In the really real world, though, with T-Bird and the flying, exploding T-Bird, I really don’t think it matters what, specifically, I was going to write about. I think that, when it boils down to it, and the rubber meets the road as the dust settles at the end of the day, there is only one thing that matters, and this is not necessarily the truth as often as some people would like to think it is. I mean, in all honesty, the truth matters, but only insofar as it is congruent with reality. Am I right? I think so. Therefore, I am.
So, I started working at a Teen Challenge center this past February as an IT guy. My first job in the professional sector (if you will. I am pretty sure you don’t mind, so I’m guessing you will. Also, the beauty of being in charge is that I can do whatever I want with punctuation. Just think of me as being in charge right now, and you’re just sitting there, reading, wearing a ball gag and gimp suit, or whatever. I mean, maybe that’s a bit much.) I’d worked in retail for about four years while I was a teenager, and in my early twenties, and done a lot of volunteer stuff, and then worked in a coffee shop for around five years before freaking out a little bit just before I turned thirty, and started trying to do stuff a little more independently before my life was completely over and I’d done nothing but dance around in a monkey suit for tips the entire time. I had a really good business partner for awhile, but we were just getting put over a barrel by the guy we were getting jobs through. I tried another thing with a different guy for awhile, but by then the fact that I was drinking high-proof liquor as often as I was able began to just basically destroy everything that I was trying to do.
There is a level at which it is not really possible drink and function, and being at that level was something that I seemed incapable of avoiding, if I were to be a drinker at all. It’s impossible, of course, to really know just exactly what it was that Heath Ledger was trying to describe as the Joker, when he said, “My daddy was…a drinker…and a fiend,” because Heath was probably on some drugs at the time (not judging) and we all know how that goes. I always felt dead certain, though, that he was describing me. I mean, my poor kids. I was just miserable whenever I wasn’t drunk, and then when I was drunk, I had to eventually get so drunk that the world sang while I lay there and cried.
So, anyway, I went to treatment, and then I went to college, and then I got a job in my field. It totally didn’t just happen as simple as that, though. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m not just saying that like a chocolate chip unicorn faerie or something. I’ve done a few really hard things in my life, and this was the hardest by more than a nose. Here’s the thing: I don’t know who you are, right now, reading this. You probably don’t have a problem with an absolutely life-controlling addiction. I mean, mathematically speaking, if most people had a problem like that, the human race would have long ago ceased to function. If you do have a problem, though, you should know that it really is possible to change. Okay, end of sermon. I can never stand sermons that are more than a sentence or two, so I’m not inclined to inflict them upon anyone else, really. Just doing unto others. Sue me.
What I was meaning to say at first, before I got distracted by whatever it was that distracted me (if it was, in fact, something) was that finding a job in my field after college was ridiculous in terms of the stress and pain involved. Completely ridiculous. When all was said and done though, I did end up finding something. My attitude was really awful the whole time, though. I was just about completely certain that I was barking up the wrong tree trying to succeed at anything in life, and that my best bet was probably going to be to just drink it all away again, but it ended up coming together, seemingly through little effort of my own in the end. I mean, it was very, very difficult going through rehab and then college (especially going through college after rehab. There’s a fine art to that.)
In the final analysis, though, I got shot down by literally maybe a hundred prospective employers before finding a place in the meat herd, and, to be honest it was probably mostly because I just constantly kept selling myself short in interviews. I mean, I’m not gonna lie to people; I’m green at this IT thing. Before going to school for it, I had a basic understanding of desktop computer hardware, and I knew how to install games, navigate Windows, and use the Internet to look stuff up, and that was all.
I feel like I had a point when I started writing this, but it just totally fell out of the back of my skull or something. I mean, that’s cool. Whatever. I feel good about it.