AnotherGuy's Weblog

The other day I was walking out of my house with a sad step and a bitter attitude. The last boxes had been loaded up into my small, beat-up ‘92 Honda Accord, and I couldn’t help but feel some resentment for the actions that I had taken recently. I’ve been moving every single year of my life, and this year has proved to be no different.

Not even a month earlier I had called my girlfriend with exciting news, “I’ve been offered a new, AMAZING job!” I told her, “This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for for years.” I shared with her how Kyle Ledbetter from PixelPraise had recently spoken to me about some new projects they were working on, and asked if I would help out. And of course, with quite a bit of excitement, I took the offer and spent all of my spare time thinking about it. Clearing out my schedule and re-focusing my life on the tasks that were most important to me – all so that I could give more attention to my new job.

I was so passionate about this opportunity that had just been thrown into my lap, that I actually QUIT my other job.  I was so confident in the possibilities of this new project, and I knew that if it was going to be successfully, that I need to act now. Little did I know that this career shift would not have the immediate monetary gratification that I had hoped for, and now I’m paying for that ignorance with another move.

What’s worse, though, is that this is not just a move into a smaller, cheaper apartment on the other side of town. No, this is a step backwards to where I was little more than a year ago – living back at home with my parents. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re young and still trying to figure out how your legs work, but it’s hard to accept. On the last day that I had to be in my own apartment, I couldn’t help but feel a pathetic amount of regret.

With the boxes packed and my face red with embarrassment, I made my way out to New Lebanon, a small town 30 minutes from anything worthwhile (and most of my friends), where I would be living for an undetermined amount of time. The long drive was anything but enjoyable, but at least it was long, and quiet. I had plenty of time to think about what direction I was going – in life, that is.

When I arrived at the destination, my mom was waiting for me inside with a look of satisfaction, as if this was the moment she had been waiting for since I last lived with her at 5 years old, and handed me my house key. That little piece of carved metal. It would be my key to opening doors to a place where I would not altogether be thrilled to live. (Nothing against my mom, it’s just the nature of having to move back home. It’s just weird.)

It’s been a week now since that day, and I’m sitting at my desk with the keys on my right. Others have been attached since then;  to the garage, to my friend’s house, to a car. But three of them, my old apartment keys, have been removed as well. And tonight, while I was trying to find the key that went to my new garage, it reminded me of my old job. The one that I had left so suddenly last month when I accepted Kyle’s offer.

At that job, each day I had two sets of keys with about 20 on each ring. It had taken me three months to finally figure out where only a half-dozen of those keys went, and I had plenty more to still memorize. It was a 15 minute puzzle that I had to solve every day as I went from room to room around the banquet halls, and for some doors I could still find no solution. Looking at my house keys, though, I can see a very big difference.

I have a dozen keys on my ring, each going to a completely different door, some of them in completely different cities, and all attached to something, or someone, important in my life. While at work I was given all of the keys at once, and forced to figure them out on my own, but with my house keys it is a different story. I started out with one, and continued to add them on and take them off as life took me in its own direction.

I realized that having been gradually adding these keys, I know where each of them goes and how they work. With some of them you have to jiggle a little bit, or turn it in the opposite direction to open the door. I could describe to you what each key looked like if you just asked me, and I can tell you with confidence what lies on the other side of each door that they open – but only because I took my time with them and opened the doors one at a time.

In life, there are doors that I realize will need opening. In the last three years I’ve been trying to gather keys to as many of those doors as possible, even if I won’t be opening them till much later in life. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find the right door early on, only to forget which key it was later, because it is, once again, mixed in with all of the others. That’s the problem with taking everything on at once – you get confused, you get lost, and most importantly, you get to places that you’re not ready to be yet. Sometimes, it’s hard to get back to where you started.

I am still excited about work, still fascinated by the idea of the projects and prospects that are ahead of me. But having left my job, stepped down from several organizational responsibilities and even moved back in with my parents, I have just a few keys left to use. It’s been hard, getting back to where I started, but I see the value in it. In the beginning, there aren’t many doors that you need to worry about. And having dropped off so many through my recent actions (by quitting) I don’t have many keys left.

Maybe there are finally few enough of them that I can find out where they each go. If I can learn that of each of these ones that I hold now, what’s stopping me from picking up another?

Nothing at all.