"T-shirts are not airplanes."

This has been my answer to many people wondering how the new job is, how life is, what I'm up to, etc. And they laugh. They laugh like this is the most obvious thing in the whole world. I guess it is. They laugh as though they understand. And while they may, I doubt they understand the landscape of emotion that I pretend to veil with those words. I am not sure anyone really understands because everyone, including myself, has just taken this all in stride as if my years of working to get to airplanes are satisfied by folding t-shirts and, on really interesting days, cutting the tags out of shirts so we can iron on tagless labels.

Mostly, I miss doing something interesting. I am beginning to feel forgotten in this warehouse on the edge of town. I do not know how long I will be here or what turn this road may take next, but I can tell you one thing: depression is not far away. I will accept this as calmly as I accepted getting fired and finding myself in a warehouse full of marathon shirts. I will take it because it is the next season and I know it will not last long. And I do not mean to be melodramatic. I mean to be perfectly matter-of-fact. What I can see of the future, seems to bring loss and loneliness. My prayer is that I will remember to fall back on the coping skills that have kept me whole before, that bitterness will be replaced with contentment. Can one be content in depression? I think so. I think it reads much like "blessed are the poor in spirit".

I am sure that someday, I will be full of nostalgia for my very early mornings and late nights spent drenched in sweat and counting to 12 while Spanish love ballads play on the radio. It is a peculiar place and it has shown me much that I am thankful for. There are so many people who bless me and take care of me through broken English and complex Spanish. These people who are showing me how to again be human are some whom I will never forget. And yet...t-shirts are not airplanes.