"I'm gonna be a happy idiot and struggle for the legal tender..."

"Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined." - Johnny Carson

There were a lot of things I loved about teaching. Being able to share my knowledge and wisdom, not just about music, but about life and success and growing up and a million other things, is an incredibly rewarding opportunity. By the time I left, there were just too many things about the job that were not only unsatisfying, but incredibly disheartening. The climate of the American public education system has changed a great deal in the past 15 years. The amount of misplaced accountability has skyrocketed. Society is amazingly critical of teachers. They are underpaid, overworked, and generally maligned for doing an extremely difficult job day after day with inadequate resources and uncooperative clients. Music teachers, in particular, are considered to be an even lower class of contributors to society. When I told people what I taught, their reply was invariably, "Oh, so you're not a real teacher." Even teacher look down on music teachers. The stress of the job is phenomenal, especially with the lack of a support system.

"Midway upon the journey of my life,
I found myself in a dark wood,
where the right way was lost."
- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

So it was that I left my career of 14 years as a high school music educator and spent some time wandering in Dante's woods. I rediscovered my dream of being a writer. This quote from my first post on this blog seemed so apt when I included then, and seems even more so now. I have no idea where this path will emerge from the woods, or even when. The trees press around me and make it seem as though I may never see the sun without the filter of their branches, for that is what a dark time in our life is like, seeing the sun through a filter of thick branches. I know that it still shines, for today I entered a bit of a clearing.

"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today was the first day of work at my new job. This is not a career, mind you, it is but a way of keeping roof overhead and sustaining my physical self, so that my mental self has the freedom to create. I asked a few people when I first embarked on this journey if it was possible for a person's main occupation and their career to be two different things. Most people did not comprehend the possibility. Several firmly told me that it could not be so. I believed then, and still believe today, that it can be true. My career is "writer" but my job at this time is "retail media specialist."

"And I want to thank you for caring about my job, really." - Zack, Employee of the Month

I would like to thank all of my friends and readers who took the time to send me happy thoughts and positive vibes, all of those who said prayers on my behalf, all of those who truly cared about how I would fare in this transition, and still do. It is appreciated more than you know.

"You see, what we're actually trying to do here is, we're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work... so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?" - Bob Slydell, Office Space

I started my work day at about 1:00 this afternoon by learning the finer points of the software and hardware used to complete transactions. The P.O.S. terminal (no, it means point of sale) is the central conduit for everything from clocking in and out to checking for release dates on the internet and ringing up purchases. When I last worked in retail back in the late 1980's, I was using a "simple" cash register (so simple that nobody else in the hardware store I was working in at the time really knew how to use most of its functions... I programmed it and taught everyone else how to use it). That bore only an ancestral resemblance to this computer terminal.

I look at it this way. When I was much younger, I was involved in music as a performer. I played music for the enjoyment of others. As I grew older, I became involved in music as a teacher. I taught people to play music for the enjoyment of others. Now, I am involved in music as a vendor. I sell people music that they can listen to for their enjoyment. It is really like a circle. We sell CD's, DVD's, some sheet music, and things like mp3, CD, and DVD players and such. I get to work directly with people who are looking for some entertainment to brighten their day. I get the chance to share my knowledge and excitement about music and movies with these people. I get to talk to them. I even got to talk about the Mets today to a guy who came in wearing a David Wright jersey. I have a direct impact on people almost every moment of the day, much like I did when teaching. The big difference is that if they don't like what I recommend, or the way in which I present it, I don't get called into my supervisor's office because mommy or daddy visited him to complain that I didn't explain the product well enough, or that I spent more time with some customers than with others. The difference in the level of responsibility was vast and liberating. If I screw up, it does not "destroy" lives (we know that sometimes teenagers lives are "destroyed" by the smallest things). I am not directly responsible for the fragile self-image of a hundred other people simultaneously. At this point in my life, that is refreshing.

I think it must be the ghost of Cory's suicide haunting me. That event, when a former student took his own life because he did not find the rest of the world as accepting as my band program, has changed my life forever. I can never escape the responsibility I felt and to some extent still feel. I don't blame myself. I know I could not have prevented it. I know I couldn't save everyone. I just couldn't let that happen again on my watch. I saved some people who were extremely close to taking the same steps to end their unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life, but it took its toll on me. Now I must be the student and learn to reconnect with myself. I must observe the variety of people who will come through my store each and every day and learn all I can from watching them and interacting with them. I will not have a direct impact, but I will affect them in small ways... and I will watch.

"Life is like a mop. Sometimes life gets full of dirt and crud and hairballs and things and you gotta clean it out. You gotta stick it in here and rinse it off and start all over again. And sometimes life sticks to the floor so much that a mop, a mop, it's not good enough. You gotta get down there with like a toothbrush, you know, and you gotta really scrub 'cause you gotta get it off. But if that doesn't work, you can't give up. You gotta stand right up. You gotta run to a window and say, 'These floors are dirty as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more!'" - Stanley Spadowski, UHF

For now, I learn the routine. I learn the procedure, the system, the rules of the game. At times today, things just felt strange. I was never unhappy. I just felt out of place at times. I felt like this was a diversion, and eventually I would go back to my old life. I think that feeling is normal immediately after any big change. It's like when you take ice skates or catcher's gear off and you still feel as if you are wearing them for a while afterward. It's going to take time. I have to come to terms with my new reality.

I will say that at the end of the day, my younger co-worker was exhausted and couldn't wait for the time to pass until we could close the store and he could go relax. Both of my co-workers were astounded by my lack of a need to leave the sales floor and my constantly being able to straighten stock and engage with customers without seeming to tire. To be honest, I am physically tired. My legs are sore. The difference between this and how I felt at the end of a day of teaching was this. At the end of a day of marching band, I was physically and mentally drained. I had to make thousands of split second decisions every minute, affecting the well being of a hundred other people. I had to monitor the heat, check for clouds that may contain lightning, scan the kids for signs of heat exhaustion or dehydration, evaluated hundreds of points of reference for musical and physical (marching) performance at all times. I had to supervise, monitor and adjust, track behavior and progress, encourage and motivate, discipline and praise. I had to coordinate millions of variables mentally at all times simultaneously. Talk about multi-tasking! At the end of a day of concert or jazz band, I was physically fine, but mentally drained from all of those mental calculations. At the end of my work day today, I was mentally fresh, but physically tired.

For me, physical tiredness, aching in the muscles and such, takes much less of a toll on my well-being. Due to my old injuries and some chronic pain I deal with every day, I am used to letting physical pain roll off of me. I am sore, but I am not tired. I am physically strong, even without working out regularly (my students were always amazed by my physical strength and loved to challenge me to arm wrestling after concert clean-up was finished, thinking I would be worn-out from carrying heavy equipment and conducting for an hour... few ever beat me). I can handle this. I am sure that there will be mentally taxing days. I know that I will come home frazzled at times, but so far I feel that I am in a good place, where my talents in working with others will be maximized, my knowledge of movies and music will be utilized, and my wisdom and experience will grow and develop. My dream is to be a writer. I write the human experience.

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die." - Edward Kennedy

It is my turn to be the student. The entire world is my teacher. There are so many different kinds of people in this world and, being in the heart of a tourist "mecca," our store sees visitors from all parts of it.

Welcome to my store. What kinds of music are you looking for? What types of movies do you like? I will be there, at your service, every day that I am called to be. Just know that I am watching... and learning.

"I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again."
- Jackson Browne, The Pretender