When I’m not at Home raising our daughters, I work as a Stagehand. These days I work pretty much exclusively as a Truck Loader. We empty the trucks in the morning and we reload them at night, after the performance. For the most part I like my job. Loaders work in small teams of four. We’ve been working together for a long time, there’s a lot of trust. We know how the other thinks and moves, hence not much talk is needed for us to do our jobs. It frees us to have hilarious and bawdy conversations. It can be a physical and grueling job. Sometimes we have to wrestle road boxes that are well over a couple hundred pounds. There’s a high risk for injury in the trucks. A stray rolling case can catch you in the back of the leg (which hurts like hell). A bad lift can not only injure you, but your fellow loaders as well. Boxes can crash together; I’ve had a few dislocated fingers over the years. If a high stack of boxes topples, there’s really nowhere to run, we’re all pretty much trapped in a fifty-three foot long tube. There’s an understanding of the risks and all of us are careful. We work as a team, no one is a hero. There’s too much Love between us to create an unsafe situation
When it’s all over I’m usually pretty sweaty and my body aches- my shoulders take a full twenty-four hours to recover from the rough gigs. Yet we’re happy warriors, and the laughter of happy warriors covers up gallows humor.
A fellow loader and I were standing at the dock one morning watching a tractor trailer backing up to the loading door, we were looking past the tractor to her sisters.
Pete spoke, “How many did you count?”
“Nine trucks.” I replied.
He grunted, “It may not be too bad, if the show is spread out over nine trucks, it may all be rolled off. No unstacking or lifting for us.”
“Maybe.” I replied, “But I doubt it. I’m betting these trucks are all stacked to the ceiling. We’re going to walk out of here broken and grumpy. All we’re going to think about is tonight, when we have to restack all that crap, when gravity is fighting us. After all that I’ll get to drive thirty-some odd miles back Home through the blizzard that’s predicted for tonight. For all my trouble I’ll get maybe three hours of sleep before I have to wake up and get Lyd ready for school. And…I’m guessing school will be called off due to the weather, which means I’ll be tired, grumpy and stuck with an antsy little girl suffering from boredom and cabin fever.” Pete turned and gave me a look. “What?” I replied, “It’s going to suck! That’s what I’m telling myself over and over. When you maintain a pessimistic outlook on life, then life becomes a series of pleasant surprises!”
He grunted again, “Well I suppose…”

Pessimism. Deliberate, pushed, force-fed pessimism. I’ve met my share of naturally pessimistic folks and I can say with complete honesty that I am not a pessimistic person. In fact I tend to live a life mostly defined by optimism. Sometimes I have to create an optimistic situation by being as pessimistic as I could. Sure, it’s manufactured optimism, but it’s still optimism.
At a different gig, another stagehand was complaining about a high maintenance group they needed to take care of later that day.
“Look at it this way,” I said, “At the end of the day, if you are able to say, ‘at least no one stabbed me in the throat with a ballpoint pen!’ then it will have been a good day!” He took a thoughtful bite of his doughnut…then shrugged in resigned agreement.
In the law of averages, I think it’s safe to say that getting stabbed in the throat with a ballpoint pen would be the worst thing that would happen to someone that day…assuming that person survives the attack. If you live your life from that point of view…every day is awesome! (Get it? “Point?”)
It’s another example of setting your bar low. If you set it low, you will leave a decent mark on the wall. If you can leave a mark, that means you can leave a higher mark. Right?
Baby steps, it’s all about baby steps. Slow and steady wins the race. I know I have another tired adage I can insert somewhere around here! Set a small goal, reach it. Set another goal, and reach that one. My big dreams can’t and really won’t happen overnight; so I guess I need to take smaller steps and take my time.

I still want to win the lottery, but that’s a different matter.

As I get older, I’m starting to look back a little more, not because I want to go back (Oh hell no! I like me in my forties! I was a jerk back then!). Looking back, it’s been a pretty interesting trip so far. It’s been interesting enough where I’m starting to notice that I actually have come from somewhere, and for that matter I am actually heading somewhere. I’m pretty deep into my second act and I’m starting to realize my play is either short or it’s going terribly fast. I’m starting to appreciate the journey more than ever before. It’s making me a little less scared of the destination.
Maybe that’s the secret- no one is naturally optimistic; all optimism is manufactured.
That’s fine by me.

For the record, that nine truck gig was easy. All the cases and racks rolled off, there was pretty much no stacking or lifting. The predicted blizzard was a dusting. Lyd went to school and I was able to take a nap when Regina took her nap.
As if it matters, the next gig is going to suck, big time.