Resentment

I was beginning to resent my job. I mean, I love my job. I work at a small, family-owned restaurant with wonderful people. The customers are nice. I get food. I get tips. When I screw something up (which I did recently), my managers are gracious and patient, happy to help me out rather than just scold me for being imperfect.

But resentment began to creep in as my work schedule meant I would not be able to participate in my favourite thing, the thing which got me through the hard parts of last school year: choir.

I tried to accept that this year would just be different. I tried imagining myself sitting in the pews each Sunday, part of the congregation. I thought of the freedom that would come with not needing to go to rehearsals each week and not needing to be at church for five hours straight on the Sundays my choir (there are two, and we switch off each Sunday) would be singing.

Like Taylor Swift said though, "It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you." I couldn't, try as I might, avoid feeling resentful toward my job for preventing me from singing. I realised I would be less motivated to go to church; depression would be given more chance to creep in without the weekly choral defense.

Quitting my job, however, is not really an option. While technically, yes, I could walk out whenever I felt like it, and no one could stop me, I need the money, the work experience, and the world outside of school, church, and family. And I promised my dad.

As we've struggled to have a good relationship through my "I'm an adult now; I don't need you; I know everything" phase through which most new adults seem to go, breaking my promise and flat-out defying what he asks of me will not make me happier at all. Fighting with him has worn me out enough as is, and I know, despite my 19-year-old arrogance, that he has a point in pushing me to have this job, rather than just earn money through odd jobs.

But giving up choir for work will lead only to me resenting not only my job but my dad too. I cannot, I realised, go to work resentful. Only two options exist: get rid of the resentment or get rid of the job. Getting rid of the job is simply not an option right now, so, somehow, I had to address the resentment and find a solution with which I could be happy.

The solution, which I came across last night, is so simple it hurts. It should not have taken me a month of growing, festering resentment to find such a simple solution: tell my boss I just can't work Wednesdays nights, the night my choir rehearses, once September starts. If I can't pick up a different shift at that job, I can handle one less shift for a few weeks while I search for a second job. Funny thing about having a job, it somehow makes people more willing to hire you (which is maddening when you don't have a job).

The world, miraculously, is not over. I can work and still do what is most important to me. Even if I've had to give up some things I really did not want to, as long as I still have my choir, I think I'm okay with giving some things up.