The Work I don’t have to do

The alarm, blaring the song, “The Hardest Button to Button” by the White Stripes, rockets me from my slumber. I brush my teeth, wash my face and hands, go to the medicine cabinet, retrieve my prescribed drugs, and verify them with my father. Then, it’s time to attack the Peleton bicycle with all vim and vigor.

After sweating out, and burning calories like a brush fire, it’s time to shave my bald head and face. Then, it’s shower time. After a trip to the rain room, I dress. I put on dress socks, trousers, and a collared shirt. I’ve got to look the part, right? Though I will not be braving the morning commute with all the other weekend and workweek warriors (I salute you!) who, in this pandemic, work from home or pile into their mini-fortresses, and head to the office, the sales floor, the construction site, or wherever individuals work to pay the bills.

I have no qualms about divulging how much I earned this year to satisfy my own expenses: $47,304. It’s public record; military personnel rated 100% disability, who combine their Social Security money, receive this amount, or something close to it, more or less. The best part about all of this? It’s all tax free income.

It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I earned it. I set myself as an example of how the government could do away with forced payment for public projects for the private citizens and government workers as well.

I digress. Now that you know that I live at home, receive funds from the government, and am heavily medicated, let me tell you what I do all day. Write. And write. And write. In fact, I’m working on the very piece you’re reading right now.

Since I don’t have to worry about much more than my portion of the electric and Fios bills, and groceries, I’m free to write.

My tool of choice for voicing my thoughts is an Apple iPhone 11. It’s not the latest, but it’s the best hardware to help me accomplish what I need to do.

Using the Google Docs app, I lay down words that propel my soul. The late author Michael Chricton once commented on how he wrote at least 10,000 words a day. Comparatively speaking, I put down up to 2,000 words on a daily basis. The only thing that might prevent me is a family emergency. That means holidays are totally occupied by my time writing, no matter the observance.

After I write, I read, and read, and read. Some fiction here, some nonfiction there, make up the bulk of my reading list. I may be in my pj’s by now. I check the business reports during the workweek when the bell closes. Then it’s TV time. This is all work by the way. Though I enjoy books, TV, and movies, I’m always taking note of the author’s style, the structure of the scripts used by the screenwriters. All of it informs my writing.

I’m aware not everyone is as fortunate as I am. Hell, at other stages of my life, I had to punch a clock and push a mop just to get a paycheck, too. I also recall the beautifully regimented world of the United States Marine Corps where I served as an active duty lance corporal. So, I know what it means to do actual, physically intensive labor. Without the time I served in the Corps and other occupations, I wouldn’t be getting those disability deposits in the first place.

I also worked as a recyclables collector in a Veterans Affairs program called Compensated Work Therapy (CWT). This project permits veterans to do light jobs like housekeeping to earn a check as they work to find their place back in the working world outside the Corps.

I stayed in CWT in various places in Massachusetts, and in my home state of Delaware. Once the federal government recognized I should be compensated further for my bipolar I disorder disability, I had no more use for CWT, or any other place of employment for that matter.

Also, the folks at Vocal supplement my income with earnings from Reads, Tips, and Challenges. My work is seen by thousands of people (so far). For that I’m grateful.

Back to my day. I feel motivated to write because of a voice in my head that persists. It constantly tells me to return to the page to engage in what writer Gwendolyn Brooks called, “delicious agony.”

Finally I watch the evening news and prepare to go to bed with my evening prescribed drugs. I drift off to sleep, thankful I’ve been able to do something all day most people claim they can’t do: change my own world and spend my day doing things I love!