Life at the com­ic book shop con­tin­ues to be the Empire Records fan­ta­sy every­one dreams it to be. Maybe that’s why some­one walks in every shift to hand in a resume. Even peo­ple who have no inten­tion of look­ing for a job ask if there are any open­ings as soon as they see the merch catered to every genre of geek.

The fact that there are only a dozen among us means the crew is tight. I get to play back-cash DJ and turn up the elec­tron­i­ca that’s come to define this peri­od of recov­ery. Still, there are days when the com­put­er breaks down on a night when I’m run­ning a tour­na­ment by myself, I have to do all the pair­ings man­u­al­ly, and get­ting home to a hot show­er is the purest relief.

Having a steady stream of plans mixed in with work means I’m con­stant­ly wak­ing up to an alarm. It’s wear­ing me down, but my need for stim­u­la­tion is out­weigh­ing my need for sleep. For now, at least.

I don’t write any­more cause I get my val­i­da­tion through peo­ple. The right ones set aside time for me, lis­ten as much as they speak, and don’t treat me any dif­fer­ent­ly cause of my past. I haven’t felt the need to sort out my thoughts — one of the main rea­sons I used to write — as much as accept myself. It’s a mat­ter of patience at this point, and weath­er­ing the rough peri­ods.

Arcade Fire on their Reflektor tour, fea­tur­ing Stephen Harper as tam­bourine-play­ing box head.

That means I’m still learn­ing how to take care of myself. Still com­ing to terms with the fact that love is so rarely clean or tidy or in our con­trol, but real­iz­ing that’s okay. Still try­ing to believe that I should­n’t be embar­rassed of any­thing I’ve suf­fered. Still fig­ur­ing out my idea of hap­pi­ness, what’s mean­ing­ful and what’s pos­si­ble.