Mark Twain once wrote that “the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” It may have taken me some 37-odd years, but I believe the day has come that I have found out why I was put here. It is the 22 of June 2025. I am currently wearing my trusted Explorer 124270, having started the day with a meaningful 1950s JLC and transitioned through an equally sentimental B&M Hampton. And I do believe in the significance of that last sentence and that it was time well spent.

I’m a history teacher by profession. Or rather, I used to be. The school year ended last week, and I recently decided it would be my last in the educational system. It was never about teaching history, as far as I was concerned. I always felt the subject matter was merely the pretext for getting together in the classroom. I had thought, hoped, that teaching would be my platform to help other people in what I believe is one of the most challenging and stressful periods in life. In short, I had me some ideals and an intent to do good. I do not feel as though I overly succeeded.

I never claimed I was a good teacher. If anything, quite the opposite. Yet I do want to have a positive impact on this world. And slowly but surely, I have realized that I should focus my intention on what is aesthetically favorable rather than what I deem ethically beneficial. Which is to say, I have two sons, and while it is my responsibility and my duty to raise them and educate them, I no longer seek that commitment regarding other people’s children.
Now, to be fair, I wasn’t even a teacher consistently since I started in 2018. This has some to do with me honing my use of Cannabis during my own studies, to the point I developed an addiction problem to go along with my lifelong struggle with depression. By the grace of God and with much gratitude, just for today, I have been clean for 4 weeks, 3 months, and 4 years. I’ve also been in a relatively stable, balanced, and content mental state these past years, another thing I do not take for granted. And finally, during these years, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to deal with watches.

I’ve had a thing for watches ever since I was a kid, and have been fascinated and damn nearly obsessed with them since around 2011. About that time, there was this internet writer who used the pseudonym the “Watch Snob”, and whoever he is deserves credit for the following words that have stayed with me long after the web disregarded them: 

“A watch isn’t about telling the time, it is about your relationship with time.
A watch is about style, a story, and the history of both your watch and your own life.”

A smart friend once told me that each history lesson is simply a chance to hear a story, and it can either be told properly or poorly. I have the utmost appreciation for storytelling. Now, Much in the manner that I would never proclaim to be a good history teacher, I leave it to you, as you’ve made it this far, to determine what you think of my writing and storytelling.
As it is, my name is Perry Heim. I am a watch collector. And this is my story.