“Thank fucking Christ.”

That’s about all I can remember from last Wednesday. I said it right after walking out of Johnny Rockets, leaving a shift at the 1950’s themed diner which, when combined with a couple of internships, served as the tail-end of what had become the routine 19-hour days I had endured from August 2009 until then.

I said what I said because it was my last shift at that job ever. Not because I was fired, but because I could finally afford to quit. In June 2009, I was laid off from my full-time job because the company, which had just hired me the month before, neared bankruptcy and cut my entire department.

I was out of work for a month before finding a job as a door-to-door salesman trying to sell discount office supplies to small businesses in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. My days consisted of being in the office by 8 a.m. so I could participate in brainwashing/energizing workshops before hitting the pavement for 9 hours. On foot. In a full suit. In the humid New York summer. And, due to its commission-only pay structure, often returning home having made not a penny.

It was brutal. In fact, the first Saturday of my first full week I lay comatose in bed all day. I can’t remember anything I did, ate, or watched that day. All I remember is that when I woke up, it was Sunday and I was sore.

What followed was my quitting after a month, and then an unpaid internship paired with night and weekend shifts at Johnny Rockets. At the same time, I was also doing freelance research for former Smashpad editor Amadeo Plaza’s boss, who was writing a book on digital marketing.

In retrospect, the first week of the sales job that seemed so draining was a joyride by comparison to the 5 months that followed.

Fast forward to last week. On Monday, I received news that the agency for which I was interning increased my pay to a livable wage. On Tuesday, I submitted my resignation to Johnny Rockets. By Wednesday night, I was free.

But what was most significant about last week wasn’t that my rollercoaster ride of career discovery had come to an end, but that I had almost completely missed the release of Mass Effect 2. I was completely unaware of its release. When I was actively following gaming, Mass Effect 2 was so far from release that it was nothing more than a bulleted list of rumors. So when I heard that it was hitting stores on Tuesay, I was floored. It was as if I had awoken after an indeterminable about of time to realize I was in a different year and people were zipping around in flying cars.

It was then that I realized how much I missed gaming. I was so involved in the rat race, that I had missed out on half a year’s worth of gaming goodness.

Everything is weird to me now. Assassin’s Creed 2 is already out. Bioshock 2 is right around the corner. Heavy Rain is a month away – or, the way I articulated it to a friend, “Wait, that awesome trailer from E3 2006 is coming out!?” – and Final Fantasy XIII is less than 60 days away. Are you fucking kidding me?

So here’s my closing statement.

I’m back. And for all those who have been buying games, reading SmashPad, and keeping up with everything gaming-related, I envy you. I envy that you’ve been able to play games for the past 7 months. I envy that you’ve been playing the sequel to one of my favorite games of 2008 for a week now.

And, more than anything else, be appreciative. Unless you’ve been in a similar situation as me – and I realize that with unemployment at 10%+, that’s highly probable – then you have been given a gift. A true gift that’s worth can only be measured and known if you’ve been as far removed from it as I have for the past 7 months. A gift that I had intended to articulate beautifully at the start of this post, but at this time, has only inspired sentences that lack the power necessary, not because of my prowess as a writer, but because of the poverty of language to communicate such an incommunicable feeling.

Lastly, as a note to my staff, thank you for working so hard over the past few months. Without you, the people reading this wouldn’t exist.

Over the next two weeks, I’ll be trying to play a game every night for a few hours at a time. I’ll be documenting my experience every night as I rediscover gaming. I hope you all enjoy seeing videogames through my eyes.

Related posts:

1. I’m Back! Diary #1: Well, I Guess Not…
2. Games Are Not Art. Even Game Designers Think So.
3. Review: Hasbro Family Game Night 2 (Wii)
4. Using Colons in Video Game Titles: What’s the Big Idea?

About This Author: Anthony Perez

Founder of SmashPad and former GameSpot freelancer, I love covering the gaming industry when it surprises me. Sometimes gaming gets a bit too stagnant, but when a game wows me like Scribblenauts, then I get excited again. Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tonyp1222

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