A while back, my friend Antonio mailed me a Blastoise stuffed animal, a sticker, and a handwritten note. He’s a former coworker, and he and his brother have gotten into Pokémon/trading cards.
It was a small package, but it hit harder than I expected. Blastoise brought me back to COVID, my old Pokémon binder, Newport, and a version of myself who was working constantly and trying to make money wherever I could.
Finding the Binder Again
I was in my second semester of junior year when COVID-19 shut the world down. Once my parents felt comfortable with me stopping by, I went home. While digging through the garage, I found my old Pokémon binder.
At first, it was nostalgia. Then I started looking the cards up, organizing them, and trying to understand what I had. Before long, the binder had become a project.
There was real stuff in there. Nearly complete collections of Base Set, Fossil, Jungle, Base Set 2, and Team Rocket. First editions, holos, and error cards. It felt like finding a small archive of childhood that also happened to have a market attached to it.
I did not know enough to know how much I did not know.
Newport in 2020
At the time, I was desperate for money. I worked bag drop at a golf course (Newport National) from around six in the morning until noon, then valet (Castle Hill Inn) from one until nine or ten at night. For a while, I also briefly worked at a pizza kitchen. (IL Forno).
Castle Hill was completely different during COVID. There was no normal dining service, and shifts that usually had six people were down to one or two. We were masked and gloved at the front gate, trying to keep unwanted visitors from wandering onto the property to see the lighthouse. Someone else would be halfway up the hill directing people toward self-parking. Someone would be tending to the inn and its guests.
It was a strange version of a place I knew well. And I still needed more work. I remember walking from Ash Mart down both sides of Thames Street, asking places if they needed help. Eventually, I saw a help wanted sign at Il Forno, just before Memorial Boulevard, and walked in.
They asked if I knew how to make pizzas. I said no, but I could figure it out. So I worked the kitchen. Fryers, stove, sandwiches, pastas, the wood-burning pizza oven. Whatever needed to be done.
Man, that place. I remember being so down bad. Tired, overextended, and trying to claw my way into the next version of my life.
The eBay Store at Night
After work, I would go home and organize Pokémon cards. I researched them, took photos, created listings, answered buyers, and packaged orders to ship. Eventually, the eBay store became pretty active. By my estimate, I made roughly $5,000 to $7,000 in profit.
That felt real. I had found an overlooked pocket of value, learned enough to participate, and made something out of it. I was exhausted, but the card project gave me energy.
I was learning in motion. Selling my Pokémon cards taught me how buyers behaved, what people cared about, and how much condition could affect a price. I learned that nostalgia has liquidity.
The problem was that I had started selling before I understood what I owned.
The Mentor in the Parking Lot
At the same time, I was trying to figure out my professional life. I was networking, working on my résumé, and getting guidance from someone who became one of the most influential mentors in my life.
I met him through the valet job. He came to Castle Hill regularly, and I remember him walking by and asking if I was okay. Over time, he started helping me think more seriously about my future. He was generous with his time in a way I did not fully appreciate then.
He told me that if I wanted financial freedom and a different kind of life, I had to leave the parking lot. I needed to put more of my time toward networking, building skills, and figuring out what I wanted to pursue.
He understood the appeal of the cards. But there would be time later to nerd out, build collections, research markets, and go as deep into the hobby as I wanted. Right then, I had other work to do.
I did not fully understand it at the time. Looking back, I think he was right. The eBay store was teaching me things, but it was also taking time from the work I needed to do next.
Freedom requires sequencing. For me, that meant leaving the parking lot before coming back to the binder.
Selling Before I Understood
By then, I had already sold many of the cards I wish I still had. A Base Set Blastoise stands out, along with a pair of Wartortle error cards. But the regret extends to the collection as a whole.
I could identify a card, look up a price, create a listing, and ship it. I did not yet understand grading, condition, scarcity, or how to evaluate what I had with any real patience.
I suspect I left money on the table. How much, I cannot honestly say. That would depend on exactly which cards I had, their actual condition, the grades they might have received, and when I sold them. Memory is not an appraisal.
It is also easy to judge those sales with hindsight and a different bank account. At the time, I needed the money. The cards helped. Holding everything indefinitely was not a cost-free option, and selling them was not some total failure. I learned, I earned, and I kept moving.
What I regret is how little I understood before I started. I had something valuable, but I did not yet have the experience to evaluate it properly.
That is why Antonio’s Blastoise got me.
The Middle Stage
The more I thought about the Squirtle evolution line, the more it fit. This is my own reading of it, but Squirtle feels like the beginning: curious, energetic, protected by a shell, and still figuring things out.
Wartortle is the stage I used to overlook. More capable, more experienced, but still becoming. Then there is Blastoise, carrying more weight and equipped to do more with it.
When I found that binder, I was Squirtle. I had the excitement and the instinct to act. I just did not have much patience or perspective yet.
For a long time, I treated that as the mistake. I should have known more. I should have held the cards. I should have understood what I had.
But where was that understanding supposed to come from? Some of it came from the listings, the buyers, the research, and the sales I now wish I could reverse. Some of it came from a mentor telling me that the thing keeping me busy was not necessarily the thing that would move my life forward.
The hard part is that growth usually comes with a receipt. Some of mine came through eBay.
Back at CardVault
On a visit to Patriot Place. I bribed her with ice cream so I could go into CardVault and look at cards.
It was euphoric. I managed to leave without buying anything, but being around the cards brought the whole period back. The binder and the late-night listings. The Castle Hill gate. The Il Forno kitchen. The mentor in the parking lot.
For a moment, I could feel both versions of myself there: the younger one who needed money and was moving fast, and the one who could finally enjoy looking without needing to turn it into something immediately.
One day, I will get that Charizard. I think I will appreciate it properly this time.
Antonio’s package reminded me how much happened between finding that binder and being able to walk into a card shop with Gretchen, look around, and leave content. I would still love to have those cards back. I also understand the person who sold them a little better now.
Squirtle does not become Blastoise by skipping Wartortle.
I was not ready to be Blastoise then. Maybe that was the point.