Continuous School

When you are 29 years old. Life can be strange.

"Sorry… We understand that you"ve been giving it your all for this company… but we can"t afford to keep you on. I"m sorry, Matt."

This wasn"t the first time I"ve been told that recently. I often find that people are telling me it more and more. I"ve worked all around, I"ve been behind a counter serving customers, in the back cooking fast food, and even in a hospital. I was only a cleaner but it was still my best paying job.

"You don"t need to worry about it." My mum always says. "I"m earning enough to support you and Sean… We are getting by."

My mum would always say that I never had to pay for anything. Even as a single 29-year-old who has always lived with his mum, I always wanted to pay rent. I knew that we weren"t the richest family, and sometimes we wouldn"t have much money to pa.s.s us by. So I started to pay rent even if my mum kept refusing to accept it. Sean was still at school and I"m not sure about his future plans. I don"t know if he plans to go to university. Even if it is covered by the government he"d have a huge loan to pay back by the end of it.

I never went to university. I didn"t see much point. As soon as I left school, I needed to find a job. I had to help Sean. He was at that point in his life where he didn"t understand the world. He may have known about how poor we were but we still spoiled him to bits. He was always smiling brightly even on days where we weren"t. It could have just been a child smiling at all the joys they saw in the world. As they grow older that may be something they forget to see. We had to make sure Sean was happy. We had to give it our all for him. Our dad left us because he claimed to have hated Sean. We hate him for it. Even Sean doesn"t like him.

"So what"s next?" My mum asked quietly whilst Sean was upstairs in his room.

"I-i don"t know," I said. "I guess I"ll just try and get out there again. Start handing my CV into people again."

"You can always come to work with me?" My mother suggested.

She had a small job. It was a cleaner for a hotel in the area. It wasn"t the best pay but it wasn"t the worst. I thought about it many times but I don"t really know how to clean. I"ve cleaned around the house but even I can tell I don"t do a good job.

I don"t have the qualifications that the others have. When Sean graduates from Sixth Form he"ll have more qualifications than me. I didn"t go to Sixth form or college. As I said, I had to go straight to work and never had time to get anything better. I could go to university but it was something I never saw as interesting. I would spend 3 years away studying one thing that I probably wouldn"t even end up working as. Even if I did chose to go, I wouldn"t have anything I wanted to study. I never really was that interested in a certain subject and was fine just working on whatever. I remember working at a boiler company once. It was probably the funniest experience I had. The people that I worked with seemed kind and fun, even if they did laugh at me behind my back they weren"t the worst people I"ve worked with.

"Why don"t you try working with me?" My mum said again.

"I don"t know. I"m not that good at cleaning."

"We can teach you. I"ll teach you everything I know and you"ll be set. Mother and son. Cleaning the hotel top to bottom. Maybe you"d even be able to work your way up or something. A receptionist or something. Just get some nice clothes, neaten up your hair and you are set!"

My mum seemed dead set on getting me to work with her. If it meant not having to have another annoying interview only to be rejected by them not calling me back, then I"d take it.

"Alright…" I said giving in. "I"ll give it a go."

"Yes!" my mum said secretly fist-b.u.mping. "I"ll go get the fancy chocolates to celebrate."

My family is all I have. Even now, a lot of what I do is for Sean and my mum. I"ve always wanted Sean to grow up not like me. I wanted him to have the life I couldn"t.

I remember what it was like for me growing up. Growing up with a dad that hated me, and the moment from when Sean was born. We could have blamed Sean for our dad leaving but we didn"t. I didn"t and my mum didn"t. Simply because he wasn"t a nice person.