2019 - A Community Retrospective

[Blake 312]

Hellooooo! It’s me, Blake, one of your moderators! With the end of the Year of Rebirth and the site’s first anniversary upon us, the NCM Awards are coming to a close soon. Congratulations to the winners in the not so distant future!

Anyway, NCM, let’s talk. No, don’t worry, it’s nothing bad at all. I just wanted to open the floor to the idea of discussing how the past year has gone for each of us. On the old site, we had Time Capsule threads to leave things about this year, statements for our future selves, hopes for the future, and so on… well, while I think something like that is still good to do, I wanted to make a thread with the intent of just… talking about the past year for me. For each of you. Just a place to write where you were, where you went, and where you find yourself.

Personally… Well, I’ll put it in a spoiler. It’s a bit of a long one.

 

I’m actually going to cheat a little and start just a bit before 2019. October 2018 to be specific, but they are part of the story of 2019.

I got my driver’s license on October 3, 2018. I discussed it with my grandfather that I would be added to his insurance (paying my portion, which was more expensive by far, plus his portion on the car I would be borrowing) and get to drive one of his cars for work and chores. He said sure, and I got my license with it. No biggie, even if I was nervous as hell.

Even better, Gpa had been looking to lend the car to my uncle in exchange for paying the insurance on it, so mom pushed me into making the deal. I don’t think she was wrong, I just… know how my grandfather is about money. I was scared to get in bed with his wallet. But I did, and it helped me out.

I drove to work once with mom following me, just to make sure I’d be okay. Understandable, she was worried. Intended to start driving myself to work ASAP. And I was going to… but then my grandfather came to my room late at night, furious, demanding his key back.

I tried to figure out what was going on, why he was so mad, and telling him that he agreed to this arrangement. And he screamed at me.

“THERE WAS NO ARRANGEMENT FOR YOU TO DRIVE MY CAR! GIVE ME MY KEY OR I’M CALLING THE LAW”

That’s not a first. Mom has confronted him many times about how much meaner he is to me than anyone else, even people who cuss at and/or steal from him. Anyway, I spent the night crying and talking to my mother. I had work the next day, but I just planned to let her drive me. And this lasted a long time. He kept yelling even after I left, trying to claim I pushed him down when I was just trying to go outside to do said crying and talking. When I came back, I put the key on the table and told him that I would take myself off of the insurance and be done with it, that I didn’t want to be involved with him and money. He held me in place in a hug as he tried to blubber about how he was sorry and how he and gma think me and my mother don’t love them, despite the fact we did… everything for them. We bent over backwards. I worked AND came home and cooked with mom most nights. Sometimes I’d cook alone. Then animals and other stuff.

It also came about that this was over a tank of gas. He knew I was taking the car for the road test + driving on the third, but he chose to fill up the tank immediately before. All of this over $50 of gas and him trying to pull a fast one to get his insurance cheaper. I gave him the 50.

Eventually he pleaded with me enough to get me to drive the car again, but I half-regret it. At least it gave me well-needed experience.

Well, 2019 saw me beginning the new year as a manager at the chicken place I worked at. Took a 3 months (paid, but post-work) course for all of October, November, and December to prepare me for management. All my hard work had gotten me there. It felt like a big accomplishment, I managed to work my way up from the bottom through my efforts alone.

It’s… kind’ve a theme for my life. Mom helped me as much as she could, but she wasn’t able to put in a good word for me to help me get jobs or anything. The people with the power to do so chose not to, even when asked. So, it meant a lot to me that I clawed my way up like that. That said, I still need to thank one of the former managers (now a store manager at another location) and my then boss for giving me the opportunity. The former knew I wanted to climb and taught me everything he could, and the latter was a good man who offered me the opportunity. So, I guess it’s not entirely fair to claim it was only my efforts, but my determination is what made it possible. And that’s… big to me.

Back on track, I spent the next three months working very, very hard. To the point that I actually had too MUCH on my shoulders. The store wasn’t in a great spot, the other manager-in-training very quickly lost her privileges because the power went to her head + some outside issues, and I was more than qualified to do most anything in the store, with the exception of some of the new managerial tasks that were learn-as-you-go, which is fair enough. But it got to the point where I was being leaned on far more than a new manager could handle, and I admittedly cracked a bit.

Constant high drive-thru times during my shift were criticized, despite the fact that most of those days were 2-3 people understaffed and often had tasks that only I was really trained to do, like boiling out the vats. And said other new manager only attempted to put me down in front of other people. When the area director called and demanded a letter of apology + plan of action on one such boil out Wednesday before I went home, I certainly sent him a plan of action.

I sent a resignation via the company email. 2 weeks notice.

