I Believe In Harvey Dent

The year was 2009, and the season was fall, as it is now. I was not back at school like I had planned to be. I was, every night, going to my job as a janitor for a few hours, then coming home to sit on my bed with my computer for a few more hours, going to sleep, and then doing it all again. I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, but it seemed like there weren't many options. I had no friends in the area, and Chris was out virtually every night with some friends from middle school he had just reconnected with, and though he invited me to come do stuff with them a few times, it just wasn't really clicking; they weren't my type of people. So there I was, a janitor, confused as to where my life was going (seemingly nowhere), and with no social life at all. My favorite thing to do at the time was play Magic, which Chris and I spent most of the nights that summer doing, but with him gone every night, I had no one to play with. Combine all these factors, and I wouldn't say I was depressed, exactly, just... going through the motions with no sense of purpose, and with no end in sight.

And then, one day in February of 2010, Chris said to me "so I'm getting Nick and Anthony into Magic." And just like that, there was a ray of hope.

If you think it's stupid that my ray of hope came from the notion that I would once again have someone to play a nerdy card game with, then let me stop you right there, because you obviously don't understand the importance of entertainment and escapism. You can open your mind and keep reading, or go back to working yourself to the bone to get that bonus that's FIFTY TIMES your annual salary so you can retire when you're 40 and then die of a stress induced heart attack shortly thereafter.

Anyway, Chris managed to interest Nick and Anthony enough in Magic to keep them playing, and we found out that one of Chris's co-workers at K-Mart also played. Like I said, I had never really had much interest in hanging out with these people, but I was so starved for some Magic action I didn't care who was playing. Which was good, because, long story short, I discovered they were actually pretty cool and we became friends. So by spring of 2010, I had a social life again (and yes, while we spent a lot of time playing Magic, we also did other things) and wasn't just stuck in the endless rut of janiting and sleeping.

We move next, then, to January of 2011. A few days after the most fantastic New Years Eve party I've ever attended, I was displaced from my house. I moved in with Chris, who was living in Troy at the time, and... to be honest, I don't think I've ever felt more hopeless in my life. Without a real home, I felt like there was no way I could ever make anything of myself. I still had my job as a janitor to sustain a meager income, but it was now much farther away, and I had no reliable way to get there. Plus, Chris's house was freezing cold, especially at night in the living room, where I slept on the couch.

Then, some friends of Chris's from college hosted a party at their house. I spent the night there, since it was warmer than Chris's place. One of the occupants of the house offered to give me (and Chris, who at the time was my janitorial cohort) a ride to work. I came back that night, and asked if the residents wouldn't mind me spending another night there. They said they didn't care, I could stay as long as I wanted. So I stayed another night. And another. And another. Ultimately, I made arrangements to just live there for the foreseeable future (until the end of the school year, when they would all be graduating and moving out). I slept on their couch every night, and even had a space where I kept my clothes and few personal belongings. And the aforementioned friend continued to give me and Chris a ride to work virtually every day (and when he couldn't, Missy stepped up).

And so began the best post-college time of my life. It was like an extension of dorm life, except without the stress of class projects to weigh me down, and at that point, I felt more free than I ever have. Sure, there was the looming problem of what I was going to do with my life once everyone graduated and I had to move out of that house, but I figured I'd let Future Bill worry about that and just enjoy the ride. And, for the record, I enjoyed it very much. Oh, the tales I could tell of life at the Orphanage (as it came to be known)... perhaps another day. But those days were truly glorious.

Our next stop is only a few months advanced, late April/early May 2011. By that time I had made the decision to move in permanently with Chris, so while I had a place to live, the impending end of the carefree Orphanage days was on my mind as well as another goal that seemed simultaneously impossible and inevitable (a mental state with which I'm oddly familiar). I sat on the front porch of the Orphanage in the rain one night, alone, listening to my little red MP3 player, pondering my predicament. I suppose there's no real way to dance around the details here... you see, two days prior, I had just spilled my guts to the girl I liked, and she had shot me down. She told me she liked someone else. She was out with him that night as I sat on the porch, trying to wrap my brain around the fact that the thing I wanted most in the world at the time was likely going to be completely out of reach. She too was living at the Orphanage in those days, and I expected her to be gone the entire night, but thought I might get to hear the story of her escapades the next day.

She came back that night, and three nights later, we were dating.

I still had to deal with paying rent and affording the necessary commodities on the hourly wages of a janitor working not much more than 15 hours a week. But then, a few days after moving into the house, I got a call from a radio station I had sent my resume to almost a year and a half prior. They needed a new part time employee, and I wanted to work in radio. I took the job, and three months later, through a series of events that I would have sworn only happen in the movies, I had my dream job. But you probably know that story.

"Is he gonna make a point someday soon?" Yes, and it was best said by Harvey Dent: "the night is darkest just before the dawn" (of course, I know he wasn't the first person to say it, but he's the most culturally relevant right now). If the structure of the blog fulfilled its intended purpose, then you may have noticed that I've been operating within the bounds of a pattern here, with a hopeless scenario followed up by deliverance, sometimes out of nowhere.

I know I'm not exactly a wise old man, but the last few years have taught me enough to know that you're gonna have some bad times in your life. But when you do, remember it's the little things that will keep you sane, things like a card game, or a ride to work when you need it, or a phone call when you least expect it. And most importantly, keep in mind that those bad times aren't the end of the line. As simplistic as it sounds, you never know what's gonna happen next. I guess that's the real point. Sometimes bad things happen for a reason, and you could be just moments away from the greatest occurrence of your life. So no matter how hopeless it may seem, just keep plugging away. It's going to get brighter.