Buckets

A few steps from my cubicle the office printer gently belches paper between clicks and whistles. 80's music plays overhead, just loud enough to determine which "classic" is synthesizing away. Now it's "Let's Hear It For the Boy". Maybe he's no Romeo, but that doesn't faze the singer.

I can see outside through the glass doors past the receptionist's desk. I am grateful for this piece of daylight. It reminds me that being here is a choice, because there's the door, and I'm not moving. Semi trucks rumble the bedrock when they drive past. The business across the street still has a large Christmas wreath up. It makes me wonder why nobody has taken ownership of taking it down yet.

The building I work in is alive with politics and deception, yet we all come to work everyday. Why? I feel like I can almost see over the rim of the bucket I'm in. If I could only stretch up a little higher, I could see where I should be.

I didn't always live in a bucket. My parents had, and still have, no bucket, and that was the horror that drove me. I worked hard, really hard, to get good grades and graduate college. I played in the woods, camping and hiking, and lived other lives, always thinking my salvation lay just over the bucket's rim. I scrambled to conform, to rise, to build this career, yearning to blend in, to grind down my rough edges and streamline my flaws. I graduated, and ploop, slipped into the bucket. It started with a small bucket, and I have traded lives unknown to get this bigger, better bucket.

I am grateful that I am 32, and escape is more than a dream. But for what will I trade my hard-won bucket? It is valuable, and has countless hours and toil in it. I can't just throw it away. How can I leverage my bucket? It's a one-shot deal, whispers the fear.

To be continued.