My Long-Term Illness
I was someone who burned the candle at both ends. At 38, I acquired the Epstein-Barr virus. I was a little tired, but I was able to run on seven cylinders instead of eight. Against my doctor’s recommendation, I continued with my busy life.
Slowly, slowly, my fatigue got worse. Then it took more effort and concentration to work through a mental challenge: my cognition was declining. I continued johnwayning my way through this illness.
One day, I was driving down a familiar busy street. The traffic light turned red. So I stopped. I was a block and a half away from the light.
“This is not normal,” I finally realized. With intense driving concentration, I got my car to my place. I told my employer that I would no longer be coming to work. With the Epstein-Barr virus in me, I knew I needed a long rest. At least a month.
Ironically, the Epstein-Barr virus disappeared from my blood tests after I quit working. But I still had the fatigue and the cognition loss. The best description was “chronic fatigue syndrome,” which was a mystery to the medical profession at that time. As I did some research, these powerful viruses can screw with one’s endocrine system such that hormones are all out of balance with each other. The virus is no longer needed to make its victim tired.
I left my car parked for six months. I was just too inattentive to be in traffic. When I returned to driving, I limited my driving time and traffic stimuli. No trips to the big city for another year.
It took me two years to get enough energy to work again. And I took on work that fit my diminished state. In the next six years, I took on seven “simple” jobs, staying away from management tasks. I got fired once, but the other jobs just seemed to run their course, and I moved to the next job.
I was at my next job crossroad. I thought another retail job would be most suitable: my body liked being somewhat physical, and the afternoon/evening shifts suited my Circadian rhythms of those times.
Two retailers that had expanded in my town and were looking for retail workers. The first was Canadian Tire, which is Canada’s favorite hardware store. I had lots of life experience with many things that Canadian Tire sells. Second is Canada Safeway, which is one of several big-box grocery stores in Canada. I had very little formal experience in handling food.
Canadian Tire was paying its workers $9.50 an hour, whereas Safeway was paying $11.50.
A voice in the back of my mind said, “Dave, you need to go to work for Canadian Tire.”
Then a more rational voice said, “Dave, why are you throwing $2 an hour away?”
It took me a while to answer that question.
The values of my youth
Back in my university days, I worked the summer months on the drilling rigs. I made enough money in the four months to pay for rent, food, car, and beer for the other eight months. Plus pay my tuition. I graduated on my own wallet and no debt. I johnwayned my degree.
The drilling rigs require a certain amount of fortitude. The work is physical, fast-paced, athletic, and sometimes angry. The work needs to get done regardless of the weather: hot days, chilly nights, rain and wind, and bugs. Then there is the greater danger of getting hurt: a worker cannot afford to be inattentive with steel pipe moving around. The drilling rigs really feed into a johnwayne psyche: hard work, intense work, and a big paycheck.
Some of my university classmates worked at their local grocery store during the summer. And they worked one or two shifts a week during school. They were dependent on their parents or student loans. I looked down at these students. I was tough and independent; they were not. What wimps they were to earn such low paychecks.
The drilling rigs not only fulfilled my desire for a big paycheck and feeling a sense of macho accomplishment, they also contributed to misogynistic, racist, and homophobic values — which I had adopted to some degree. I was more at home on a drilling rig than I would have been at a grocery store.
I should elaborate on “to some degree.” I was not a cross-burning type of racist. Rather, I allowed people different from me to prove themselves and later I would let them into my world. But for white men, I would give them the benefit of the doubt when I first met them. A definite double standard. A degree of prejudice that allowed me to think I was a fair person when I was not.
Back to Safeway
As time passed, I shed many of those bad values. I became more accepting of people being different and making different kinds of decisions than me.
So years later, I was faced with losing $2 an hour not to work at a grocery store. The only reason that this made any sense is that I was still harboring some machismo crap. After all, hardware store employees are much more worthy than the wussies who work at grocery stores.
My free-market solution was to give Safeway the first opportunity to hire me. And they did. I worked for this grocery store for almost two years. They were a good employer. I saw the value for society in being a grocery store worker. And the extra $2 an hour was good for my bank balance.
Conclusion
I thought I had been cured of my bad values. But having the option to consciously and deliberately reject $2 an hour made me question those values. I had more work to do on myself.
Since then, I don’t assume I have the right values. Likely, there are more life lessons for me to move forward. I am open to them. This $2 an hour lesson told me that we are never where we need to be.
Today, my identity is less about my occupation, paycheck, and bank balance. Yes, we need these things. However, my illness taught me that we can function without these traits dominating our psyche.
Have I fully embraced modern masculinity? I’m not so sure. I’m not sure what this new masculinity is. I just know the old one has to go away.
Published on Medium & Substack 2025
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