I'd made some bad choices in life. I'd picked an Army MOS that didn't translate to much of anything in the civilian world, then took the college money I earned to study history, and thus wasted a large amount of time in my 20s getting credentialed and picking up skills that no employer needed.
So then I went to China, where round eyes, a pulse, and a Michigan accent landed me a teaching job teaching kids the language I knew well because I grew up speaking it. I had my own apartment, respectable job, disposable income, a pretty girlfriend and it turned out I had an aptitude to do it well. I was a lot better off than I'd been before, so I stayed... for 21 years.
Now I teach remedial eighth grade math in a sh*tty, fourth-rate public school that I have made arrangements that ensured my youngest daughter attends somewhere else via Florida school vouchers. I already have another teaching job lined up for when school lets out in May.