A Day In The Life, Part Two: Woke Up, Got Out Of Bed

[You will need to read my previous entry. This one picks up where it left off]

The first conversation centered on Brooke. As I mentioned she had just completed her Masters Degree in international business or something like that. I was blown away to hear that she had done it in nine months. That’s an impressively short amount of time. It made me feel pathetic. She was a little bit older than me, but not much, and she had her Masters. And here I am -- a person with high aspirations for study, and even higher aspirations for eventually teaching and writing in my field. Here I am, tending bar. It wasn’t a new thought, but meeting someone who had plunged into advanced study with such commitment to earn that graduate degree in NINE MONTHS made me feel like a shmuck. She had busted her ass – was I capable of that?

The other conversation was later in the day, with Geoff. I was explaining my five-year plan to him. This was, in essence (and it never really expanded beyond the essence of a plan, even in my mind) that I would apply to graduate schools that fall and the next fall Sarah and I would move to wherever I decided to go. Sarah was a graphic designer, which is a pretty marketable profession. Then I would be a professor and Sarah and I would move to wherever I got a teaching job. Geoff then related the story of his brother who was a history professor (history is my field). He was apparently barely meeting ends meet. I had seen life after grad school as wildly fulfilling and unchallenging once I had that almighty Ph.D. Maybe it wouldn’t be? I was pretty sure I could do better than Geoff’s brother seemed to be doing, but looking back on what he said to me it raised some questions that I needed to answer.

Was I expecting, even counting on living a comfortable, pleasantly stable life? The answer was yes, but was this realistic, and if so, was this healthy? What I know now is that I will have to work incredibly hard to do what I want to do in my life and the day when I can let up and truly take things easy is decades away. I now realize that I owe this to mankind because of the incredibly resources and opportunities that I have been given, the likes of which probably 99% of people who have ever lived could barely conceive of. I owe it to myself not to squander these in self-indulgent trivialities and not to sell my soul to the hedonism that was all around me that April day in Savannah. This I now know.

This conversation was later in the afternoon and I was quite drunk by now. The deck around us was now filled with Blackberries and expensive sunglasses. Sarah and I mused about how much we probably stood out. I realized how much I probably stood out more than any of us. I began casting a cynical eye on everyone around us, making vicious sweeping generalizations. I was touched by a mild academic anger. I railed against all the men who were no more than their father’s sons, inheriting (or marrying into) mid-size but profitable businesses. Men who voted for Republicans because they seemed to fight for God and country. Men who saw their positions (and the luxuries of this day and many others) as perfectly justified; men who never had guilt to assuage about plight of anyone their work slighted or harmed as long as they could keep up payments on the boat and afford to send their sons to Vanderbilt or Auburn. Men who played lip service to the notion of social responsibility by attending a charity banquet twice a year. I viciously rambled, as I do now.

Meanwhile, as I told Sarah, what about the people who serve men such as these? I was one of these at another time and place, after all. We scrape our livings from the refuse of their excess. I thought of the cute bartender. I told Sarah I didn’t want to live like this, even if I had the means to. She tilted her head slightly and said to me, in her placating playful tone:

“You just need a real job.”

I didn’t know it then but our relationship was over.

We went into the tent where everyone else was and the conversation spilled over to the rest of the group, which now included Geoff’s boss. We argued some more, my argument focusing on the fact that, no, not every American did really have the opportunity to live the life that everyone around us was living. Geoff’s boss heard me out on a lark. I actually thought he found me funny; a kind of novelty act. I was pretty drunk at this point. I don’t know how the conversation ended, but it did, and we left soon after that.

Sarah made plans to go out with everyone afterwards, but I had to work in the morning. Big corporate group at the hotel, don’t you know. I picked up a forty or two and kicked back, thinking about the events of the day. I was still buzzing with indignation at the whole affair. More and more my anger turned towards Sarah’s words.

What was a “real job” to her? Nine-to-five? Pension? Company car? This was nothing that I had ever wanted, and was not in line with my career plans. I don’t want to buy, sell, trade, any of that bullshit, even if it could give me a house in Hilton Head. What I wanted was to teach and learn for a living. If this is the person who I am allegedly planning to spend the rest of my life with, how can it ever work if we are so off base on something like this? It couldn't, and I wouldn't.

I had a conversation that night with my good and true friend Jeremy via instant message. I was very drunk at this point. I remember saying to him that people like us had a responsibility to do what we can for the betterment of mankind. To expose and combat the wrongs that many cannot see or don’t understand, the wrongs and abuses and injustice that some refuse to acknowledge as such.

I couldn’t sleep that night, even though I was quite hammered. Sarah came home and proceeded to call me a drunk. True, but not a nice thing to say. Also a stark thing to acknowledge about the person your allegedly plan to spend the rest of your life with. I slept on the couch that night, a first I think, in our very long relationship. We spent the next couple of days on the edge of not speaking. A few days later she forced the issue, and I left Savannah a few days later.

That is the first part of the story of how I came to be where I am and the beginning of what journey towards a startling awakening of my mind to the injustice of the world. But it was only the beginning.