Dear Former Co-Workers. Yeah, You.

I work in fast food in a college town. 
Most of the employees are students.
If you were one of my co-workers, this is for you:

I hate my job.
I hate the hours.
I hate the pay.
I hate the product and the customers.
Most of them anyway. Let's be kind and go nineteen out of every twenty.
They are young, fresh out of high school, and stupid, and rude.
I can't call them naive. I'm pretty sure that word isn't even in their vocabulary.

I, on the other hand...
A few years ago, I was newly divorced, working in a job related to my degree,
the country was promising to come out of a recession and there were high hopes of a raise.

Then life happened,
and I took
this job
thinking that, okay, this blip, it was only temporary, and that if I worked hard enough
(a fallacy that has bitten me before) I would find my way into another position a little more suited to someone with my experience.
I was 36 and convinced that by the time I was forty I would be settled.

I don't belong...
here...
and I know it.
But I put on the ball cap and do the job, waiting on people barely out of the womb, or, worse yet, the faculty and administration.

And I work with...
college students.
*sigh*

But they're young, and hopeful, and nice to me, and sooner rather than later a few of them win me over (grumble, rumble, roar) and I hope they don't notice.
I mean, sure, there are a handful of them I would like to dunk in the fry vat, but I find those are the ones that are gone soon enough, anyway.

There's the child-psychologist in training who loves cats and is fiercely supportive of her friends and a major proponent of basic human rights. There's the ginger who can only be described as "vivacious" (in spite of the fact that you hate that word) who is stubbornly kind to your slightly autistic co-worker, in spite of a lot of things. She really should file a restraining order. 

There's the... "outspoken" theater/costume major who is not at all like you and yet so much like you and you can't quite figure that one out, but he loves art and quotes the Golden Girls and he will say ALL of the things that you are thinking out loud. Really loud. You love him. There's the adorable one with piercings in slightly disturbing places who you wouldn't leave alone with your niece but who is funny and has some very... interesting stories. There's "The Face" (it's his moneymaker) who's sweet and gives the best hugs. You're not certain you would leave him alone with your niece, either. There's the hard-core cyclist who would make an excellent addition to your supervillain team, but who, ironically, you WOULD leave alone with your niece. He's the kind that makes sure the drunk girl at the party doesn't drown in a pool of her own vomit and wakes up in all of her clothes. Go figure. There's the hyper-intelligent cynic who has superb taste in music and who hates things with you, and boy is there a lot to hate in a college town. There's the relentlessly cheery foreign student who cooks a mean dinner and makes Spanish sound beautiful and who attempts to hide his immense intelligence by making proportionately stupid relationship decisions.

There's the nerd-girl who has a penchant for reading and is the only one at your job who loves The Doctor as much as you and who wants a family more than anything. You try and try to caution her against it, but it looks like she's doing it all right just to spite you. You wish her the best because she's your friend and you adore her.

There are others.

And then there's your favorite. (It's true, everyone knows it.) Damn it all.
The last of the lot.
He can see into your brain and gives good advice. He has terrible taste in music and girls and used to have some Very Bad Habits (you've met a couple of them) and whom you probably would have despised a mere few years ago. He's listened to your woes and helped you move your furniture and bought you a rum and coke on one of your really bad days and arranged a surprise cupcake on one of your birthdays. You've cautioned him about returning certain texts and he's cautioned you about saying any of the things you are thinking to the customers.
You've encouraged each other to get out of this hellhole,
and he's finally made it.
He's gone.
 
All of them are gone.
They have, one by one, succeeded in their own way and
you realize, when you are alone, they have broken your heart.
The little bastards.

And you're happy for them, but you are still here,
now suffering some perversion of the "empty nest" syndrome.
You wrote this down because  you needed a good cry that wasn't in a grocery store parking lot.
This new rotation?
Is of an age that they could be your children.
Even if you had the energy for new friendships (you don't) you can't relate. You've got nothing.
You are nearly forty. The age by which you promised yourself you wouldn't be here.
And so you sit here, polishing your notice, the date still blank,
and wondering
what now?