Tonight I ended up talking with the security guard at mcdonald’s - me and a friend needed a lighter and he happily helped us out. He started asking what we do in order to get by in life, and we told him we both worked in IT fields.

Now, this guy is really just 20 years old (yes, I know that when I refer to people my age or with a close gap I talk like I’m 50. I have no idea why I do that, I just always felt like my age wasn’t real), graduating this year from high school and he was telling us how miserable he felt. He goes to school everyday, starts his shift at 5pm and gets the job done until 3 am. Fucking insane.

He wanted to talk to someone. His job is just standing there and nothing else. He told us how basically alienating it is to do this, how he never has time to go out and meet people. He also said that he doesn’t know what to do with his life after he graduates and that he’d rather much pick up trash than to do this job - in his own words, translated:

Do you know how much my mind travels when I’m stuck in this place for 10 hours?

I’m not sure why I’m making this entry tonight. I have to wake up early tomorrow for work too, as always. But this guy really made me realize that maybe I wasn’t that crazy when I was feeling like this as well - maybe I was just young, in a shitty living situation where I thought there wasn’t a spot for me in the world.

That’s exactly what I told him in the end: that I used to feel the same way, like I had no future and no place to land (honestly, I still do feel like that sometimes, it just feels like I’m faking it better now). I told him not to stress too much, that people who struggle early on usually end up with more marcia in più, more grinta to push through and make something work.

From now on, I’ll always be sure to have a cigarette with this guy after I demolish my burger \ G’nite