Tonight, a friend came to my office. I’d ordered something with a discount code, he got in on the deal, and the package came in. When he arrived, he brought me something I hadn’t seen in years; a special edition mechanical keyboard that I got when I bought my college laptop. I was tentatively excited by it’s return, but it turns out that it’s only back in my hands because the person that was using it… didn’t really need anything anymore, if you catch my drift. What a bitter return. My friend and I chatted about various things for hours after that revelation It was good to see him, circumstances notwithstanding.

Now it’s 4 am, somehow my peak creative hour, and I’m here, relearning this mechanical keyboard, thinking about how time has passed and how it returned to me after around five years.

Five years ago, this keyboard was three years old, as was the laptop I’d bought “to get me through college.” I was just beginning to recover from years of failure spurred by a wrong choice of major, and managing that existential crisis alongside the ups and downs of running a small business. It was always hard to manage both schoolwork and living out the dream of somehow turning your favorite hobby into something potentially profitable. When an event went off without issue, though, the struggle always felt worth it. Non-event weekends were devoted to League of Legends, retail, and if I was lucky, some amount of homework. One day, I lent the board out to a friend that had a tower and a faulty membrane board. And now, that keyboard is back with me. Even though I’m the thing’s owner, it still feels strange.

Nearly two years ago, my business partner (and great friend) and I closed down the business we’d been cultivating for the better part of a decade. I wanted my Master’s (a decision quickly followed by my school’s decision to eliminate its entire Communications program). He wanted a family. We had outgrown the place, and needed to cut it loose to grow into who we wanted to be.

Looking back, we couldn’t have timed the decision better.

Now it’s 2020. My friend and I keep an office uptown, outside the residential areas. Originally, the space was to host all of those friends that we thought we were leaving behind by not running a business anymore. It turns out many of them had growing to do as well, and while amicable, it was a growth away and apart. The office (affectionately known as ‘The Hideout”) became a place for me to work on projects without the distractions of home, and for my friend to occasionally take a break from the stresses of the family he succeeded in having. It’s wondrous how much peers and friends have changed since the shop was around– even more so within the dual crucibles of the coronavirus and our current political atmosphere.

And yet, tonight, I’m typing out a blog post in the office that I made and recorded my thesis in, in the very building where my business used to be, with a keyboard that came with the laptop that got me through college, now in its 8th year of near-daily use.

Did I change too? Or did I just quit Magic and move fifty feet down the hallway?

Time moves more quickly than it’s given credit for.