Worth

Your time, what is it worth?

The radio is turned on first thing in the morning, beginning the circuit of the same pop-songs played in the taunting identical order day after day. In between crude beats and the crooning about love and happiness at 9am there is the news report. A woman was sexually assaulted in a taxi cab. A cop was killed on duty, but his name is not being released. Make sure you check out Sealy for your mattress needs. Back to the music, you know the artists by name now. You have the lyrics memorized. They play behind your thoughts as you try and bury yourself in your work. They become the soundtrack to your life 40 hours a week.

One day you’ll be stuck in traffic, your windows will be rolled down. The car next to you will be playing Bruno Mars, something your brain doesn’t register until your stomach starts to growl. 12pm, that marks lunchtime at the office though in reality it’s 3pm and you’ve already eaten. You’re reduced down to Pavlov’s dogs, salivating at the sound of a bell. And really, it’s the fact that it’s Bruno Fucking Mars. Or Taylor Swift. Artists that you never wanted to listen to in the first place that now have some control over your body’s subconscious needs. It takes only a moment, then you’re moving forward at the green light, you never really actually notice the thought, but now the sun is in your eyes and you’re infuriated. You can’t figure out why.

Your time, what is it worth?

Apparently, a dollar above minimum wage, just to answer the phones for someone else and rehearse the same lines over and over. Hi, how can I help you? A dollar above minimum wage and you’re there to serve. Now when you pick up your personal phone, no matter the number flashing on the caller ID, on the back of your tongue is the offer of servitude, or a detached staple of unfelt sympathy. When your dad calls to tell you that the cat was mangled in the backyard by a coyote, all you can afford is ‘I’m sorry to hear that’ and a quick transition to something more comfortable. It’s not until later in the day that you imagine his wife bent over, picking out the scraps of her loved pet from the manicured lawn, tossing a mangled corpse into the dumpster like a ripped towel, that you realize it means more.

Your time, what is it worth?

Tomorrow is Friday, that means sorting through the local list of obituaries, combing through names to see how many people croaked this week in your book of business. Carol Lewis, 74, died on April 3rd . Funeral arrangements by Sunnyside Funeral Home. Gerald Watkins, 32, lost too young but lives on through the love of his family. Funeral arrangements by Over the Hill Funeral Home, click on the link and you get a fucking coupon. Then you have to go to the back, pick out from a stack of identical sympathy cards to send to their families. You sign ‘my deepest condolences’ and ‘our hearts go out to you in this time of sorrow’ in your neatest hand writing. You sign your name as a friend, though this family has never heard it before, and you’ve never seen them in your life. You realize that you didn’t write anyone a sympathy card when your own grandfather died, or a thank you letter when you received a couple pairs of earrings from your passed on great-grandmother. You never even went to their funerals.

Your time, what is it worth?

To the dude sitting across from you it’s two drinks and an entrée at Chili’s. He’ll compliment your hair and make small talk that will lead to asking you to come back to his apartment for a nightcap, he’ll expect a blowjob and you to leave immediately after. He will not call you again until a month later when he wants to repeat the ritual and it’s been enough time where he can ask the same questions over again. You could justify it in your head, maybe he’s busy, maybe it isn’t so bad, and he’ll feed you the same line he’s fed twenty other girls. The same line you’ve heard from twenty different guys. Whether you go or not you will spend the remainder of the night under the covers crying, the lonely gaping hole in your chest will not be filled and will instead seem to grow. You will wonder how much a hooker makes giving a blowjob, you determine it’s definitely more than two drinks and an entrée at Chili’s.

Your time, what is it worth?

And, again, the question will repeat in your head. It will repeat until it accompanies the pop songs on the radio. Taylor Swift will sing ‘Your time is worth nothing’ at 2pm every day. It will repeat every moment you spend fixing someone’s petty problem and they are ungrateful. It will repeat until it becomes a constant stream of background noise, a hum that will not recede over time but will instead only grow more obtrusive. It will repeat until you lie awake in bed and realize that your time has been broken down to worth calculated by everyone else’s self-interest, and you’re the one that got fucked in the process because you never stopped to consider your own.

Your time, what is it worth?

And you will realize that it is worth more.

You will realize that you have wasted your time, and that it’s no one’s fault but your own. You will change, drastically. You will quit your job, you will go back to school, you will listen to good music, you will create art, you will stop talking to the people that take you for granted, and you will begin to love yourself.

The people you leave behind will be hurt. They will be offended. They’ll accuse you of being a bad friend, they will accuse you of not caring, of being cold for not answering their calls. Your boss will say you were never reliable anyways, the guys you don’t answer will call you a slut, and people will say things about you that were never true in the first place. But you will let it roll off your back because the only person that defines your worth is yourself.

When you move to your new city someone will ask ‘Why did you come here?’ and you will merely smile back and shrug. You will say ‘I just needed a change’ as if that is a real answer. You will say it because it is easy. You will say it with that grin plastered on your face as you take another sip of your drink, knowing that explaining why to a stranger is a waste of time.

And you don’t waste your time.

S.W.