About ten years ago I was living in a completely different state, just off a highway, with no greenery and no break from the relentless sun-baked asphalt of an town with nothing to offer except consumerism. I was utterly miserable and slowly heading for rock bottom when I came back up to my home state for a friend's engagement party at one of the state parks, and I drove through a tree tunnel lined with the colors of autumn and October's long shadows.
I felt my lips part and whisper to my own ears, "oh. My soul is starving."
We moved back up home to a greener, less lonely place a year later, running from the eternally dirty, yellowed, sun-bleached highway town as fast as we possibly could.
Just last month, I was nearing my second year at a sales floor job, working too many hours for too little compensation and absolutely zero thanks. I hated waking up to my alarm, telling me it was time for another ten-hour shift at a place that blamed me for every cent not made, and customers that would come in simply to waste my time or phone-call-fires from other stores that needed to be put out.
An unstable man - clearly on drugs - came in once while I was by myself, trapping me behind the desk while he scratched the skin off his ankle and tried to take my phone, talking into the wall because, "they knew he was there and they were hiding from him."
The district manager told me I had to stay, and to "lock one of the doors if I felt unsafe". He never once asked me if I was okay, even after my spouse called the police for me when I couldn't find a way to safely do it myself.
They fired me a couple weeks after.
There's something like coming home - something only found in the back of a theatre, a 'temporary' job at the place my dear friend works that needed extra help during their current musical. A college degree no longer sitting and rotting on the wall above my desk.
The smell of the costume shop. The creak of the wooden stage beneath my feet in the dark as we scramble from stage left to stage right with props in our hands. The sound of crackling voices in my ear, saying, "five to places" - "thank you, five". The hush in the green room as the actors take a breather between acts, sip their water, and thank their techies for making their lives easier.
One of them, in passing, as we leave to take our spots in the catwalk, high above the crowd, sweaty hands gripping the handles of the spotlights tight, calls to me - he doesn't even yet know my name, I'm so new while the other crew are so familiar to them.
"You light up my night!" he jokes.
Another, half in costume, doughnut in hand, tells me I'm doing great. He shows me the pokemon pins on his bag, asks me what my favorite typing is, gets excited when his and mine are the same.
The lead actress lets me pet her dog and 'awwwww!'s at the cute story I tell her of the little girl in the aisle off stage left waiting to meet the character she plays.
The lead techie has the same haircut I do. We talk in the parking lot for an hour after opening night. They went to the same college, recognize my major, tell me their work stories and ask for mine. They wait for me in their truck to make sure I get out of the parking lot safely after the lightboard operator sticks her head out the door and tells us to go home and rest before tomorrow's fourteen hour shift.
They add me to a group chat the next day, with themselves, the lightboard lady, and the other spotlight operator.
I go back to my apartment after midnight, clocked in at 10:30am and out at 12:15am, and - for the first time in years - I don't feel tired.
My soul was starving. But now I'm home.
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