Earning a Living in "The Guilted Age"

Greetings, friends! I address you while “enjoying” my final business trip as a childless dude. I left beautiful Shreveport, LA, earlier this evening. As of the time when my connecting flight punched its way into the Memphis twilight, Sara had not yet gone into labor. I’ve never been so happy for anything in my entire life, though who knows what surprise awaits me when I stumble in at 1:00 tomorrow morning? If I don’t forget about the new bassinet at the foot of our bed, I just might crawl into the sack without waking up Sara. This is much more important than it was weeks and months ago, as my darling wife is not sleeping nearly as well as she used to; you know, before she was 8.5 months pregnant.

Anyone who knows me knows that I spend a good bit of my life on the road. Here’s a quick rundown on how glamorous it is, for all you “Must Be Nicers” out there...

On an average month, I drive to and from Philadelphia International Airport four times, board maybe a dozen flights, use about six rental cars, spend eight nights in hotel rooms, and eat only-God-knows-how-many slices of shitty airport pizza. To a man, this is an ass-load of travel, though in the universe of Road Warriordom, it’s mere chump change; putting it in baseball terms, I’m a Triple-A player, who has had a few cups of coffee in “the show.” Ryan Bingham I am not, nor would I ever want to be. Still, it’s a lifestyle I willingly accepted eighteen years ago; what bright-eyed, recent college graduate would scoff at a chance to indulge his wanderlust and get paid for it? As an added bonus, it’s provided a decent living over the years (though you would not know it, to drive through our neighborhood).

How does Sara feel about this? I would say that our five-year relationship has survived my lifestyle quite nicely (that’s the sound of me jinxing myself, isn’t it?). Not unlike my love affair with the drum kit, the way I earn a living is what health insurers would term a “preexisting condition.” Sara does not have to like it (and oftentimes does not), but she is low-maintenance enough to accept things as they are. Hell, there are far worse “pre-existing conditions” one could bring in to a relationship. “Closet Crackhead,” “Human Immunodeficiency Virus,” “Mafia Wiseguy,” “Into the IRS for $200K” and “Secret Family Nobody Knows About” comprise a short list, just to get you started.

Still, a goodly chunk of my self-employed livelihood requires that I jet off to Kingston, Jamaica, in the middle of August. Or Winnipeg, in the middle of January.

So I do it.

I must say that I love how some people talk to us about our impending parenthood, and then ask/tell me “SO! I guess YOU ain’t gonna be travelin’ no maw!” (almost always intoned as if my official job title is “Strip Club Critic”). Yes, of course! I was planning on shutting down my business of 13 years, since babies hardly ever, you know, need stuff. LOVE will keep a roof over our heads, you know!

Much has been said and written of the so-called “golden handcuffs.” I am wearing them. Short of completely reinventing myself (and moving in with my brother or sister until we get “back on our feet” in 15 years or so), it appears that this is our situation, for the foreseeable future.

Obviously, the game is soon to change, and in the biggest way imaginable. What will not change, sadly, is the need to keep the green rolling in. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, I have learned, does not really care that we’re new parents.

So, as I see it today, I’m soon to have two extremely important jobs:

A. Be the best father our child(ren?) could possibly hope for.
B. Provide for my family, to the best of my abilities.

Sadly, these are not mutually exclusive. Sure, you can do B without A (and please do tell me in 15 years how that worked out for you), but it’s pretty damned hard to do A without B, no?

As it stands, dumb luck would have it that I am able to work just enough to keep the lights on, until a time where I can get on a plane and disappear for two nights, without being greeted by divorce papers upon my return. This means that I am done with planes, rental cars, hotel rooms and disgusting chain restaurants until late June or early July, depending on a variety of factors.

That’s all good and nice, but here’s where it gets tricky…

“…jeez, it’s been hard enough for me to pack up and leave Sara, these past five years. Now you’re asking me to leave a month-old BABY behind, as well?”

“…damn, this kid sure does seem to wake up – LOUDLY – every two hours or so. When I check into that Courtyard, next to the Waffle House, by the interstate off-ramp, I will not have to change a diaper, and will probably get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep…”

“…I will not find it particularly awful to pass out at 10:30 pm, and not open my eyes until my alarm clock goes off at 6:30 am or so…”

And so on. If you’re close enough to me to understand The Spaulding Guilt™, I need go no further. For the fortunate outsiders who are still hanging in there, it goes a little something like this: Guilt for leaving in the first place, guilt for sleeping all night while my beloved wife is being awoken and milked every 75 minutes, and guilt for actually enjoying the peace and quiet. It’s all guilt, people.

With apologies to Mark Twain, I can safely say that I’m entering the “Guilted Age.”