SUNDAY APRIL 3, 2011
ENJOYING EVERY SANDWICH
The past few weeks have been a challenge. Long hours, long commute, long on pressure – oh well, everyone has shit to deal with.
You have to grow a little older sometimes to find the destination you’ve been working towards your whole life. If you pay attention, age can bring wisdom.
I’m working way more hours than I’ve gotten used to. I’ll complain but I’m happy to be working these days. Internally however I’m hypocritical in that more than ever I now find myself looking back at the time I was out of work as one of the happiest times of my life.
It’s actually a connection to that not so long ago past that’s been getting me through most of the past month or two.
I was home.
Glorious! The daily ritual knowing every minute is totally within your control – at least in a planning sense. I got to spend every day working (albeit not too hard) with my wonderful wife. If you haven’t noticed by now, we kind of like hanging out together…so it made every day a great day. Sure, we were lucky in that there was a severance and unemployment coming in – so we had the benefit of that cushion for a while. Probably didn’t really work as hard as I may have lead you to believe in some of my more frequent posts during those days to be honest.
But I sold out. A job opportunity presented itself which I took advantage of way back when, and has placed me squarely in the predicament within which I now currently reside.
Someday I’ll wax poetic and actually write up some of the more specific details of the past year or so of shit-storm reality that’s smacked us all in the face, but for now let’s remain in broad strokes. Taking that route on my own advice, but I’m fairly certain my team of attorney’s always on standby would recommend the same path for now.
Home.
On the days I use the “nice” car to go to work I have the advantage of one of those big fancy GPS monitors being a central part of the dash. We have several destinations pre-programmed in…the usual; Poison Control Center, 6th Precinct, Hooters, Hollywood Hawaiian Motel….and….
Home.
I don’t need the route guidance system to get me there – but when the GPS finds me about a mile from home, the map on the dash changes and the routes are cleared and highlighted to the big blue flag – the one that says simply…
Home.
Typically I get up around 515am.
Typically the first thought these days that enters into my head at about that time is seeing that big blue flag as I’m within that last mile home at night. Mondays are the worst because the first thought is how soon can Friday night get here? Then at least there’s a little solace in the thought that I’m closer to the first of this weeks flags pointing me home.
My father is more or less agoraphobic. I’ve had several instances of full blown agoraphobia in my family. I’m plenty fucked up but I don’t feel I’m heading in that direction. I enjoy being social – I’ve been in sales for a quarter century for crissakes and you can’t get much more interactive than that. Sometimes though it’s that constant bombardment and demand for attention and solution that just wears on my aging mind. Makes one just want to escape. Escape home.
We all want that.
Home is different to everyone. Sometimes it’s a view, sometimes a place. Many times home is a memory. For some, sadly, it’s nothing more.
For me, as of late….home is simply…a sandwich.
Not just any sandwich mind you. It’s my lunch.
Every night my wife makes me a sandwich. Usually on a nice hero roll featuring an assortment of cheese and cold cut related products and condiments. Occasionally there’s a curve ball tossed my way and the sandwich may be outfitted with chicken cutlets or tuna salad. It’s always a mystery frankly until I remember to stop for a few moments during my hectic day and eat the sandwich,.
The other night she was tired, but still grudgingly got up from the couch and made me a sandwich for work the following day. Lovingly stuffing artery clogging deli meats and processed cheese-like products into the bread then slathering it in heaping piles of dijon mustard. In June Cleaver-like precision she carefully rolled the hero sandwich in tin foil, tightly securing each end to avoid unnecessary spillage in my briefcase.
Being tired, she almost forgot the best part. That would have been a bummer the next day.
I’m not talking about a side of cole slaw or perhaps a nice dill pickle.
The best part was my current metaphor of home…
You see every day she writes a different catchphrase on the tin foil wrapping that clearly identifies it as mine. You know, like the soundbites that permeate our society from bizarre cultural oddities such as Charlie Sheen or Fox News. Often offensive, occasionally perspective, always topical – I find that I look forward to seeing what she came up with every morning. Then I get to have a chuckle again later in the day when I try to wolf down a couple of bites in between the priorities of each moment.
It brings a little bit of lightness into a heavy day.
It brings a connection to home.
That would have sucked if my sandwich didn’t have it’s daily note.
We’ve recently made the decision to sell the house where we currently reside and find a new place to call home.
But wherever that may be we know one thing is for absolute certainty…
We’ll continue to enjoy every sandwich.