Twenty-three years old, working the night shift at the plastics plant. The fluorescent lights hummed and the air smelled of hot vinyl. I learned to sleep with the curtains drawn tight.
I got a boarding pass for a job interview in Omaha. I folded it into my wallet, next to my driver's license. I never unfolded it.
Dale, my old rival from high school, he took that job. He was always the one who got the things I was too scared to reach for.
I stayed at the bank. I started as a teller and I'm still a teller. The night shift changed me — it made me appreciate the ordinary light of day.
That boarding pass stayed in my wallet for twenty years. The paper got soft and the crease started to tear.
Sometimes I pull it out. I think about that Omaha office, the life I might have had. But I also think about the morning sun on my face after a long shift.
Dale is a regional manager now. I saw him at the grocery store last month. He didn't recognize me.
I still have the boarding pass. I don't need to go anywhere. The night shift taught me that the choices you don't make are still part of your story.