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The 100th Man

OK, so it was about 5 years ago that my life took a very serious turn. I used to be a theater tech. I was an electrician, carpenter, stage manager, stage hand, all around go to guy. I worked for pretty much every theater in Atlanta at one point or another. There was never once someone who hired me who did not call me back for more work. In a small town (rather, a medium town with a VERY small theater community) where everybody knew everybody else, I had a solid reputation. No one cried their eyes out when I wasn't available, but I always had work.
When there was work to be had, that is. Times were sometimes pretty tight. I lived in Michigan for 2 years (June 2000 - July 2002) and when I came back, the pickings were slim. It took a while before I got back into the swing of things and into the regular rotation of hires. But I got there. I got there by working hard and being persistent.
By 2006 things had gotten even worse. There just wasn't enough work to be had. A LOT of my friends left town or changed jobs. I couldn't leave because of my daughter - I missed her so much the time I was gone that I couldn't do it again. Besides, she was older now and my being gone would be conscious to her. That was not an option.
My only solace in that time was that I had met a wonderful woman. We were friends for at least a year before we started dating, and I really loved her. She had met my daughter before we became a couple, which made things SO much easier. I am very careful about who I let my daughter meet. But this woman lived right up the street and my daughter & I used to run into her in the neighborhood, so it wasn't weird for my child when she started being around. A lot.
I won't go into all the gory details of what happened to that relationship, because right now I am feeling sad enough. Suffice to say, we broke up in 2006, after two years together. I had thought we were going to be married. Fool that I am.
Her biggest complaint (or at least the one she shared) was that I wasn't 'ambitious' enough: I didn't make enough money, I wasn't making enough forward progress. That kind of thing. I worked mostly nights and weekends. She worked for a law firm in the 'nice' part of town.

Anyway, after she broke up with me, I started thinking about whether or not she was right. Was staying in the theater not 'grown-up' enough? Would I have to give up my freelancing lifestyle? Was it time for me to get out? It sure didn't help that the economy was horrible and work was getting scarce. So when, less than 6 months after the break-up, a job offer came in, I caved in. I took the job. Nine to Five. Uniform shirt. But they were offering me health insurance and a guaranteed paycheck. I could budget myself because I would know that on the 1st and the 15th that I would be getting the exact same amount deposited into my bank account. I would also be working the same type of schedule that most other people were working. I could go out at 8 pm on a Friday. I thought I was making a good choice.

Well, I disappeared into that job. I became a drone, a lackey, a number on a spreadsheet. I thought I would make new friends, but I ended up working in an office with no co-workers. It wasn't until I took that job that I realized how much of my social life was built on my co-workers. Now they were all gone. Now I was the one who worked the different hours. My social life died a sad pathetic quiet pointless death.

I can't entirely blame the job, of course. It is my responsibility to 'put myself out there', I know. I could have joined a club or taken a class or found a hobby. But there never seemed to be any free time. I tried to find activities, but they always seemed to fall on days I was not free. I suppose I didn't try hard enough; I am not blaming anyone or anything but myself.
But my life did suffer. I quit smoking, which I guess is a good thing. And I started putting on weight like mad. I was never a skinny kid, and my weight has always been a thorn in my side and a constant battle. I was always pudgy. But now I was ballooning; it was ridiculous. Combine the factors of A) no smoking, B) no longer working in a field where climbing ladders, lifting heavy set pieces, rigging lights on scaffolds 60 feet above the deck, etc were everyday activities, and C) sitting for the better part of 40 hours a week in a office and you get a fat lazy fucking American. Sigh.
So I got fat and lonely. And it just kept getting worse and worse. And I kept telling myself that there was a point to all of this. That it was worth being unhappy to be financially secure. That my boss wanted to retire and that I had a good job for life set up with this company. That I would break out of my funk, join a gym, take a class, meet a girl, and live happily ever after.

In September of 2010, they let me go. Quite unceremoniously and with no advance notice. They treated me exactly the way I felt corporate America always treated people. I got cut loose at a time when the economy is at the worst it has ever been. They fucked me and my family over to save a few dollars.

I have not been able to find another job yet. Not in a state where the unemployment level is almost 11%. I am getting nervous, but I know I'll be OK. I will do what needs to be done to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. It'll be OK. It will.

But here I am, 5 years away from having given up my career to do something 'safe', something 'smart'. Here I am and I no longer know people in my old haunts. And I am 5 years out of the loop in the theater world, in an environment where it is even harder to get a job than it was when I left it. In the aftermath of a heartbreaking collapse, I gave up my dream to make myself more acceptable to the world around me. And I have never felt so miserable and alone. I have never felt so alien to myself. What a fool I have been.

There is no moral to this story. There is nothing to be learned. I will be OK. I will find a job and I will punch the clock and I will pay my daughter's way through school the best I can. I will become that number on the spreadsheet and I will figure out how to disappear on both fronts this time.

Yesterday a friend called me the 100th Man, based on a quote by Edgar Allen Poe that I posted on FaceBook.

"The ninety and nine are with dreams content; but the hope of the world made new,
is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true."

I felt ashamed to think someone held me in that high regard, that of the 100th Man, when my life right now is a testimonial to failing to be that man. I turned 40 a week ago and my life is an epic ballad of not being the man this friend thinks I am. If there is anything to take from my tale, it is what happens to a man when he gives up his dream. I hated not fitting in, then I hated trying to fit on, and I hate it now that I have been spit out for not having fit in.

I have never felt like there was anywhere I belonged. I always thought that if there wasn't a place in the world for someone like me, that I could make one. Now with the flimsy and meaningless shards of my entire existence slipping through my fingers, I don't even think that that is true. I dread the years ahead for their emptiness and their complete lack of connection to anything I might have once held dear.

I have no place in this world.