As I type here late at
night, I am just returning from my visit to my family and some of my
closest friends. Granted, while this might not be the best investment of money, as I am still searching for a job,
I felt an obligation to return to my roots, in which the state of Wyoming and The City
have been devoid of my presence for almost a full year.
I cannot say that I wholly
missed it.
As I entered The City, I
found that, while growing in size, the same status of the place has remained as
stagnant and non-progressive as before. For those unfamiliar with The City,
usually anyone that happens to remain in the area for any period greater than
ten years fails to actually wrest themselves of the grasp of the local charm,
if it indeed could be called “charm”, and escape the place where ones’ hopes
and dreams go to wither and die. This timeline tends to vary from person to
person, as well as their individual reasons, but once someone hits that pivotal
point of no return, they turn into something the seasoned residents have coined
“Lifers”.
While some people seem
perfectly content to return to The City and regress into the Lifer lifestyle, I
honestly say that I cannot go back; the people whom say that they are perfectly
content in where they live, have not truly experienced what life has to offer
them outside of The City and its’ various outskirts of desert and what could be
loosely described tundra. Seasonal events that happen maybe once or twice a
year and happen to be the highlight of the season here, tend to happen every
weekend in Seattle, sometimes even more frequently.
Thankfully I, as well as
some of my friends that still live in The City, have not succumbed to its
enchanting life of simplicity and stagnation that The City provides, and are
still Seattle-bound; I was technically supposed to be the second arrival of a
great caravan that inevitably dwindled down to just me. The filthy, grasping
claws of The City managed to destroy any immediate plans for those that were to
follow.
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| While I do not personally have a PhD., I know several people with PhDs that are in this situation |
Although a good deal of the
people are delayed, I cannot give a firm count as to how many are delayed
indefinitely. The large majority of those whom are still saying that they will
come next year, said the exact same thing the prior year. As such, I am not
holding out much hope to those few that said they will be joining me, as I fear
the talons of The City has ensnared them with the quaint Lifer status in the
form of jobs that some have lucked out on, jobs that technically do not exist
or are not hiring above minimum wage, thus stunting any potential for them to
crawl from their already stunted and hobbled existence. Those few jobs that
actually offer a decent wage are either placed outside their grasp, or entail a
hefty amount of risk in order for employers to justify to themselves as to why
they are being paid just below what they would consider a poverty wage for
C.E.O.s (and that is being generous with how low the wage would actually be).
However, due to the wage being substantially higher than what normal
blue-collar minimum-wage earners are accustomed to, this is still considered a
king’s ransom. Considering that Wyoming and Georgia are tied neck-and-neck as
the lowest minimum-wages inside the United States at $5.15 an hour (barring the
territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin islands, and the wage caveats of
Montana and Oklahoma (http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm),
and that Wyoming has loopholes to reduce that minimum wage even further due to
the labor laws of the state (http://www.minimum-wage.org/states.asp?state=Wyoming#exemptions).
As I usually state, Wyoming will always hold
a special place to my heart, but that special place has been diminishing over
time. Truly, the only thing that really brings me back is my family, whom have
resigned to the Lifer plan and settled comfortably into the lifestyle. Even
then, there have been murmurs from my parents debating that even they might consider
relocating, though their ability to afford what care they need will never
happen in the U.S., considering (and I do not use this term lightly) the
financial fuckery that has transpired over the decades. My siblings may remain
in the state of Wyoming, but I see one of them moving away to a major metropolitan area
somewhere in the not-so-distant future, and the other sibling, so long as
nothing happens in regards to her career, she will remain in her comfortable,
decadent lifestyle until such a time that age or health take her. Even then,
that assumption is still not cast in stone.
Though, in my life lessons
thus far, once I potentially make a name for myself, I might consider going
back to Wyoming at some point,
not to concede to being a Lifer, but to try my hand in politics; not to game
the system, mind you, but to actually pass progressive, constructive legislation in a counter-progressive state.
Yes, I know… a pipe dream
with no delineating end: a fool’s errand, paving a gold road with a sack full
of sand… so many varying and unique euphemisms to describe something as utterly
pointless as changing Wyoming’s heavily ensconced conservative ways; I would
have more luck changing the path of a hurricane to wipe Wyoming clean than I
would convincing a red-blooded Republican that their representatives are not
working to help them, political leanings aside. Even though I might not have
any luck, I must at least try, if not to help my common man, but to help future
generations help repair all the extensive damage that had been done by their
predecessors. If I can make just the slightest improvement, no matter how
small, it is a venture that I would be willing to take.
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