My Time

In a way – a big way – failing to weather this particular storm was my fault.

I felt it coming for years. But like the brave newscasters who have to get out from behind the desk to report the news when the hurricane is coming in only to get blown over or have to cling to a power pole as the winds buffet them.

So in 2005, about ten years after I entered the world of newspaper journalism, I left. Rear-end first. I screwed up a court story that could have landed the paper in hot water – partly because for years I’d been burned out on journalism, didn’t like the job any more, and didn’t care.

So to quit/be fired, was a relief – and was rattling.

I had a wife and three kids. My wife worked part-time as an office manager and was having her own struggles with difficult bosses. My job brought the health insurance and the bulk of our income. I should have stayed. Should have tried to fix my attitude.

But I walked away.

We were living in a town of just under 2,000 people, next to a town of about 20,000. Job prospects were few. So my brother, who was doing a brick job nearby, came by with a pizza. I didn’t want to see him, or anybody else for that matter. The copy of the paper announcing my rear-end exit was underneath the bed, and I felt its righteous indignation zooming at me through the mattress.

We ate the pizza. He talked to me about working, and jobs, and how God would help take care of us.

I didn’t even taste the grease. And I didn’t want to hear about God. If God cared, he’d have helped me feel better about being a journalist, rather than sending me to work all day feeling sorry for myself.

So I became a hod carrier again – a bricklayer’s assistant. My brother gave me a job right there. He didn’t have to. He did because I was his brother and I needed the job.

I still felt sorry for myself, though it meant I still could collect a paycheck.

That was April April first. And I was the April Fool.

He was working on a better job of his own. He’d worked before for a contractor making tank armor for the United States government, and it was looking good that he could get on with them again. That meant my reprieve from joblessness was temporary.

So I had to apply for lots of jobs. And soon.

On my own. Because, you know, God didn’t help me out before. So why bother him?

I applied for lots of jobs, both locally and out of state. Got invited to quite a few interviews. And always got to that spot where we talked about my employment history and I had to tell them what happened. I never got a call back.

My brother got his job making armor, leaving me jobless again.

I wasn’t jobless for long. Quickly, I was working mornings stocking shelves at a big box store and afternoons and evenings doing telemarketing. The first job showed me I might be able to organize things. The second job showed me there were things I was worse at than Journalism.

And God wasn’t part of my equation.

Especially the rainy morning when, on the way to the box, my truck broke down – turns out it threw a rod – and I had to call my wife using the last ounce of juice in the cell phone so she could come get me. And take me to my loser job and then pick me up from my loser job and take my loser self home to stew about getting the truck towed somewhere to get it fixed – though we couldn’t afford to. 

Probably.

So I sat in that truck and talked with God. It was the first time I’d talked with Him since I lost my job. I wasn’t pleasant. As the rain splattered the windshield I had to tuck my glasses into my pocket to try to wipe off the tears.

As my wife pulled up behind me, I heard two words: My time.

My time.

My time.

I thought about those words on the way to work.

That was November.

December came. Still the big box and the call center.

January. Still the big box but a different call center, one with vastly better health benefits.

February. More jobs applied for, more jobs rejected for.

March. My wife saw a camper for sale. Three thousand dollars. We were still paying off the $1,500 for the rebuilt truck engine. Her Dad had to buy me tires.

Three thousand dollars, she said. We’ve got it in the bank. We can afford it.

I have two jobs that suck, I reminded her.

My time.

My time. The words kept coming. I hadn’t talked to God since that rainy day in November. I had no faith.

Mid-March. No job prospects.

We bought the camper. “It’ll work out,” my wife said.

I didn’t see how.

Then the blessed Tuesday. We walked our kids to school and decided, since I had the day off, to continue our walk in the spring sunshine. My wife had our cell phone with her. She decided to check messages – something she did only once or twice a month.

There was a message.

A job offer.

My time, the voice said again in my head.

I called the number and set up a time to talk. Friday, my next day off, wasn’t fast enough. So Wednesday, during my lunch break.

“The job is yours if you want it,” the man said.

If I wanted it? A job where I’d have health benefits, make 2 ½ as much as I was now, and have three-day weekends in perpetuity?

Damn hell I wanted the job.

We shook hands.

On the way home, the calendar popped into my head.

April Fools Day.

I was still a fool.

“I never stopped praying,” my wife said as we walked, after she checked the messages and after I made that phone call.

“I did,” I confessed.

“I know,” she said. “I talked to God about it. A lot. I knew you were hurting. But you kept going to church. You kept looking. You should have involved God more. But He never left.”

My time, I remembered the voice saying.

I’ve talked a lot with God since then. I don’t wait for the storm clouds to come any more.

I also thanked my brother for that pizza. And that job.