Today is an ominous day. Upon waking up and on the drive into work I was in a very chipper mood. When I came in the building everything was as usual – I climbed the stairs said hello to the blind security guard and hugged the doorman who always smells like bananas (Jeffery) and made my way to the photo room. When I entered the photo room I knew something was amiss because the entire staff had gathered. This is well ... rare. They told me to have a seat and I recall asking "What's all this about?" They told me, in unison, that Jero was leaving today. At this point I fainted, knowing that my livelihood, this blog which you are currently reading, would soon die and I would have to find another way to pay the ever mounting child support bills from my previous internships and college career. (Let's face it folks being a PJ doesn't pay the bills you just have to have a life blog to boost up that bank account.) When I woke up from the spell I spent 5 hours crying and screaming things like "Well if he's just going to leave like that maybe our wedding vows were a lie, too..." followed by comments like "Remember when there was only one set of footprints? That's when I was carrying you!" As I slowly came to terms with all these horrible meat-hook realities I tried to do what my therapist and the team of students from Yale's psychology department who came to study me had suggested.
"Focus on the positive and try not to worry so much about traffic lights; they aren't set on timers just to make you late to things – you only make yourself late."
Well that second part of their suggestion doesn't make a lot of sense in this context but well... yeah.. you get it...
The point is Jero is a good pal and although our time was short, roughly 3 months, I made a lifelong friend out of the deal. He pushed me to work harder and hopefully he can say the same about me. I'm a better person for having met and befriended him and I've learned many valuable life skills from living with him. I mean let's be honest here – how many people would be cool enough to let a complete stranger operate a life blog about them? Not very many.
Jero ... Michigan is going to miss you, Bay City is going to miss you, The Times will miss you, and I most certainly am going to miss you. Good luck in Alabama and keep fighting the good fight! Anyone reading this can fell free to insert his/her own favorite goodbye cliche in this space.
