’s what I’m doing, and it’s all wonderful and good (even if it is a little hard) because this is how it’s supposed to be.  And…that’s great.  I do believe that God means for specific people to do specific things.  But I don’t know that any person would say that it’s their vocation to work in an assembly line in a factory somewhere.  So what about all those people?  What about all the people who work random jobs that they don’t particularly like, but hey, it pays the bills, and who has the time/money to go back to school?  I mean, nobody aspires to be a janitor.  Maybe it’s a step along the way to somewhere…but nobody gets out of high school or college and says to themselves, I think I really want to clean bathrooms for the rest of my life.   I mean, maybe someone does, but most people don’t, and most people who have jobs like that don’t.

The point?  Some people do get jobs that they love, and that’s where they’re supposed to be, and they truly enjoy their work.  Some people don’t.  Some people just…work.  Because they have to.  Because the world is not perfect, and they either don’t know what they really want to do (aka, me), or, for one reason or another, it is out of reach.  As much as I would like to sidle up to the American dream and say that you can do anything you work hard enough for, this is really just not true.  Circumstances can be against you.  Yes, the underdog comes out on top sometimes.  But there are a whole lot of underdogs who try really hard to come out on top, and just don’t make it.  So they’re stuck where they are, wherever that is.  Some people love their work.  Others work to live, and find love in other places.  Or learn to love what they are doing.

I also wonder that the word “vocation” is so inexorably tied to “career.”  Someone at the church I attended in Michigan told me once that he felt that what he was called to do in his life, his “vocation,” if you will, was what he was doing with the church…not what he was doing every day with his job.  Of course, he needed the job.  You have to get paid…that’s what it comes down to, in the end.  But what he really loved doing, and where he felt he needed to be had nothing to do with his job. I think there may be a lot of people like this.

It’s a difficult thing for me to wrap my mind around, because I’ve spent my whole life looking toward having a career, and always assumed that would be something I loved.  Maybe I won’t particularly like my job.  Maybe my life just won’t be about my job.

Or maybe it will, and I just haven’t found it yet.

Either way, I’ve got some waiting to do.