Almost Happy

It’s been a really long three months. Actually, it’s been a really long three years. For nearly four decades my sole purpose in life was to achieve stability and comfort, and those things flew out the window in the fall of 2021 and never came back. But that’s a saga to be explored one piece at a time.

My kids came to visit at the end of August. It was not a nice visit. I was still unemployed, beyond broke, depressed and terrified and still unable to focus and be the mother I thought they deserve.

I’ve never been the mother I think I should be. But lately I’ve been thinking that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve ever been a bad mother.

But it’s hard to be broke and stressed and also be relaxed and fun, so their visit involved more tears–both mine and theirs–than I would have liked.

While the kids were here I got an email from the casino. Rather than hiring me as a bartender or server, they invited me to attend their next round of dealer school. Unfortunately, the class didn’t start until the last day of September, meaning it would be late October before I started work, if I even got the job. I’ve always thought dealing blackjack would be a really cool job, so I accepted, but the opportunity was too far off to really ease my anxiety in any way.

After the children left I went to a really bad place in my head and failed to get out of bed for four straight days. The smell in my little shed got incredibly unpleasant. Fortunately there was no one other than myself to notice.

Oddly, it was a call from Wal-Mart that got me up and moving. They were not intimidated by my law degree, and gave me a job in the dairy cooler. I’m going to gloss over Wal-Mart for now, because I have a LOT to say about that little detour in my life. Suffice to say, Wal-Mart had plans for me, and they were in no way the same as my plans for myself.

As the great Cher Horowitz would say, “As if!”

I told Wal-Mart I was taking a seminar at the local college and they agreed to adjust my schedule to work around my “seminar” so I was able to attend dealer school. It was absolutely nerve wracking.

I am accustomed to being among the best in nearly everything I do. I was not among the best in dealer school. Although, to be fair, there were only two of us in my class, and the other guy was half my age and had been playing cards in casinos for several years (you can gamble at 18 in Oklahoma, which is all of 30 minutes away from here) so he knew all the rules to all the games and could handle cards and chips with ease.

Fine motor skills have never been my strong point, and I was certain I would never get the hang of any of it.

kcc cards
It’s much easier to spread the damn things on the felt than on my cheap ass desk

To make matters worse, I found out that the background check to qualify for a gaming license is, in some ways, even more rigorous than the ones I went through to get my law licenses. The Kansas Gaming Commission don’t do a character and fitness check like the Louisiana and Kansas Bar Associations, but they do go through an applicants finances with a fine tooth comb.

It makes sense. We’re handling thousands of dollars every night. Being trustworthy with money is kind of essential.

Unfortunately, my once picture perfect finances have been an absolute fucking disaster for the past year. My credit score wasn’t even this low when I was 18 and had no credit at all.

I asked the instructor of the class if the KGC would deny a license due to delinquent debts, and he said that question was above his pay grade. Because I always assume the absolute worst case scenario, I was immediately convinced I couldn’t possibly qualify and spent an entire night crying.

The next day my rational brain woke up for a few minutes and I spent some time looking up the applicable statutes and regulations for a Kansas gaming license. All it said was that a license “may” be denied for delinquent financial obligations. As all lawyers know, “may” isn’t the slightest bit helpful.

There wasn’t any case law on the matter, because being denied a discretionary license isn’t exactly the kind of thing most people have the money to sue the state over. So I decided to go straight to the source and call the KGC directly.

I started to explain the situation to the woman who answered the phone. She interrupted me with a very tired sigh and said, “hon, we don’t really care what happened. Lots of people are having a hard time these days. Mostly we’re just looking for honesty. As long as you disclose everything you’ll be fine.”

Filling out the application for the gaming license was hell. Having to write out all the ways in which my life went from ideal to fucked up in a single year was more than enough to trigger a massive panic attack. But I managed to get through it. I turned in the application, and got fingerprinted.

They told us it would take three to five business days for our prints to run through the system. Mine took less than 24 hours. After working for an international charity that placed interns in elementary schools, taking two bar exams, and working for the federal government, all the databases said “hey, we know her!” and spit me out as clean almost instantly.

I guess I haven’t fucked up that badly.

All that remained at that point was the audition at the end of class. I shouldn’t have been worried. One of the people we auditioned for was the instructor, and he straight up told me that after watching me for three weeks he was confident I would be a good dealer and that even if I got nervous and completely blew it he would still recommend me for hiring. The other person we auditioned for was so confident that I would do well she gave me a start date the day before the audition.

I still got so nervous that I kept dropping things and nearly cried. I passed anyway.

I’ve been dealing for a month now, and I absolutely love it. The position is only part-time, so I still have to work a second job, but working in the casino has been very good for me in myriad ways.

I fit in very well in an environment that is fringe yet still respectable.

More importantly, I’m learning important life lessons. Not subtle ones, either.

My first night on the floor dealing solo I was so nervous I nearly cried. One of the regulars later told me that he was here that night and “I couldn’t figure out why the fuck they hired you.” One of the other regulars, who was also here that night, told him that everyone is nervous their first night and he needed to be nice or shut the fuck up. I appreciated that.

I stayed nervous for several weeks. I’m still a bit nervous now. I get upset every time I made a mistake, no matter how small. Which is where the life lessons come in. Every single night, the pit boss tells me three things:

  1. There is no mistake you can make that I haven’t seen before;
  2. There is no mistake you can make that can’t be fixed;
  3. You have a wonderful attitude and incredible energy, which is very valuable in this business.

