Pages

Everyday Juggle

Joseph finds Garret on his couch, sitting still, eyes open and staring off into a corner of the room. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"Struggling."

"Struggling with what? Seems like you're just sitting on the couch doing nothing."

"It's the everyday struggle, Joe. I guess it's something you just don't know about."

Joseph rolls his eyes. "Okay, then explain it to me."

"I realize that plenty of other people in the world have it a lot worse than me, I'm not that obtuse. I'm employed and have a roof over my head and so, relatively speaking, life is good." Garret's eyes remain fixed on the corner of Joseph's living room.

"So what is it?"

"There are just so many choices we have to make every day. It's overwhelming. I mean, even on my little salary, I could go out right now and pick up a bucket of fried chicken, a huge portion from the Chinese food place, a cheesesteak … you know pretty much anything we could want."

"So that's what this is about. You're hungry and can't decide what to eat."

"No! No Joe, it's not about food. I happen to be hungry right now, so that's the example I used, but this is about a lot more than just food."

"Well, what?"

"I don't know, think for yourself, wouldja? I could run five miles or stream a marathon of pretty much any tv show ever all night or chain smoke or go to the movies or drive to Atlantic City or, or…."

"Or?"

"I don't know! The possibilities are endless, everyday."

"Sounds more like a juggle than a struggle. You're just juggling all of the different stuff you have to do or wanna do on a daily basis."

"Whatever."

Joseph sighs. "So for now you've decided to sit on the couch and do nothing."

"For now, yes."

"That's very Zen of you."

"Joe?"

"Yes?"

"I'm still hungry."

"Did you expect to become less hungry without eating something?"

"Let's order a pizza."

"Okay."

"Can you get it?"

"Always easier to make those everyday choices with someone else's money, isn't it?"

A Working History

He came home from the office one day and asked, "How would you feel about going back to work?"

With the kids both in school full time and her hobbies approaching obsession, she told him she wouldn't mind one bit.

"Good," he said, "because I can't take it much longer."

And that was how, in the summer of the tenth year of their marriage, she became the family breadwinner and he a stay-at-home dad. Their needs weren't many, just enough to pay the bills of a simple lifestyle, and they were happy.

Five years later nearly to the day, she came home from the office and asked, "How would you feel about going back to work?"

The kids have soccer and chess and the school play, and the house is always clean when you get home, he told her. He wanted to just leave things alone.

"But I lost my job today," she said, "downsizing."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"If I can't find something new, you'll have to go out and look too."

Months went by and they lived on her unemployment check. She looked online for jobs and submitted resumes and got a few interviews but nothing panned out. He inquired casually and not-so-secretly hoped she'd find something first. Home together throughout the day and she too anxious to enjoy her old hobbies, they fought more often than they ever had. He didn't see why they should fight and told her they were blessed and they should enjoy it while it lasted. She calmed down and their love life perked up and they went from frequent fighting to an ephemeral giddiness, and the mood in the house became so lighthearted as to confuse their kids, the kids wondering how their unemployed parents could be so happy and unconcerned. The kids became jealous of their friends and the oldest asked about getting a job and the parents said, "yes."

A couple of paychecks into his oldest child's working life, the father felt a little embarrassed about his kid being the family's only earner, so he hunkered down and applied for many, many jobs and took the first one he was offered that allowed for a decent living. His wife went back to her hobbies.

He was never out of work for an extended period again and she worked on and off. Both kids went to college thanks to debt and grants and campus jobs. When he came home one day and told her he was ready to retire, they joked about what their lives would be like and spoke about when they'd both been at home years before. They were both much younger then, she said, and he told her that he thought they were pretty lucky.