your umpteenth-first salary is a desperate thing

I've never been flat broke in my life. I owe it to parents with stable jobs, a house that doesn't run out of food, and friends that are kind enough to loan me a buck or two whenever public transportation becomes "a luxury". By some miracle, I've managed to coast along in life never knowing what it means to be desperately, abysmally, direly out of cash.

I never had to wonder how I'm going to afford my next meal. I never had to spend a sleepless night in my apartment worrying how I'm going to pay for the roof over my head. I never considered the possibility of eviction, civil claims, or even having to say no to a night out for beer. I've never been afraid of being a destitute, because I could never imagine it happening to me.

But it could, I realize now. My mom's is retired, and she along with my sisters are all leagues away. My apartment just got some amazing pots and pans (all thanks to my sister), but nothing in terms of ingredients or even cooking oil (I do have a lot of peanut butter though). And finally, all my friends now are either too far away or, like me, faring for themselves as well.

If I run out of cash here, I'm fucked, is what it is.

So I plan meticulously, with an omniscient excel file that knows on a daily basis how many coins are left in my pockets. I also budget 6 months in advance, with exorbitant buffers and plenty of cash allotted to "backup".

So the transition to the new job had a lot of that planning put in it, and then some more, with a dash of worrying to taste. With preparation, I afforded the move to the new apartment, preparing for 4 overseas friends visiting, a weekend trip home, and miscellaneous costs that come with a new job and new friends. I had to sacrifice any outrageous birthday plans, funneling all my cash to get me through that last week before the first paycheck kicks in. The last canister of fuel that'll get me through this bleak, empty, gap of penniless space, and towards home.

And today was that day. I stayed up until midnight yesterday, doing laundry, whatever, bumming around, pretending not to worry, until midnight struck and I logged onto my Japanese bank account where, rising above the sea of gnarled Japanese characters, was plainly written: 0.

I'm fucked, is what it is.

I ran through my necessary expenses: rent and utilities which will total about a 100 thousand yen. Available resources: if my family could scrounge up that amount, it'll be too late before the rent is due. I don't have friends here who I think could part with that amount of money, nor would I be comfortable at all to ask for that amount of money from a friend. Cash loans are impossible for foreigners, which I unfortunately am. My only option is to confront the HR at work and demand the cash. And I won't take no for an answer.

So I slept, restlessly. And on the next day, took my time going to work, walking casually on the street. I came in late by 10 minutes, with my head recounting every argumentative Japanese phrase I could remember, riddled with the Japanese words for "rent", "salary", and "obligation".

To make thing official, I booted my PC and checked my salary statement to see how much I should've gotten. Since I still had to translate the statement, it took me a while.  But to my most pleasant surprise, after feeding in the elegantly-written Japanese script, the online translator spat out "bank transferred". Stress on the "-ferred". I was palpitating, and could barely input the security code for my bank account to check.

Well, it ended well for me. And all I have to say at the end of the day is your first salary is a magical thing.

Photo credit: Clan Takeda

thomas

Inspiration is a fickle thing. Mine always involved the residue of coffee, darkness outside the window, and the really, deathly stillness that only visits when everyone else is passed out, everyone else sane enough to choose a night of sleep than chase flitting thoughts and the glimpse of the shadow of the truth.

But I do. It makes me feel good when I try to explain life somehow. Or how happy I am right now. Or how tired I am right now. Or how lucky I am right now.

I am a man visited daily by doubt. I doubt life. Is it any good? I heard somewhere it's a terminal condition. So I constantly ask myself is this life? Am I living enough? Have I met enough friends? Made enough money? Put enough food in the ref, clothes in the laundry hamper? Bothered enough credit companies, troubled the landlord, the neighbors enough? Have I made my mom worry enough? My sister, my brother-in-law, my nephew in his tiny bed, have I made them rethink their relations?

Have I been here all along, lo' these 27 sordid years, turning 28 soon? A triumphant, titanic, terrific twenty-eight? I am not quite young, and definitely not that old. I am in-between again.

Like my job, I am in between knowing what needs to get done, and having absolutely no fucking idea at all.

See, my job is the job I've always wanted, which was entirely unexpected, but an evidently happy thing. And I want to do good with it. Make a difference, you know? Like they kept saying in the company mission, vision, values, speed, speed, speed, speech. Us, the employees, seek to empower the masses.

We hope to show the world that the internet is not a vending machine, a soulless panel of holes and buttons you shove money into to make all the pretty lights go on. No, no, the internet is filled with people. They're there, beneath the porn, the facebooking and twittering, underneath the adult-friend finder advertisements, sulking below the surface. We hope to purge them from out of the woodwork and into the light, where they can make a spectacle of themselves, make a profit, and give us a percentage.

It's a nice dream. A dream I've had before, in a time we were empowered by innovation.

I'm wide awake now. The morning light streaks in, the alarm buzzes some feet away. The shower must be turned on. The 5 minute walk to the station, 2 minutes down to the platform, 3 minutes standing in the train, 3 minutes to the office lobby, 5 minutes to my seat, all these must be trodden, a day at a time, need be.

I doubt if I'll make it. A Japanese friend of mine just today was doubting himself, too. He messaged all of us in group chat. How come he can't find a date? Was something wrong? Must he change? Our fellow friends chided him, in the loving way friends do. I said, in my habitually awfully phrased Japanese, that I've always like him just the way he is.

This kid was young, headed to university. Smart. Bright. Sports a bright yellow tie, yellow frames to his glasses, and yellow pants. He was a statement, and he was brave enough to state it.

I'm not too young, but I'm not quite old either. And sometimes, inspiration barges in from the depths of the murky night, from the errant roar of distant cars, and the calm rumbling of train tracks. Though tomorrow I'll doubt myself anew, for tonight at least I'll be a a firm believer in the joy I've amassed so far.

Have a little faith, is what I should have said. Have a little faith in yourself.

Photo credit: Doubting Thomas - Caravaggio