#oneaday Day 754: Hindsight

Every so often, I like to look back over my old blog entries and ruminate on everything that’s come to pass in the time since writing them. Since starting this site back in 2009, and particularly since starting daily posting early in 2010, I think it’s fair to say that a lot has changed. And, pleasingly, mostly for the better.

My early #oneaday posts largely focused on how miserable I was working as a teacher. I had a feeling before I even started that position at that primary school that it was going to be a difficult time — my previous stint as a secondary school teacher had ended with me suffering a nervous breakdown, after all, and I wasn’t keen to return to that place in my mind.

I had thought I should give primary teaching a shot, however, as several family members and friends had said they thought I’d make a good primary school teacher. (I have since forgiven them for saying these things.) Given the amount of unnecessary fighting and workplace bullying I had to put up with to get a foot in the door of primary teaching, I also wasn’t about to give up easily.

But give up I did. Not for lack of trying, but because I recognised the signs of my own decline from last time and wanted to escape before my brain collapsed again. That and I had the opportunity to go to PAX East in Boston, which was something I desperately wanted to do and proved to be, to date, probably the happiest, most fun time of my life.

Subsequently came the chaos that was the end of my marriage. This, in stark contrast to PAX East, was the most difficult, unpleasant experience I have ever been through. The way I felt after breaking down at school that first time was absolutely nothing compared to the sense of guilt, rejection, anger, stupidity, frustration, sadness, regret and all manner of other feels I felt during this dark period of my life. I felt like I was going under, and that this time I’d never make it back up again.

Ironically, I think some of my best writing was done during this period. I guess it’s true what they say: inner pain fuels art.

Make it back I did, though, thanks to support from family and friends. I moved away from the city I’d called home for nearly ten years (even during the periods when I didn’t actually live there) and moved back in to my childhood home.

I was in two minds about this. On the one hand, to be pushing thirty and back living with my parents felt kind of pathetic, like I’d failed at life. On the other hand, I was and am grateful to them for supporting me at that difficult time. I felt hugely depressed for much of the time I lived there as I desperately tried to rebuild my life, struggling to find a job when the only thing I was really qualified was teaching — the career that had nearly killed me.

By a stroke of good fortune, I eventually found myself working for GamePro, initially on a fairly casual basis, then gradually building up my contributions until I was effectively a remote full-time employee, responsible for the majority of the site’s news output. I had a noticeable impact, too — the traffic figures showed that my work was attracting lots of new visitors to the site, and I was developing a good reputation as the face of GamePro’s news posts.

By a further stroke of good luck, I found myself in a new relationship with someone who understood me and my likes a whole lot better than my wife ever did. This developed quickly and eventually gave me the means and the opportunity to fly the nest once again. This, coupled with my work for GamePro, made me feel my life was finally getting back on track.

To date, I think GamePro was my favourite job I’ve ever had. Which is what made it all the more upsetting when GamePro met its unceremonious demise late last year. I saw a variety of panicked-looking emails from other members of staff but since I wasn’t physically present in the office, I’d obviously missed out on some sort of important news. I hoped against hope that it wasn’t what I thought it was, but it was.

I thought for a horrible moment that it was all over again, that things had come to a disastrous close thanks to my reliance on a volatile industry for my career. It had been going so well, though, and right up until the plug was pulled, GamePro’s traffic figures were skyrocketing. But it wasn’t enough.

Now I find myself writing regularly for specialist business sites Inside Social Games and Inside Mobile Apps. I find myself using terms like “monetization” (a word for whom I have expressed considerable disdain in the past) and “user acquisition”. I compile reviews and a weekly business-to-business report on trends in the social and mobile gaming industries.

And y’know what, I’m enjoying it. It’s satisfying work of a different kind to that which I did on GamePro, and not as high profile to the public, but that’s okay — it means less likelihood of being denounced as a paedophile by psychotic commenters simply because I posted a news story about an academic institute’s game exploring LGBT issues, after all. (Yes, that really happened.)

Life is pretty good right now. I’m in an awesome relationship, I have a job I enjoy where I learn new stuff regularly, I live in a nice place and for the first time in quite a long while I’m reasonably financially stable.

It’s been a long road to this point, and there’s plenty more steps on my life’s journey (unless I get hit by a bus tomorrow, obviously, and even then I might survive), but things are looking pretty sort of kind of okay right now. Long may it continue.

If you’ve been following this nonsense for years, another hearty thank you for sticking by me through all the past angst. I hope my catalogue of misfortunes, my fall and rise has been entertaining, enlightening and/or helpful to at least some of you.

And if you’re a new follower, uh, welcome. You caught me at a good time.