Trashed

 

I tossed it in the garbage with those ads that come each week.

Stores we don’t even shop.  Shit-canned without a thought.

But this was different.  I think.

To most it was a dog-eared file folder.  Two inches thick.  Crammed with pages of scribbled words, classified ads and yellowed letters of rejection.

 

It was a file plumb full of cover letter drafts and resumes to every job I had ever applied to.

Over a couple decades worth.

Now shoved in the trash next to junk mail from Flo at Progressive.

All my work history.  Done.  Gone.

 

And it bothered me.  I don’t know why.  But it did.

 

A lot of hopes & dreams were in that file.  Emotional ups and downs.

From the anticipation of opportunity…..to the gut-punch of rejection (as I saved every reply).

It was all in that file. 

A file now stained with table scraps from tonight’s dinner.

 

There is no way I could do what I once did.  Technology has bypassed my experience.  And the jobs are gone, swallowed up by a mega-company claiming it (hearts) radio & media.  An industry ruined by greed.

 

But even still putting that file in the trash felt as though I was giving in.  Giving up.  Getting beat-up by age, time and most certainly, multiple sclerosis.

I am grateful at being approved for SS Disability (and have been since 2009).  But there is still a lingering spark…small as it is…deep, deep inside.  The “what if” to keep pushing, striving for the next chapter.  The next opportunity.

I guess that’s the “hope” everyone talks so much about.

 

That file.  That stupid file.  So difficult to release from the clutch of my fingers.

It’s gone now.  Trashed.  Except for one meager resume I saved to remember all I had acheived in my working days.

Every stinkin’ exaggerated credential and embelished achievement!