Blessings

I realize that I have truly been blessed when I think of humanity’s suffering throughout the ages. My father was the town drunk, but he never beat us. We were poor white trash, but we never missed a meal or had to sleep in a car. I managed to keep a student deferment until I graduated from college, then drew 314 in the draft lottery. I’ve never had a successful relationship with a woman, but I have a brilliant, beautiful daughter.

And I have never found my true passion. But my daughter did.

It’s hard not to be jealous when I hear of her “all-nighters”, when she is working on a project and doesn’t dare go to bed because she later she may regret not making it a little better; or when she jabbers delightfully on and on about discussions she has with her instructors and peers in her chosen field. She knew what she wanted to do when she was three years old, and relentlessly pursued her dream to its fruition.

I, on the other hand, chose a career that was convenient. I wandered lonely roads in my youth, making one wrong turn after another, my options becoming more and more limited year after year, until I decided to commit myself to a career in teaching. For years I attacked my chosen profession with blind determination. I wanted to become a teacher of the year, a savior of errant, ignorant children.

It was not to be. Most of my teaching career was spent in a stuffy, windowless cubicle in an overcrowded school full of needy students and staffed by dispirited teachers and a principal who, like me eventually, was just thankful to get through the day. Perhaps, if teaching had been my true passion, I could have overcome all the barriers l and made a difference; but since I chose the profession for survival, survival became my only goal.

The other side of the coin is that I had a steady job and was able to help support my daughter and save up money for her college and my retirement. That’s more than many in this country are able to do in these times as unemployment nears ten percent. It’s a lot more than my own parents did, and it’s certainly beyond the dreams of most people living in what we call the third world.

Yes, I have been blessed.