The floor managers, for their part, repeatedly tell me I am doing a good job and that they don’t fire people over simple mistakes. Even several of the regular players have gotten in on it, telling me my mistakes don’t matter because I’m fun and sweet and that they love how excited I get when they win.

It’s like the whole damn place is conspiring together to boost my self-esteem.

There is no mistake you can make that can’t be fixed. That is a message I definitely need to hear at this point in my life. Over and over and over again, until it sticks.

The casino gives me thirty hours a week, which is pretty good for a part time job, but not quite good enough to pay all my bills. Well, that’s not exactly true. It pays my bills, it just doesn’t leave me with any money for food. I’ve already done the “too broke to eat” thing for far too many years of my life. I’m not eager to go back to that. So I need to keep a a second job.

The kid I was in dealer school with works for a photo processing company. I was familiar with the business; my sister worked there when she was in college. What I didn’t know was that they are the parent company for the largest consumer photo printing lab in the country. And they double their staff for the holiday rush each year.

I applied for a seasonal position. Everyone in town is familiar with the place, and will tell you straight up that if you get on for the rush you’re going to work your ass off but you’ll make good money. That’s because the business dumps a significant chunk of their returns into profit sharing with their employees. So even though the job is only for two months, it’s two rather lucrative months.

I was invited to interview almost immediately. I was feeling pretty good about it up to the point where the HR guy said “so you’re a lawyer?”

I said “I used to be” as emphatically as I could without being rude.

When he responded with “I bet you hear the word ‘overqualified’ a lot” I nearly cried.

And then something wonderful happened. The man smiled at me and said “we don’t believe in ‘overqualified’ here. If intelligent and talented people want to be here, that makes us happy.”

Turns out the founder dropped out of med school to open the place. He started a small photography studio before going on to be a front lines cinematographer in WWII. He survived the war, and returned to his small hometown, where he turned his photo studio into a full service photo lab. The business thrived, and is still owned by the same family. They aren’t intimidated by my little old law degree.

After I assured him that I do indeed want to be there, he told me he thought I would be brilliant in finishing because lawyers pay attention to small details and he was confident I would catch any flaws or errors. I told him that I was happy to work whatever position he gave me, but also that I was kind of hoping I would get to actually make something while I was there.

To my surprise, he immediately called the head of the wall art department and asked if she had any openings left. She did, and asked to meet me that afternoon. By close of business that day, I had a job making gallery wraps.

Gallery wraps are those canvas prints that are wrapped around wooden frames for hanging on the wall (hence “wall art”). I don’t get to make the frames or do the wrapping, which is disappointing, but I get to do finishing and backing which is a lot of fun.

I have an entire drawer of felt tip pens for doing touch ups on the canvas. We all know how I feel about felt tip pens. And I’m shockingly good at the touch ups. I’ve never considered myself a visually artistic person, but I have an eye for small errors and the patience to carefully blend the inks until the errors are invisible. It’s like getting paid to do art therapy every day.

I deeply enjoy working at the photo lab. I have a staple gun and a drill. I have a hammer and a punch and wire cutters and all sorts of little doodads for making the gallery wraps ready to hang on the wall as soon as they are opened. My hands are often bruised and cut. My cuticles are cracked and torn and bloody. I keep a supply of band aids on me at all times because I don’t want my bleeding fingers to mark the cards. (Also bloody cards would be extremely gross, but that’s beside the point) I cannot overstate how much my aching fingers please me.

I’m going to be very sad when the photo lab job ends. And not just because the thought of starting my job search over again is disheartening.

I was hoping to get a little bit ahead, financially speaking, while working at the photo lab. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. It took me all of November to catch up on my car note. It’s going to cost a little over a thousand dollars to register my car in Kansas, which is better than the $1300 Louisiana wanted, but still a LOT. Plus the nice man at Wal-Mart said my front tires cannot possibly be patched any more than they already have been, and I’m still having to air them up every other day. And I need an oil change on top of it all.

Not to mention my kids are coming to visit again over New Years, and since my mom is still in Kansas City dealing with the fucking cancer bullshit I’m going to have to pay for childcare while I’m working at the casino. And I would very much like to be able to have some fun with them and spoil them a little while they are here.

So it looks like I’m going to start the Gregorian New Year just breaking even. But that’s better than last year. And I’m going to have to spend January searching for a part-time job, but at least I’ve cracked the code to getting my resume past the fucking AI filters it seems like every company is using these days, and nothing downplays the whole “lawyer” thing like having worked at Wal-Mart. Hell, maybe Wal-Mart will take me back. I would have gotten up to all kinds of shenanigans that would make excellent content if I had quit on my own time frame instead of in a rush with barely time to give a week’s notice.

Life is still really hard. I may like both of my jobs, but I’m working 45-50 hours a week at one and 30-35 hours a week at the other, on my feet and bending over a table the whole time at both. No matter how much peace the work brings you, that’s still a brutally exhausting schedule.

And yet…

It’s a strange sensation, I’m almost happy1

My living situation is still shit. It’s still incredibly hard to be back in Kansas, where so much of my trauma occurred. My heart is still broken. There are still many days during which my soul hurts so bad it manifests as a physical ache.

But I know what I want and where I’m going and how to get there. I have a plan. Everyone who know me personally knows that once I have a solid plan, you may as well just sit back and watch because I’m about to make shit happen.

And this time my plan is for me. For my benefit alone. For my JOY alone. This time I will walk away with something that is mine, that I am proud of, that heals my spirit instead of draining it.

That makes all the difference in the world.


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  1. Lyric from Tired by Tabitha’s Secret. I’m too fucking tired to look up the rest of the citation. Google that shit if you want to know. ↩︎

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