I am twenty-six years old, and my wife Lucy tells me I have a problem I refuse to acknowledge.
She repeats it every time I leave a job or when I get sacked.
She says its abnormal, the longest Ive held down a job is six months.
Shes not wrong, really.
Sometimes I manage a month, other times fifteen days, sometimes I dont even make it through the probation period.
Ive worked all sortsmaintenance, cleaning, sweeping pavements, scrubbing toilets, shifting boxes in warehouse after warehouse.
I always start with a surge of optimism, but after a few days, it all becomes heavymy body aches, my mind fogs.
Its not just exhaustion.
Its shame.
I left school after Year 11, never went back.
Each time I start these jobs, and they hand me a hi-vis vest, a broom or a mop, I sense I dont belong.
I watch the other workersresigned, quietly getting on with itand inside I whisper, This isnt my life.
Then I start showing up late, slowing down, making excuses for days off.
Until, inevitably, the manager calls me into the office and tells me not to come back.
Lucy cant grasp this.
Shes worked at the local shop for four years.
The pay isnt much, but its reliable.
Every month she knows whats coming in.
When I return home jobless, she looks at me with anger and fatigue.
She says, Its not the jobits you.
You cant stick at anything. I reply that those jobs arent for me, that Im made for something else, that I wasnt born to scrub toilets my whole life.
Thats when she gets properly wound up.
Tells me to finish school, learn a skill, get qualified.
No ones going to hire me for other things if I havent even got a certificate.
I promise Ill do it, but the months pass and I never sign up.
Theres always an excuseno money, no time, Ill get around to it later.
Truth is, Im terrified of returning to school as an adult, sitting next to teenagers and feeling left behind.
At home its become routine now.
We argue about the same things.
She says I live in dreams, I talk big but do nothing.
I say shes settled, that shes learned to survive, but forgotten how to live.
Sometimes we shout and throw words in the air, sometimes we go for days without speaking at all.
I head out again, CV folded up in my pocket, and come back defeated after another, Well let you know.
Worst of all, I really do dream.
I dream of owning my own business, answering to nobody, not ashamed of my uniform.
I imagine waking early to build something thats mine, not to take orders for scraps.
But dreams dont pay rent or buy food.
And Lucy reminds me of that every day.
Do I truly have a problem I refuse to admit, or am I simply allowed to dream of something bigger?
