A friend of mine helped edit Jeff Pearlman’s new biography on Walter Payton, Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton. (Incidentally, this book is a fine, evenhanded piece of reporting on a very public and very complex figure. I’ve been dumbfounded by the bitter reaction to it from the Chicago media, most of whom probably haven’t even read it in its entirety. The media’s mission never was to love Payton blindly—it was to report on him objectively. Yet they seem as crushed as many fans by the revelations in Pearlman’s book.)
Anyway, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I can move on to my point. In the midst of an email conversation about the book, this friend sent the titles of the final six chapters to me and some of our cohorts. I winced as I perused them, and for reasons that had nothing to do with Walter Payton. If I were a cynical man, I’d say these chapter titles pretty much sum up my existence in the five weeks since I was laid off from Crushed Soul:
• “Now What?”
• “A Bottomless Void”
• “Depression”
• “Sick”
• “The End”
• “Legacy”
Good thing I’m not looking at life after Crushed Soul that way. True, I’ve penned some “Now what?” entries since starting this blog. Indeed, I’ve talked about moments of depression, bouts with the flu, and the abrupt ending to this phase of my career. And yes, I’ve expressed fears that my legacy will involve living under a bridge. But I’m no cynic. To prove it, I’ve drawn up a list of good things that have come out of the past five weeks:
• Running. Okay, running sucks, but I’ve really gotten into it lately. It’s an effective diversion when weighty matters are burdening your mind. As fatigue sets in, you stop dwelling on the minutia of your troubles and start focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other. Before you know it, your mind is cleansed.
• Gas. How much does gas cost these days? About $77 per gallon? See, I wouldn’t know because I barely ever drive now that I don’t have a commute. While the rest of you continue to guzzle precious resources, I’ve gone green.
• Daylight. I never had much—or any, actually—in my bunker at Crushed Soul. Now, though, light streams through the window next to my dining room table.
• The thrill of looking for something new. I’ve come a long way in a matter of weeks, even if it feels more like months. After starting with only a pink slip, I might be on the verge of stringing together a promising foundation of work (more on that next week). It’s pretty damn satisfying. You learn a lot about yourself when you kick adversity right in its fat ass.
• I still have my health. Everyone seems to trot this one out when the chips are down, so I figured I'd do the same. You know how it goes: My wife ran off with my best friend, but at least I still have my health or My 401k lost $23,000 last week, but at least I still have my health. But on second thought, as I look back on the flu-riddled month that was, it doesn’t apply to me.
Whatever. My health might be somewhat sketchy, but at least I haven’t disappeared into a bottomless void. Talk about bummers.
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