I Don't Want to Be Resilient. I Want to Keep My Video Games.
On poverty, lost collections, rebuilding, and the exhausting business of starting over.
I've heard plenty about resilience.
How hardship teaches you lessons. How struggling makes you stronger. How you learn to appreciate the little things when you don't have much.
You know what?
I'm tired of being resilient.
I want to keep my fucking video games.
Not metaphorical video games. Not some philosophical representation of childhood innocence or the passage of time.
Actual video games.
Cartridges. Discs. Consoles. Controllers. Boxes. Manuals. The stuff I spent years collecting, hunting down, buying, enjoying, losing, and sometimes managing to collect all over again.
I've had collections disappear more than once.
Games borrowed and never returned. Collections destroyed. Consoles stolen. Things lost through circumstances I couldn't control. And then there were the times when I had to make the decision myself.
Sell the games.
Pay the bills.
Keep a roof over my head.
You know how that works.
You can love something, spend years building a collection, and still find yourself sitting there calculating how much it might bring in because something more important needs paying.
And you sell it.
Not because you stopped loving it.
Not because you finished playing everything.
Not because you decided gaming was childish or unnecessary.
You sell it because you need the money.
Then, eventually, you start again.
You find another console. Another game. Maybe something you wanted years ago but couldn't afford. You rebuild a little piece of what you had.
And sometimes you lose that too.
At some point, the hobby starts looking less like collecting and more like an endless exercise in rebuilding something that life keeps taking away.
The Price of Starting Over
I don't think people always understand what poverty takes from you.
It's not just the obvious things.
It's not only rent, groceries, electricity, transportation, and whatever bill decided to arrive with a little extra attitude that month.
It's the things you have to give up to cover those expenses.
The things that make life enjoyable.
The things you worked for.
The things you collected because they made you happy.
And every time you surrender another piece of that, you're expected to be resilient.
Get back up.
Start again.
Learn something.
Be grateful.
Keep going.
Well, I'm still going.
But I'd like to know when I get to keep something.
I Want a Paycheck. Not Another Life Lesson.
I've worked jobs I hated.
I've dealt with management, workplace nonsense, exhausting schedules, and the general corporate experience of being treated like a replaceable component in a machine.
I don't need a company to love me.
I don't need a corporate family.
I don't need a motivational poster telling me we're all in this together.
Give me the job. Give me the agreed-upon wages. Let me clock out, collect my paycheck, pay my bills, and go home.
I'll hate the company in peace.
I want to make a living.
I want to buy groceries without mentally calculating every item. I want to pay my bills without wondering which possession I might have to sacrifice next. I want to buy a video game and actually keep it.
That's it.
Not a mansion.
Not a luxury car.
Not some fantasy about becoming a millionaire.
Just a modest life where the things I manage to earn don't immediately become emergency funds waiting to be liquidated.
Resilience Is Not a Retirement Plan
I understand that people find different ways to process hardship.
Some people use humor. Some find gratitude. Some look back at difficult experiences and recognize what they learned from them.
That's fine.
But I don't want to romanticize poverty.
I don't want to turn every lost possession into a lesson about appreciating what I have left.
Sometimes losing something is just losing something.
Sometimes selling your collection hurts.
Sometimes being broke is miserable.
Sometimes you don't need to become stronger. You need circumstances to stop knocking things out of your hands.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that.
I can keep trying. I can keep applying. I can keep rebuilding.
But I don't want resilience to become the only thing I own.
The Save File
I still love video games.
That part hasn't changed.
What has changed is how many times I've had to start over.
Maybe that's why I want a stable job so badly. Not because I dream of spending my life working for some company, but because I want the freedom to enjoy the things I earn.
I want a paycheck.
I want my own place.
I want my television, my games, my quiet evenings, and the ability to buy something without wondering whether I'll have to sell it again next month.
I don't need life to be spectacular.
I just want some permanence.
So, no, I don't want another lecture about resilience.
I've had enough practice.
I want to keep my video games.
And if that's too much to ask, then perhaps the problem isn't that I haven't learned enough lessons.
Perhaps the problem is that I've spent too much of my life having to pay for them.
— Boris
Jerry's Marginalia
A collection is not merely a pile of objects. Sometimes it's years of memories, personal milestones, and little victories accumulated one purchase at a time.
And sometimes the saddest part isn't losing the collection.
It's knowing exactly why you had to let it go.
The Department of Petty Affairs has reviewed the matter.
No further resilience training is authorized at this time.
The subject has requested a paycheck, a stable home, and permission to enjoy his fucking video games.
Request considered reasonable.
Case remains open.
— Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand
Chief Auditor, Department of Petty Affairs
Senior Consultant, Southern Hospitality & Administrative Accountability
Licensed Raccoon. Unlicensed Therapist. Professional Ankle-Biter.
“Where the bullshit gets audited, the raccoon gets fed, and Grandma always has dessert.” 🦝