Monthly Archives: November 2003

Sacrifice

“I don’t hate my job or my life. I just realize that there are sacrifices I need to make.”

A very good friend of mine said that last night. The words keep ringing in my ears. They haunt me, as they have haunted me all my life. Complacency. Sacrifice. Acceptance.

My first reaction was anger. I wanted to lash out, I wanted to scream at him. “WHAT? SACRIFICES? You don’t hate your job or your life?” Oh I was livid. But I said nothing. I calmed myself and listened to the rest of the conversation, which was soon changed and then ended.

Why? Why was that my first reaction? Why did that make me so angry? I laid awake in bed last night well past 5am thinking about this. The pitch black darkness of the Chico night was beginnning to fade. I knew the sun would be up soon and it filled me with dread. Yet another sleepless night. And still I laid there, unmoving, thinking. Once again, unable to turn my brain off, staring at the ceiling, wishing I could sleep. Why did those words bother me so much?

All my life I’ve jumped from one job to another, one relationship to another, one city to another… never able to settle anywhere or for anything. I’ve never been satisfied with these life-things I had, I always wanted more. More freedom, more choices. I never married because I never found someone I wanted to marry, nobody was good enough. I never stay in one apartment or house or city too long, because there are so many other places out there I’d like to see, to live in, to experience. I’ve never liked a job I’ve had, ever. Well maybe a little at first but eventually I start to hate them, once the excitement of something new has passed. I can’t imagine ever accepting things for what they are. I want to fight. I want to scream at the world and curse it for it’s lethargy. I want to change everything and make it my own.

Why can’t I accept things they way they are? I could have, I suppose. I could have settled for job security and stayed in the Navy. Never mind that I’d have to give up my freedom. Who cares that my life would be in somebody else’s hands, right? I suppose I could have stayed in my relationship with Kim. I could have been the dutiful husband, supporting her and providing for a family. Never mind that she wasn’t very nice to me, or anyone else for that matter. I could have stayed at Activision, driving 90 minutes to work every morning in stop and go traffic, only to repeat the pleasure that evening on the way home. Everybody else does it, right? Why can’t you, Tom? What’s your problem? What’s wrong with you? I can’t do it. I just can’t.

I want things my way, period. I am most uncomprimising. I don’t make sacrifices, and I don’t take prisoners. All my life I’ve been this way. I can’t help it. This is me.

How much easier would my life be if I would just accept the rules of our society and live by them? I sometimes wish I could. I know I make things harder on myself for my unyielding ways and off-beat views. I wish I could live like everyone else. Work my shitty 9 to 5 and pretend I like it. “Work hard and play hard!” some people like to brag. God I hate that fucking crap. Maybe I could settle on a wife that’s not everything I’m looking for. Raise a family like everyone else. Wife, kids, mortgage, and a SUV right? These things you’re supposed to do, right? Those are the rules. Why can’t I live by them? Sometimes I wish I could. In the end I know I just can’t.

So last night when my friend said “I don’t hate my job or my life. I just realize that there are sacrifices I need to make.” I reacted in the only way Tom Bissell would–with rage. After a night of unrest and a day of thought I’ve come to realize that my rage was misplaced. It wasn’t anger that I felt towards him, it was jealousy. I’m jealous that he has found balance and peace with this lot in life.

I never have, and I probably never will.

It's cold

He sat on the edge of the bed, silent and still. The room was dark except for the scant bit of moonlight that shone through the small dirty window. All he could hear was the sound of his own calm breathing. Once again, it was the middle of the night, and he could not sleep.

His eyes moved about the small studio apartment room, surveying the surreal moon-lit scene before him. It’s strange how different things look at night. How a person can look like someone completely different lying next to you in bed at 3am than they did at dinner hours before, or outside in the sunlight that afternoon. So looked the room to him now. It was an alien landscape, filled with craters of clothes he’s too lazy or too busy to hang up or put away or throw in the hamper, and dirty plastic dishes and empty silver beer cans.

The window next to the bed was open, and the cold, clean winter air flowed into the room and onto his naked skin. The chill of time, catching up to you, as it does to all things that live. It was an uncomfortable cold, too cold, and yet he sat there unmoving, unflinching, in the middle of the night. Thinking.

He lived alone. He had never been married, didn’t have any children. He didn’t have a girlfriend, or a fling, or an interest. He was alone and he liked it that way. Alone with his memories and dreams, and thoughts and empty beer cans.

He was thinking of her again. He felt the weight of life bearing down upon his heavy heart. He drew in a deep melancholy breath, and exhaled. He was wide awake at 3am in his very small apartment, wishing he was somewhere else, with somebody else, in another time, another life.

His eyes moved over to the neon blue glow of the digital alarm clock. 3:01 it read. He had to get up in three hours. He knew he needed more sleep. But he knew very well he wouldn’t be slumbering any more this night. He’s been here before. Many times in his life he’s been here before. Unable to sleep, this thoughts consuming him, unable to turn his brain off. With another sigh he stood up, knees and ankle joints cracking and creaking. He cursed and began his day.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could.
To where it bent in the undergrowth,

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost