Stand By Me

I was watching the movie "Stand By Me" this morning. You do things like that when you're banging your head against the wall waiting for a prospective employer to call or at least return your email - if they ever do. Suffice to say, being laid off and not having an income is a truly terrifying experience, so I don't recommend it for a career choice. The prospect of losing everything is very real. I guess I should blame myself. After all, I was an English and Film major and have spent most of my career in the banking industry. Go figure. I'd love to be a writer or something in the creative fields, but I don't have the professional experience. On the other hand, I don't have the Business degree required to get past some Human Resource Nazis. In a nutshell, I'm screwed.

Thinking back to the movie, I wondered what I wanted to be when I was younger. I was never one of those kids who wanted to be a cowboy, fireman or astronaut. I just wanted to be older and just sort of do what I wanted to do. I think the first thing I wanted to be was a zoologist. When I was about eight, my parents bought me a gigantic book of animals. It wasn't one of those cute little books with cartoons and giant fonts. It was very detailed, with intelligent language and beautiful color pictures. I ate it up. I was never much interested in insects, birds or monkeys. I found them relatively boring. I wasn't much for sea creatures, either, except for sharks. When you're a boy, pretty much the only animals that get you juiced are meat eaters - lions, bears, tigers, alligators, you name it. It's why the Tyrannosaurus Rex is still the most popular dinosaur around. No one knew about Velociraptors until Jurassic Park came out, so the T. Rex was always king. Sure, we liked the Stegosaurus and Triceratops, but, for pure fantasy and imagination fodder, nothing beat the King of the Dinosaurs. Then, one day, I was bitten by the neighbor's dog. I didn't like it. Mind you, this dog was probably 20 pounds, tops. I did some quick math in my head and realized lions were much bigger and would have no issue with destroying me. I decided I wanted to be something else.

I wrestled with the idea of being a baseball player. I wasn't half bad, but I wasn't half good, so that hope quickly died on the vine. I thought I could possibly be a hockey player. Now here, I thought, was a career I could sink my teeth into. I was really a very good street hockey player. I usually played against bigger kids, and although I would get bruised and bloodied, I scored my share of goals. Of course, professional hockey players need to be able to ice skate. I had three problems with this: 1) I had no access to an ice skating rink, 2) I didn't own a pair of ice skates and 3) I didn't even know how to skate. I couldn't even roller skate. I went to Spinning Wheels roller rink to attempt skating and looked like a newborn giraffe on an oil slick. At an age when you are desperate to look cool, I apparently went out of my way to capture the Biggest Dork trophy. I won the award so many times they renamed it in my honor. I'll have to remember to pad my resume with that little tidbit.

So there I was, at 14 years old, with no career aspirations. It's a good thing I started being interested in girls, because that was a full-time job unto itself, For me, it was hanging out in the woods with my troublemaker friends, going to the mall and being too painfully shy to ask out any girl I found even remotely attractive. Oftentimes, I would just put on my headphones and let my albums take me to far away planets, other worlds and places in my mind too fantastic to explain. By the time I was done, and my ears were swollen and ringing, I would be covered in sweat, disappointed I had to come back to reality. I guess I just sort of assumed I would go to college, graduate, and have some suit and tie waiting for me, as I walked off the stage with my diploma, to offer me a job. I was on cruise control.

Well, I did make it into college...and promptly flunked out midway through my sophomore year. The ship was sinking and I was fixing the leak by playing Frisbee and tapping kegs. Eventually, I learned my lesson and matriculated back to full time status. I even earned an academic scholarship. How do you like those apples? I had a friend named Lisa Vitale, and we used to write each other over the summer, back when people actually wrote letters. She asked what I was going to do for work one summer and I sort offhandedly wrote back, "I'll probably try find a job in a bank." By that time, my work resume was fairly impressive - paper boy, auto shop grunt, door man, grocery store bagger...I was obviously qualified. Well, it never did materialize, but I did make a name for myself as being one of the most unreliable bartenders to ever work a university bar. I always gave free drinks to pretty girls and friends - and I was surrounded by friends and pretty girls. Ah, youth.

The years stumbled by, and before I knew it, I had my college diploma in hand, I thought to myself, "Ok, Slick, now what?" I was stuck. I had no answer. I knew I didn't want to bartend anymore and the thought of working eight hours - in a single day! - was even less appealing to me. Well, eventually, I found myself in banking, doing collections. Hell, it was a paycheck, even though I hated talking to people on the phone - still do. Well, wouldn't you know it, a paycheck became a job which became a career in the banking world. It was like I was caught in an occupational slipstream. It was during this time I started developing a love for writing and creating. I was writing stories, skits, songs, dialogues, monologues, fables...I even started a screenplay, until my computer crashed and zapped it all to hell. I always had a head for numbers but I developed a love for words, too. I suppose there could be worse things than being able to work both sides of your brain equally well, but nearly impossible to find something on Career Builder or Monster.com using those search words. All of this time applying and waiting can take its toll on you. I'm keeping weird hours, sleeping during the day and being wide awake all night. I think perhaps I have turned into a vampire. I mean, I do avoid mirrors and garlic - and I have to admit I have a badass coffin - but there's not much room for advancement amongst the undead and the pay is terrible.

I haven't given up hope, although it would be very easy to do so. I also won't be writing about this particular topic anymore. Hey, you folks have your own fields to plough. Even though I have the daunting specter of the unthinkable at my doorstep, I still allow myself the opportunity to revel in the joys of being human and alive. Sometimes, that takes the guise of watching a movie, going for a drive or meeting up with friends. Tonight, I think I'll unwind with some music. I'll connect my ear buds to the laptop, kick back and let the music take me on some mystical, cosmic adventure, beyond the stars, to the nether reaches of the galaxy and into deep space.

Life was simpler when we were younger. We all had hopes and dreams of what we wanted to be. How many of us can honestly say we have accomplished that? I know I haven't. You probably haven't, either. Tonight, I won't worry about being a banker, a writer or even a bartender. I won't worry about being unemployed. I won't imagine myself as a hockey player, zoologist or baseball player. In fact, tonight, perhaps I'll be something else, something I never saw myself being - aside from someone looking for a job.

Maybe, tonight, I'll be an astronaut.