Today I Woke Up

Today around 12:20 PM, I closed up my toolbox, grabbed my lunch tin, and walked to my truck. When I was about 15 steps away from my driver’s side door, I felt like running. I felt like the crew might have reached out and grabbed me by my heels. I dreaded every step.

“Where you think you’re off to?”

I just left. Same job site we’ve been at the past 18 months. Same crew, I’ve been with the past 24. I was in there working in the AC; we electricians didn’t have it bad, I guess. But I went outside for lunch around noon, and the Texas sun hugged me in a way I hadn’t felt in years. I guess it felt really familiar. I felt like an alien immediately. Like I was all of a sudden aware of how fucking stupid the guys were. Aware of how bad my boss was. Aware of how beautiful it was outside.

The two Mexicans went to sit in their shared car. They pretty much just drank tall boys in there and watched videos on their phones.

Jim - the site lead - usually leaned on his truck, never ate lunch, and smoked a cig while he talked to his wife, or whoever he talked to. He was about 6’2”, 210 lbs, and hadn’t been on his knees working in 8 years. What made it worse is he was 10 years younger than me.

Alen, Richard, Josh, Mike, Daniel and I all stepped out for lunch at the same time, and like the walking dead we all basically floated towards our cars. I didn’t feel any different until the moment I was outside. I had been doing this same bit for the last 17 years, same routine, same kind of guys.

Usually I get to my truck, grab the same chair I unfolded and sat in for 30 minutes, but today was different.

I knew, within an instant, that today was different. Today I was walking to my truck. Sitting down. starting her up, and simply driving home.

As I got closer to my truck, it was as if the devil himself was behind me. Like every ugly part of myself and sin I had committed was there. I think they always were, but today I just felt comfortable enough in the warmth of the sun to let them be. To drive off and leave them and the expectations of Jim, Alen, Richard, Josh, Mike, and Daniel behind. I guess I didn’t worry too much about the Mexicans.

When the engine turned over, they all looked. Stopped in their tracks. I didn’t hesitate a moment before I put her in drive, heard the transfer case clink, and started rolling off just as soon as I began taking pressure off the pedal. I felt like a 15-year-old behind the wheel, like stupid or something, clumsy. I thought I might hit something and be left here. Make a fool of myself. I didn’t. I just drove right out through the lot. No one chased me. Jim didn’t call for me. They all just watched.

I rolled down the windows; mine still required a bit of effort, leaning over the passenger seat to get that side down manually, but then I was there. I don’t know, maybe they would say in the moment. Like the past was the past. All the weight that I guess is just normal life was gone. This was freedom. I drove and reflected. The days, how many of them had passed. Had I even thought of my kids in the last two years outside of the times they gave me a call? Hell, one of my boys lives 45 minutes away, and I haven’t ever taken my grandson to school.

I started to feel nervous, scared really. Scared I had let it all go by. That if I tried to call my boys now, they may not care to chat, and hell, the worst part is I wouldn’t have blamed ‘em.

Today I woke up.

I took this photo driving through Texas on a road trip I took in 2023 with a buddy from the Marines. We drove 2,300 miles, never left the state. It was weird to be there, to me everything was unique and new. It was like a novelty to see what people did there everyday, to me they were in my life in such a passing way, but the idea that they drove that same loop the next day, or were on their way to something important, just kind fo stuck with me. I loved this photo because the story nehind it could have been anything. I wrote one that resonated with me.