Change

The only certain thing…
Other than Death and Taxes of course.
As lives go, I’ve not lead the most evenly spaced. It’s not been all bad, but there have been some bad times – it often feels like there have been more bad times than good.
But, all thing change. Nothing lasts forever – not the bad, and not the good either.
Last year was one of the bad times. From March, no income – not even unemployment from the Government. I suppose they though that, since I’m a whitie – that much reviled species in the Suck Heap – I don’t deserve their largess. Thank Heavens for family. If not for them, I would now have been in a squatter camp of my own somewhere with all the other members of my reviled species.
Then, one night, as I was sitting in my lounge, doors open wide to listen to the night sounds, a wind came up. It billowed the curtains and blew straight into my heart – a wind of change. I wrote about it at the time. I felt the cleansing it brought. The promise of a change, a new beginning. At the time, I felt refreshed, heartened. Of course, such feelings do not last. I mean, how much stock can you really put into a wind blowing? Regardless of what you felt when it happened. So I left it and carried on with life as best I knew how.
And then I got a call. Do you think you can look after kids? Help them with their homework in the afternoons?
Well, uhm, yeah… I probably could. I did not say what I really thought – that’s the last thing I want to do! Look after a bunch of bloody rugrats while they moan and groan and cat all spoilt…
Suffice to say, I had nothing else in the cards. Only possibles of maybe selling a house, or maybe selling long term insurance, maybe finding a job in a market that’s not on my side on either age or colour – so I took the offering as a sign of the wind and the Universe and my G-d actually delivering on a promise made. I grabbed it with both hands and now I have to eat my words.
I am at the coast. Living in a cute, albeit noisy, flat, a few plants, a few birds that I feed every day, enough to eat, place to sleep and benefactors that make me feel guilty for all they do for me. They pay me a decent salary. They gave me a car to drive with, a cleaning service once a week, and they pay for my electricity and the flat I stay in.
And the kids, you may ask? Those terrible rugratty ankle biters? Lovely boys. Well mannered for the most part, mostly prepared to listen to me, and do what I teach them. They enjoy my company as I enjoy theirs. I feel as if I’m actually doing something constructive – I play a part in these kids’ lives. I can try and make a difference to the outcome of their years. I don’t just help a company make more and more and more money to the detriment of my soul.
I help kids – and I think that’s kinda real. Sure I get paid to do it – that was, after all the reason I took the job – but it seems more than just a job. Not something I’ve ever felt in any of the many jobs I’ve had throughout my life.
I miss my house and my people and my animals – especially my animals. But this opportunity? This is something that I thank G-d for every day of my life.
I see the ocean every day – sometimes I even walk next to it. I have a bit of extra cash to do little things with – buy a cinnabon or a hobby thing, I have every morning free to do with what I like and I get to make a change in a few people’s lives.
I can’t say this will last forever. Maybe it’s just a temporary thing and I have to go back to my dreary existence.
But for now, I am blessed and content for the most part.
There are people out there that do make a change in other’s lives…