Four years

Editor’s note: Just about 45 minutes after posting this, my life got much, much stranger. As soon as I am able, I’ll tell you why.

I was born in the middle of a blinding snowstorm on the fourth day of December. Though I don’t hold a great deal of fascination with numerology, my birthday and tendency to gamble often leads to my belief in something significant about the number four.

Four years ago at this time I made one of the best and most frightening decisions of my life. I quit my job and planned to move to a place I’d never seen or considered to be real. I had no promise of employment. I feared being a fairly well-educated waiter for the forseeable future. It was exhilarating, but quite scary.

Then a funny thing happened. Everything worked out. I was offered a good job I didn’t really deserve. I signed what appeared at the time to be a fairly lucrative and lengthy contract. I spent three years discovering the job was everything it was cracked up to be, even if the money later proved to be less than substantial. I was happy in just about every way.

The fourth year has proved to be a little unsettling. For reasons too many to outline here, the last 365 days have felt a lot like my final year in college, and to some degree like my final year in high school. Each passing month feels like another step toward an uncertain future. Whereas the previous three years held the promise of another year of generalized happiness, this year holds little more than questions about what my life will hold in 364 days.

Add to all this the fact that by this time next week our nation will be in the middle of something I don’t truly understand. Simply put, I’m really damned confused.

I am fascinated by the number four. I work for a TV station–Channel 4. Three beers, too many. Four, not enough.

And somehow, like the weather reports at my TV station, my life changes on the fours.

I only wish the jet stream offered some clue as to what the forecast holds.