A Labor of Love

Last night I sat down to one of my favorite meals. Not only did it feel like the start to summer because my mother hauled the Weber out of the tool shed, brushed off the grill, and stoked some coals for the first time this year, but it was a meal cooked and enjoyed by some of my favorite people. My mom dutifully stood outside, grilling an assortment of vegetables, Zach shucked two dozen oysters in the kitchen sink, and I stirred a double batch of risotto on the stove (and sampled the cooking wine a little bit too). And I enjoyed sitting down at the table with my parents, and Zach, and our friend Daryl, and digging in to family style, overflowing, platters of our beautiful food. But the most enjoyable part of the meal was that warm, fuzzy feeling that I got; recognition that every component of our feast was a true labor of love that came together in the end to make a beautiful dinner.

That’s how I currently live my life; a labor of love. Emphasis on labor. I am mistaken daily for a Russian immigrant at work. “Excuse me, can you please get me an extra bath towel?” This is said very slowly and making a sign that this guest believes means “towel” in faux sign-language. I assume some of the confusion comes from my red hair and blue eyes, but mostly the mix up comes from the guest’s assumption that the Caucasian female cleaning his room couldn’t possibly be a college educated, United States citizen.

Hi, my name is Jessica, I grew up on Cape Cod, I have a BA in Spanish Literature and Creative Nonfiction Journalism, and I’ll be scrubbing your toilet today. But I don’t mean that in a bad way. Yes, I am entirely overqualified to be mopping floors at a local bed and breakfast, and yes, my cleaning enthusiasm is starting to run low and we are only at the beginning of the busy season, but you can pack up your pity now because not only did I make a chunk of cash today, I earned it.

My day always begins with the newspaper. I drive over it at approximately 7:25am on my way to work. I work a waitressing shift, followed by a housekeeping shift, followed by some light gardening. Or not so light gardening. The day I used the gas powered hedge trimmer to touch up the front hedges, I received several concerned phone calls from family friends. “Um, should you be using that piece of machinery?” I wear a black skirt and a ruffley, white blouse to work everyday, and sometimes, I use power tools. I jet home for lunch, power nap face-down on my yoga mat because I don’t actually have enough energy to do the yoga, but my heart is at least in the right place. Then I clean something else; my grandfather’s house, my mother’s store, etc. I bike 15 miles on my little green bicycle that has a little silver bell. When I was 14 I fell off my bike and skinned my elbow and was afraid to ride a bike for nine years. Last year while biking to work I was hit by a car and skinned a lot more than my elbow. Now, I huff and puff up each hill on Olivia (my new bicycle; it has an olive green frame), so I can rocket down the other side exhaling, “I am not afraid of thissssss.” I eat dinner, apply to several more jobs that I won’t get, though not because I’m not ridiculously qualified for these positions, but rather because 200 other schmucks with resumes have also applied to the job posting and HR is so overwhelmed that they have resorted to pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey style hiring processes, aka spin around until you’re dizzy and then blindly pick someone. At around 10pm I actually do the yoga routine I’d meant to do all day, read or watch television, and pass out without remembering to turn off the light. Repeat.

“How’s your self esteem holding up?” my boss asked me the other day. That was right around the time I realized that the black thing I’ve been using as a beer coaster is actually the leather case holding my college diploma. Yeah, that’s about where I’m at; the most use I’ve gotten out of my degree so far is to protect the laminate on my Ikea bedside table. But let me just say, the moment you decide you’re above a certain situation, you’ve lost the battle.

I recently looked at the Trip Advisor reviews for the inn where I work. Most of them said the basic, “charming place,” “cute rooms,” etc, but many of them also said, “immaculately clean.” I did that. I may not have cured a disease today, or even gotten an essay published, but I made enough money to buy my friends a round of drinks and still turn a profit and the guests that checked in thought I did a damn good job.

I’m still waiting for my “real” life to start, but for now, I know that when it does come along, I will absolutely have earned it. So, if you’re in your twenty somethings, you thought your BA would mean a bit more when you graduated, and you could wallpaper your bedroom with rejection letters (presumably the walls of your childhood bedroom because due to the economic depression you’ve unexpectedly moved back in with your folks for a little while, just until you can “get your life together”), don’t give up hope, and, for goodness sake, grab a mop.