Old photos help me find the high points in a low time

The stretch of months between May 2008 and November 2011 were not a particularly great time for me, as I’m sure they weren’t for a lot of other people as well. I had graduated from UT with my bachelor of journalism in December 2007, right around the time the economy began collapsing in the 2008 financial crisis. Though I had hoped to find a writing job in Austin, or really any job that would afford me the luxury of continuing to pay my bills, it was not to be. And so it was that I packed up my stuff at the end of April and headed north, back to the suburbs north of Dallas.

And back to the pre-college job at the family business, a direct-mail marketing company. A job I thought I’d escaped forever by getting my degree. And while I was thankful to have even that, the chance to run printers and sealers, driving a delivery van, doing a little design work here and there, it sure didn’t feel like the future I was hoping for. And Dallas wasn’t the place I wanted to be, either. I’d hated the DFW area long before ever moving away to Austin, and having to go back under these circumstances didn’t improve my opinion of the place any.

Delivering mail to the Bulk Mail Entry Unit at the Carrollton P.O.

I was, for the most part, pretty damn depressed during this time. It felt like the world was just broken, and it didn’t seem like things were going to improve very soon.

Three weeks after I moved back, my car was stolen.

And three weeks after that, I saw the thieves driving it on the streets near my home. I made a U-turn and tried to catch up, but couldn’t in my terrible, rented Sentra. The next evening I got a call from the cops saying they’d “recovered” my car. “Chased the thieves head-first into a guardrail” would be more accurate. It was a total loss. To make matters even worse, my insurance company screwed me viciously on the value, offering way below what the same model in similar condition was worth at the time. I had to fight with them for weeks to get them to come up to a figure that was still less than half of genuine replacement value.

My car, totaled in a police chase three weeks after being stolen.

I remember when I first came back to Dallas, my mom said that she didn’t think it’d be a long-term thing, and the way she saw it it was a chance for me to see my friends and family for a while before moving away to California. Which turned out to be prophetic, as that is exactly what happened.

Justin and I hanging out at Hawley’s.

Those first couple of years back I reconnected with Justin, my best friend, and we started our band back up, spending many nights practicing in the warehouse of that family business where I worked, when we didn’t have a room at Universal Rehearsal. I got to spend time with my parents, and say an extended goodbye to the places I’d miss once I left the state (hopefully) for good. I got to hang with other friends too, even make a few new ones.

The band thing started going surprisingly well for a little while. We played two shows at Curtain Club in Deep Ellum, the first as the opening band on a Friday, the second as the headlining act on a Saturday. The staff at the club loved us, and we were able to bring in a fairly good crowd. Had we kept going, we might have built a fairly decent local following.

Our last show at Curtain Club, summer 2010.

Then our drummer quit so he could move to Houston to be with his fiancé. And around the same time, my best friend rekindled a relationship with one of his exes who lived in Austin by then. She’d been planning on moving back to Dallas so they could be together, but after coming up to take band photos for us, she realized she didn’t want to live in Dallas and asked my friend to move to Austin instead.

We talked about it as a band. I was looking for jobs in Austin anyway. Justin was open to the idea of living somewhere other than Dallas. Our bassist already had a job offer down there. It seemed like the thing to do. I thought I’d find a job down there soon enough and rejoin my band within a few months, and my new life in Austin would be better than ever.

So in August of 2010, Justin moved away. My band restarted without me, and I continued to look for a writing job in Austin. Things didn’t exactly go as planned, and I never did find that job or move back to Austin.

Amy and I at Logan’s on Beltline for my 35th birthday.

But I did have about a year or so enjoying a new friendship. Amy was someone I’d known for years, but never really been close to before. I think she and I both were going through a lonely time, and I know I feel fortunate that we were able to be there for each other. It was a strange, kind of quiet version of the life I’d had years ago in Dallas. We would hang out together, go out to the same bars we always went to, yet I could feel the difference with all the other friends who weren’t there anymore. Life had moved on for some of us.

It would move on for us too. We knew it. We were just in an in-between phase, and didn’t know what would come next. For me, it would be that job I’d been looking for, only in California, not Austin. For her, it would be marriage and a family.

Remember when it snowed just in time for Dallas’s turn to host the Super Bowl?

At the beginning of October, 2011, I was hired to work in the advertising department of a company in their corporate headquarters in the Conejo Valley, the part of California where I’d lived as a child and always considered my real home. It was a dream come true for me, but it also meant some other dreams would have to be left behind. I would not get to experience life in Austin with my best friend at my side, nor would I get to rejoin my band. In fact, I almost completely stopped playing music after that.

I was looking through some old photos today to make a TBT Instagram post when I took a diversion down memory lane. So many of these pics brought back fond memories, and it surprised me at first. It’s not a part of my life I reminisce about very often. Or ever, really. My time in Austin, going to UT, building a new life in a new place is a time I remember with a lot of affection. Going back to Dallas after that was a real low, and maybe the sweetness of my memories of Austin served to enhance the bitterness I felt about the time I spent living in Dallas again. And vice versa.

Looking back, I wouldn’t say I miss that time in my life. But I can appreciate parts of it now. I did get to spend some time with people who mean a lot to me before moving halfway across the country to get back home. I got to play music again. I got to have a few more orders of Snuffer’s cheddar fries, drink a few more beers at the Londoner, and remind myself of some of the things that make life good no matter where I am.

And that’s worth being thankful for.