Perspectives...On A Pre-6 A.M. Experience

I'm usually the first to arrive, others wander to the place where both bus and train stop in specific times to pick up those who refuse (or cannot...) participate in the daily commute by car. 

Another day, another pre-6 a.m. life experience.

They join the line of which I am the head--usually. They take their place just behind the person who arrived before, and I wonder what time did they wake up. The women, as I've learned from talking to many, usually get up much earlier than the men. Yet, another example of how life isn't fair. Then again, it is fair that any of us are standing in a row waiting for a bus to show up to take all of us to work?

Probably not.

And when the bus arrives cutting through the crisp spring morning air, I join an army, an army of workers. I'm enlisted in a battle of survival. I work; I get paid. I get paid; my family eats, is clothed in what current standards call appropriate, and sleep under a roof that doesn't leak when it rains.

That's the deal. It's the result of countless decisions made by me, by my bosses, by my teachers and parents, by decisions made by people I've never even met.

It's now my choice, to be content with this pre-6 a.m. life experience, or be upset that things have turned out the way they have. Or I can be unsatisfied, happy, disappointed, or have a thousand other reactions to the way things are.

When I get to work around 6:30 a.m., the first thing I do is fire up the computer and find out how many single parents contacted the state and asked for help because they lost their jobs. I keep a detailed list of these people because my job is to help them find new work and I need to keep track of when they contacted us and how they're doing.

Looking at list after list of people and consider what they've gone through (and what they're going through...), the one thing that I think about is this. If getting up early and catching a bus before 6 a.m. is the price I have to pay, I'll take that deal anytime.