I had to be at work this morning at 4:00. That’s never been a fun time to start working. It means I’m up at 2:30 to get ready and get in the car for the drive. Being in retail, I’ve worked all kinds of crazy hours, of course, working the normal day shifts have always been preferable.
When I started in this wonderful business I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to get away from I was in San Diego and would work from one in the morning until 10. I’d go home from work and, being in my 20’s, it was no big deal to stay up the rest of the day. I’d party with my roommates, go to the beach or just generally hang out until about seven or eight at night. I’d then take a short snooze, a few hours at best, and get ready to do it all again. No big deal, living on three hours a night.
Wow, have thing changed. I normally get to work now at 5:30 so you would think an hour and a half difference wouldn’t be that big of a deal, wrong! I felt a step behind all day. Just couldn’t catch up with myself all day long. The more into my workday I got, the more my back hurt or my legs would feel like they weighed a ton. Then, of course, my head started playing games with me. You know, mid life and what have I done with myself, why didn’t I stay in school, how come that kid doesn’t seem as wiped out as I am when we both came into work at the same time, did I leave the coffee pot on. Ugh!
The workday ended and I was feeling old and useless and I just wanted to go home and crawl into bed and never get out again. I got into the car and started it up. I turned on the radio and the all news station started telling me the world’s problems. Oh no, the mood I was in was certainly not conducive to listening to this kind of stuff. I needed to get myself up. I had to make myself believe that I wasn’t finished, that I wasn’t too old to keep up with the kids. That I hadn’t turned into the old man my father was at my age.
I started flipping around the radio stations looking for a little juice that the local stations might be able to provide. No luck. Either the songs were too new or just plain not loud and hard enough to put a little spirit back into this old soul of mine. I turned on the satellite radio and started pushing the buttons on that, boy, talk about 57 channels and nothing on, this was dreadful. With my satellite radio you can see what song is playing and the artist on the little screen. I kept running through the stations to, what seemed, no avail. Then I saw it.
Across the screen I saw the words “Mama Kin”, a song on the very first Aerosmith album from way back in 1973. It’s a definite rocker and would certainly cure my ills. I hit the button to get to that station and all I heard were the last couple notes before a different song by a different artist came on. Damn! Mind you, I was still in the parking lot at work. My car, being the mess that I keep it, has a ton of cd’s in it. They’re just strewn all over the place. I know I have that cd, I wondered if it was in the car. After searching the cd’s in the front seat with no luck, I got out of the car, opened one of the back doors and climbed in to search under the seats, there it was: my treasure of the Sierra Madre, as it were. Aerosmith’s first album.
I put the cd in, rolled down the windows, turned the volume way up and as the first few bars of “Mama Kin” came out of the speakers I headed home. As each song on the cd played I seemed to feel a little better. By the end of the cd I was just pulling into my driveway. It sort of fit just right. I no longer felt totally exhausted, yeah, I was still tired but I was still able to take Lucky out for our walk up to DQ and get a Blizzard. I came home, played around on the computer and watched the game. Not an incredibly taxing evening but I did have the ride home to remind me that no matter what your age or physical condition is, you’re never too old to rock n roll. It was a needed lesson
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