In the rickety old sunroom behind my house, there's so many things that seem like they've been there forever, things that have gathered dust and allowed time to run off without them. One of those things is my old hardhat from Bath Iron Works, plastered with stickers and epoxy paint, bearing scars from run-ins with pipes and bulkheads and power tools, writing all over it from somewhere, either from me or from my brother's friends or from the people I worked with at the yard. And in the corner of the hat is a small, shiny, elliptical sticker of hope, a United Way decal with six hands in a frown over their logo. This hardhat will be two years old in a matter of days. It has been two years since I set foot in that dirty shipyard, and gained an impetus to leave this place, despite all the good memories I have of that place: the pay, the work, the perceived security, the thought that no matter what, 3:30 would come and I could go back to a house that I didn't have to pay for with the endless supply of money I seemed to have. Now, the shipyard's slowly dwindling, most of the people I worked with have been laid off, my father's on the chopping block, or close to it, and soon I may not have the same roof over my head. The gray that used to mark my position in the yard, a dirty crow, a painter, is chipping away, has been ever since I started there, to bring out a cloud of white, neutral plastic, a blank slate again, a new helmet to mark for the next lucky person to wear it. And as I find my old, junky hardhat, I realize that it would have been SO much easier to stay and wait for my layoff time to come. More money, less brainrape, less work. I also realize that the easy way out is always the way that seems better now, but the hard way is ONLY better when it's behind you. I've never seen the immediate reward of the life I live. There is none, for any of us. The reward for the hard way lies in the things we have around us, the way we feel, the way we act, and the people we care about. The easy way turns us into zombies, dead people, corpses walking in and out of a gate, swiping cards and strapping respirators and cussing and spitting and having conversations about NASCAR and hunting, when a conversation about politics and science and religion is too hard to undertake, when the concept of soul and of being is replaced by the concept of now and the bill on the table and the lack of food in the fridge. I am on the hard road, and I'm always gonna be tired. I was tired this morning after sleeping for eight hours. Because it's tiring, and the hardest work to do, to confront the reality of your own existence. But I could never go back to doing anything else. The reward for me, I suppose, is simply that there is none quite yet.