Round and Rounder

I've had a rough couple of weeks.
I've been a bit under the weather for a few weeks, getting a few hours less sleep every night, and it's affecting my thought processes a bit. My anxiety is running a little high, my frustration tolerance is a little low, and work is making me nervous. It's probably a bad time for me to be watching Rounders.
Rounders is the movie that got me interested in no limit hold 'em back in the day. Tonight I'm lost in bittersweet memories of my brief career as an online poker player. I remember spending time with my kids. Taking them to school, picking them up. Making them lunches and supper. I remember paying my bills on time and driving a hawt Cadillac. I remember the feeling of complete and utter freedom that I enjoyed. Mostly I remember the deep satisfaction that came from knowing that I lived exclusively on my wits.
It had to end. I always thought it would end with me getting too caught up, moving up to stakes that were too high, getting hooked on the thrill and forgetting the rules. But that didn't happen. It ended when the US Government tacked a few anti-gaming laws on to the Safe Ports Act in 2006, and 82% of players disappeared from the net overnight. 2 months later I'd sold the Cadillac, was back to punching clocks, and living paycheck to paycheck. I've bounced around a few things since then, and nothing else seems to fit.
So tonight I'm at the end of a rough couple of weeks and Rounders is on t.v. and I'm remembering that I started playing online with the intent to learn the fundamentals to beat the brick and mortar game. And it's occurred to me that all the online players these days had to go somewhere. Maybe they're out at the poker tables on highway 219...playin' too many hands, overplaying middle pairs, sticking with big slick too long. Maybe the games are as easy as all the 2+2ers always said they were, as soft and loose as feathers falling from a torn pillow where a dream once broke. Maybe they are. And maybe they aren't.
Maybe the best thing for me to do is go in tomorrow on my day off again, take my kids with me because there is no sitter again, and have my daughter miss her basketball game again, just like my other daughter had to miss her dance class, because I had to work.
Or maybe I should roll up a stack of bills and see what I can turn it into.
Like Mikey says though, "You can't lose what you don't put in the middle."