Taylor Switch

It's Hard to be Successful When You Can't Bring Yourself to Care

My breakfast sandwich, which is usually delicious and very filling, today looks instead to be a dull, flavorless brick of calories. I don't know how I always forget that eating something every single day will eventually result in me hating whatever it is that I'm eating, but somehow my delusion persists.

"What's wrong?" my boyfriend of seven years, Clay, asks as he walks into the kitchen and throws his own breakfast sandwich into the air fryer.

"I don't want to go to work," I say with a worn malaise. He chuckles.

"Neither do I, babe, but you know what? Shit ain't cheap."

"Fuck," I groan, eating my sandwich with as much enthusiasm as anyone has before going to a PAP smear. Oh shit, I need to schedule one of those...

"You're gonna have a good day at work," Clay says affirmatively, placing his hand on my shoulder. I look up at him.

"I'm gonna have a good day at work," I repeat. He'd lately been trying to get me to think more positively about our financial situation. He was right, but I couldn't help feeling stuck sometimes. It was hard to think about how I had so badly mismanaged my credit cards and racked up over $20,000 of credit card debt that I couldn't pay back and was now filing bankruptcy for. Then my student loans for my useless music degree that I'd also never be able to pay back, the 2100 rent payment that went up every single year but not keeping up with my ever changing income level. Was being stressed just part of being an adult? How did people expect me to raise kids in this economy?

"Good. You're gonna have a good day. Try to make some friends, too. It might help a little."

He kisses me briefly before turning to leave. 

"Ok I'll try," I call as he reaches the front door. "I love you."

"I love you too. I'll see you later."

He waves goodbye before leaving. Often after he left I would sit at the table and stare at our house, wondering how we had let it get this messy. It was both frustrating to see, but too overwhelming to do anything about. I was frozen.

Annoyed, I set down my phone and go over to couch to try and read. Maybe dissociating for a few hours before I had to leave for my swing shift job would help my mood improve.

It does not help.

My alarm to get ready to leave goes off at 3:15pm like it does every day and I groan inwardly. My new job at a Fred Meyer distribution center as an order picker sounds great on paper: union protections, $27.61 an hour and swing shift starting at 4pm. So why did I hate it? All I had to do was drive a pallet jack around a warehouse, listen to orders from a robot headset and pick the items off the shelf and build pallets to send to stores in the area via semi trucks. 

I hate it because I never know when i'll be allowed to leave. As a newbie working in the Deli department, I was subject to whether or not the other order pickers in the produce section of the warehouse needed help. Would every department finish early and be allowed to leave before midnight? Would we finish on time? Or would produce need help and we'd all be stuck picking until 5am? No one knew. It was luck of the draw every day.

I groan and stand, setting down my copy of Red Rising and heading to the door. My worn out tennis shoes that I have to wear because I can't afford to replace them (even though I know they will tear up my feet walking on concrete all day) are waiting right by the door where I put them last night. I pull on my two jackets so I'd be warm inside the fridge and I grab my lunch I made earlier this morning. 

"Bye, my babies!" I call to my cats, Mimsy and Mister Boy, as they watch me go from the couch. Both are visibly miffed that I brought them back inside. I feel bad doing it every day, but leaving them alone outside feels worse.