Thinking About Change

Me and Steve were the two greatest part timers the liquor commission has ever seen. Store 72 could not have functioned without us.

We were cruelly exploited and taken for granted at times, taking on managerial responsibility for part time pay on a regular basis for a handshake and a pat on the back.

Steve desperately wanted to sell his house and move to Florida. I desperately wanted to make more money.

Strangely enough, both things happened in close proximity to one another.

Steve sold his house and will be in Florida this weekend. I got a new job and am making a lot more money.

We both got the change we wanted and we are both still squirming a bit, swallowing the bitter with the sweet.

Steve is leaving a house he lived in for 23 years. Leaving the friends, the favorite haunts, the routines, the familiarity. But he is going where it is warm and getting close to his daughters, who light up his life.

My paycheck is larger (when it is calculated correctly), we are breathing easier, we even went out to a magnificent dinner last weekend and did not have to settle for cheap wine. But I am struggling mightily with an incredibly ridiculous situation at work that is causing me great pain.

Yin and yang, a door closes, another opens, there is a positive to every negative and a negative to every positive.

There has be a pocket in life where there is only the positive. An air bubble of justice where you are truly rewarded as a human being.

Apparently they are small, hard to find, elusive. It has caused me much discomfort over the course of 59 years believing this, but I do. I just cannot accept that there is always a price to pay. Especially when you have decades in the bank.

There has to be a moment when your lungs fill with oxygen so sweet that it makes you giddy. A moment when your head spins and you laugh like a child.

Sweet, complete release.

Steve and I got what we wanted. I guess you could say we got lucky. We are happier, maybe even happier than we realize.

But it is my suspicion that we are both still waiting to laugh like a child.

An aside: people come into your life and they leave a mark. Monday night we visited Steve and Chris and they gave us a magnificent park bench for Carol's garden and a cool fire pit thingy. We had a drink with them and wished them luck and said goodbye.

But when we sit on that bench and gaze into that fire we will have a piece of Steve and Chris right there with us.

I think that is very cool.