What do you think?

When the pandemic hit, I lost my job like alot of others around the world. I had been a server for almost ten years and I was told in a corporate email that I couldn't come back to work. They said it should be 2 weeks. We all know how that worked out. I knew almost immediately that I wouldn't be going back to restuarant work once they reopened because I was just tired of it. The pandemic gave me an escape, so I took it.

Finding what I was going to do next was the hard part. I took a job at Walmart to pick groceries for online shoppers so I could get by while I pondered what my next move was. I hated that job so much. I had built a bond with so many people of all ages in the restuarant industry. The people I was working with now were kids. Literal kids. Some were still in high-school. My manager had just graduated. This was a job for people who were just starting in the work force, not a thirty year old father of two children, and it was paying that that way. Not only did I have to inch through the aisles of Walmart for eight hours every day, not only did I have to try to relate to children, but I also wasn't making enough to pay the bills.

I felt awful about all of it. I felt awful about what I was doing for a living, I felt awful about making so little money, and I felt awful having to say that I was a grocery picker at walmart when people asked what I did for work. I dreaded having to tell people.

That's when I found an opening for a computer technician. The job was open for entry level applicants and I knew if I could do that, well, then that would be something to be proud of. A fancy computer job where I could have an office and work from home, and troubleshoot computer software for people over the phone. I soared through every part of the interview process. Three interviews, an IQ test, and a meeting with the owner of the company, and I was hired. I started off making the best money I have made to date, and I was over the moon about it. I couldn't wait to tell people about the new job I had.

Those fancy feelings lasted all but two weeks.

I thought it was a full on mental breakdown. One day I just couldn't log on, I froze up completely. I had to call my wife into the room and once she was there, I just lost it. The confidence I had portrayed getting that job withered away completely. An “ego-death" if you will. I was no longer intelligent. No, I was stupid, and I was saying so. Everything I thought of myself seemed to completely flip. Anything positive that I had held my head high about went down the drain instantaneously, and my wife couldn't help. She loves me so of course she is going to say flattering things, but I didn't believe a word of it anymore.

I took a job at Walmart again but this time as a member of security. Instead of just telling myself horrible things, I walked around all day and had customers and transients shout them at me as well. I just couldn't find out what was wrong with me and it scared me. I like to dissect my thoughts in my head and discover the roots and reasons for my feelings and I couldnt do that this time. There wasn't an answer that I could see and I thought I had actually broke myself. I couldn't focus, I couldn't enjoy things, I couldn't love my wife, and it quickly felt like the blast from the break rippled until the force began to knock over dominoes that I had meticulously aligned.

I finally had to get help. I just needed to talk to someone that could dissect me without having to deal with the internal struggle I was going through. To my surprise, she did it quickly. I didn't have a mental breakdown, I had a panic attack. The change of a cozy, complacent serving job for ten years into odd jobs and then rushing into something I had never done like computer work really just caused me to overload and shut down for a minute.

I realized something much more important though after our talk. A more important realization than just “change of scenery” caused a panic attack. I realized how much I care, how much I deeply and internally care about what people think about me.

Picking groceries wasn't stressful, they didn't mistreat me, and if I would have waited another month, a raise was coming my way so the bills would have been fine. No, none of that was the problem. The problem was telling people I worked at Walmart picking groceries. That's what bothered me. How people would look at me, how they would think about my life, how they would think about what had become of me. On the other hand, telling people I was a computer tech, well, that really made me walk tall. People would think I was intelligent, people would think I made good money, they would think I was successful.

The ironic truth about all of this, the one thing I could not tell myself, and the one thing that seemed the most unrealistic to me, is that a stranger does not give a single fuck about what I am doing. They dont care how I am paying my bills, they don't care where I'm driving to every morning and they don't care what my tax bracket is. A stranger sees me, looks away and moves on with their day. I have to remind myself of this every single day now. I didn't just wake up and say you know what, I don't care what people think anymore. No, I still very much do care. I know because I root out random thoughts every day. They are so natural to me that I have to work to not only recognize when a thought like this comes in, but then flush it out and disown it.

I drive a shuttle for the hospital now, which means I wear a Salem Health badge. The other day, I was driving to the store before work and I realized I had my badge on under my jacket instead of on the outside. I reached for my badge to put it somewhere where people would see it. Once I realized what I was doing, I stopped myself and asserted how stupid of a thought that was. Alot of times they are actually disgusting to me. Especially realizing I have had these thought for years, and they have changed who I am.

If I meet a nice person then I think, I wish people thought I was that nice, I meet a sharp dresser and I think, I wish people saw me wear clothes like that. The monster is constant and it is unrelenting if I let it roam as it pleases. In all reality I don't even want these things, I simply want people to think of me as these things. They don't care.

The people that do care about me, the friends, the family, well they love no matter the job I have. They seem to like who I am without me trying. You can't walk around all day telling yourself nobody cares about you, that's not going to lead to anything resembling a good day. There are people who care, sometimes there are alot of people. But those people aren't the strangers you pass in the store.

There are so many little things that you can think people care about when you leave the house. Do they care about my outfit not matching, do they care about my car, do they care about my hair? They don’t. They really don’t, and if they do, its for the split second that you walk by them, and then they forget and move on.

There was a time when there wasn't a better Michael Jackson inpersonater under 12 years old walking this earth. At some point, I thought that people didn't think it was cool that I could do the moonwalk better than the man himself. The truth is, it was awesome, and I wish I would have known that, because I wouldn't have dimmed the light in myself as I grew up. Knowing your own thoughts helps you find the ones you like and the ones you don’t, and if you can ditch the ones you don't, you end up liking yourself more, which is really the most important part. The more you like yourself, the more you can be yourself.