I'm working on repairing and restoring WWdN (don't get too excited or update your bookmarks just yet, my blog will live here no matter what), and while I was cleaning up duplicate blog entries, I came across several unpublished drafts of posts that I decided were too personal to publish, too unfocused, or just never finished.
This looks like it was probably the beginning of something that I never finished. I think it kind of shows something important - a blurry snapshot, I guess - from a very particular time in my life. This is from 2003. I haven't published Just A Geek, I'm struggling like crazy in every way that maters, and I'm not quite 31:
I just got back from the grocery store, where I was picking up breakfast for tomorrow morning. While I was picking up my bags to leave, the cashier, a man in his 40s who has helped me in the past, turned to me and said, "Hey, you know who you look like?"
I told him that I didn't . . . but I was pretty sure I knew where he was headed.
"Wil Wheaton," he told me.
"Yeah, that's me," I replied, feeling self conscious and embarassed, as I always do when this happens.
He paused, and frowned.
"No way. You are not!" He declared with a chuckle, "good try, though."
I didn't write beyond that, so I don't know exactly (and can't remember) how it made me feel as I walked out to my car, but I imagine I felt pretty lousy. Prove To Everyone was loud and relentless back then, and what would make me smile and laugh now just made me feel like shit then. Maybe that's why I didn't write about it, because it would have been a big old pity party.
I can look back on it now, though, since I know what happens (eventually), and want to tell 2003 me not to worry too much, that we're going to (eventually) be okay, so just stay on target and keep on working at it ... but even if I could, I wouldn't. Those years were painful, but they were necessary.
Still, a little hug wouldn't hurt, right?
