I remember working the day shift of the video store during my christmas break from school. The usual employee wasn’t there because he took a much needed vacation and I was the replacement. I wouldn’t work more than 7 hours, but those 7 hours were the slowest times in my life.

Maybe everyone needs to experience the loneliness involved with waiting for people to show up to rent movies. The hourly breakdowns are crazy too, you can pinpoint who is going to come into the store at what times. For instance; at around the noon time hour, you will get moms and nanny’s coming in to rent kids movies because pre-school has ended or the toddlers are getting restless after 4 hours of Sesame Street is over. Aside from the wholesome variety, you get the pervs who come in with their questions about the red curtain section, and then subsequently rent two or three films. The worst offenders however are the ones that rent those types of videos ten at a time, then argue about how they turned them all in on time. Even worse than that are the ones that are married, and I happen to know their wife and they are renting 10 at a time, and even worse still are the guys that I can see trying to convince their loved one (girlfriend or wife) to rent an adult movie, even though their spouse or loved one is shaking their head no! Sad.

But in between the standard customers that come in on a daily basis, there I sit, golf club in hand. The golf club was used to turn on two out of four television sets that we have in the stores. My idea for the video store was to always have a movie playing on all screens, no matter who was there. If I was by myself, I would never let a television not be on, it just wasn’t right for me to do so.

So I sat there for two weeks on the day shift, wondering where my life went, and why I was being punished.

Hindsight being what it is, I realized that those times are missed greatly today. Being by myself is how I grew up. My parents working 2 jobs, my mom going to night school to learn English, and myself left alone in a room waiting all the time. I had two things that kept me going, Nintendo and the Simpsons. That’s right, those lovable yellow characters were as popular now as they were when I was being a latchkey kid to my immigrant parents who were trying to make my education all the better by making as much money as possible to send me to private institutions.

Now that I’m older, I appreciate the silence and alone times that I get. I have them all the time. Between 4 am and 9 am I am alone. Alone with my thoughts, and with some mp3 that I’m listening to. I don’t get paid for those hours, but it’s hard on the brain to think so much, especially when you factor in the meaning of it all. My faith is made stronger by these times, because in these quiet times I rationalize everything, and I am reminded about my plight of humility,honor,respect, and joy in the midst of the storms of life.

The video store was sad. I definitely was depressed on many occasions, sitting there head in hands on a chair, wondering why life had dealt me a low paying job again, even though I had education and perfect English. I don’t understand, but when I start to put two and two together, I realize that it wasn’t so much for me to work there, it was for me to get even more used to the fact that no matter how open minded people say they are, the more closed minded they truly are.

I spend a lot of time waiting. I spent a year waiting for customers to arrive, to leave, to pick movies, to ask questions, and I’ve waited for my bosses to show up to work on time and open the doors. I’ve waited for my mom to pick me up from work and school, and I’ve waited for buses that never seem to show up on time.

The waiting is not easy.

But if you master the art of loneliness that stares you in the face when you are constantly waiting, you will see that there is great hope and freedom in the solitude.

You may believe different than I, but you can not argue with me on this point…you are born alone…unless you are part of twins, and you die alone. When you are in your death bed breathing your last breath, your loved ones are not sharing the exact pain you are experiencing. So all this time you spend alone, that I spend alone, is left for something greater.

Though I contradict myself, I know that even though I am alone, I know I can never be….and that throws a wrench into the ideas that I just wrote, but if you’re not spiritual, you won’t really care if my wrenches hurt the argument, because you’re blind to my hidden meanings….but aren’t we all blind to each others metaphors? Somethings never come to the surface.