However, between being talked into staying slash needing funds until I could find another job, I agreed to work weekends. Which then became unloading the trucks and cleaning the oil vats during the week with weekend manager shifts. Ended up being around 30-35 hours a week at first, though once I got the hang of the truck I settled into an easy 30 a week. Sure, I had to sleep early 5 days a week, but at least I wasn’t at that shithole 24/7. And, honestly, I had a lot of fun doing the trucks and boiling out, just getting to see people with less pressure. If they needed help, I’d stay in the kitchen for a bit and just to make their lives easier.

This was in March that this was agreed upon, to start in April. My birthday came, and my grandparents forgot it until 11:30 at night. Promised me $20 then acted like they never did. I never brought it up because I hate being an ass about money, 

However, in April, someone came back into my life who I hadn’t spoken to in ages. I also got closer to another person who I sometimes talked to, and now I talk to them a lot. And… I explored myself a lot. Asked myself who I was. Assessed my situation. How things made me feel. What experiences had taught me. These people, plus Bree and Melly, were there for me as I sorted this all out, and I realized I… identify as non-binary. It might not be a big deal to a lot of people, but it is to me. Just a desire to be… more. Or at least complete. And I don’t really know how to articulate this, because it’s a it of a doozy. I started with male pronouns (yes, I know the word is spooky, I find it spooky myself) but I feel more comfortable with they/them. I feel like I’m asking too much with it a lot, but I… do want to say that I’d prefer that anyone reading this use them. Please.

This also led to the first time in my life my brain has let me believe I'm genuinely a good person. Not someone trying their hardest. Not someone posing. Just… let it be. Self-loathing sets in from time to time, still, but it’s a lot less than before.

Anyway… Let’s go to earlier in April. Mom had me help her buy a new lawn mower and grill because the lawnmower we had kinda sucked and we had no grill but mom loves grilling, so we did it. She had me take the credit so that my grandparents would think I did something nice for them, buying stuff for the house, since my gpa got ornery about how I came up $10 short on one payment over the last 5 months. And I overpaid the next month. My cousin, a stoner, came over and helped us assemble the grill and get the house rearranged as my gparents saw fit, plus bring all the Christmas stuff inside from a shed so it would be less of an issue come winter. We had a great time, had no idea there were issues.

Then the rest of April started going down the shitter. Most of the journey of self-reflection happened while my grandmother was in the hospital. It may sound worrying, but it’s not. She had nurses coming, and the moment they told her they weren’t going to be coming any more now that she seemed fine, they stopped coming. So she went to the hospital to get them back. It sounds callous, but she’s been back to the hospital with no changes to her health… 5 times since then? I think? I lost count, but there’s never a change to anything. No updates. She just says she’s short on breath and they’re required to keep her for a few days.

We didn’t go to the hospital. I was busy all but one day she was in there, and our experience is that we just stand there awkwardly for an hour because they don’t talk to us. No matter what we do. So we took a day for me to rest, since they were content sending their (prostitute, mother of cousin from earlier) daughter to come and pick stuff up for them repeatedly. Even though mom had made it clear she would go alone to help them if need be.
Then we got a call from social services looking for my grandparents. Because apparently their caretakers (which we were not, are not, and will never be) were abusing them and not taking care of them properly. Letting them starve. We had no fucking clue what was going on, and when we confronted them they claimed my (rich, country) aunt must have done it. Great excuse, considering my mom and aunt were not on talking terms.

They underestimated my mother. She called her sister ASAP despite the bad blood, only to find out that country aunt didn’t do it. This aunt never told us what was up, but she was heavily hinting to my mother about looking at facebook. Neither of us used it much, so when mom got the hint, she looked and found my cousin running his mouth about how horrible me and mom were to gparents. About how we never fed them. How we lay about all day. Let the yard go to shit. Just loads of fucking lies.

Turns out, it was all a set of cahoots. My grandparents got tired of us not waiting hand and foot on them, because they’ve been in a set of pity parties for years now. They push everyone away with an attitude of “what have you done for me lately”, and they didn’t like me driving their car, me having to work more (pre-April), or the fact that mom was sick a lot. So they hatched a plan to have my cousin, his (prostitute) wife, their daughter, and my (prostitute) aunt get us out of there so we could move in. 

After a long time of social services coming by, they deemed… nothing was wrong. Food was bought and cooked. The house wasn’t filthy. The yard wasn’t always the best kept, but only one person was able-bodied enough to do it without help, and that person also had a job. There were no people being paid as caretakers, so there was never a case, despite one of the social workers lying to our faces about the law and saying “if you live here you’re a caretaker”.

There was something good that came of this. Mom and rich aunt ended up growing closer for a bit. They were getting along, doing stuff together, mom was helping her reorganize… But it ended up falling apart after a bit. Because mom felt like she was being used, rather than being welcomed in. And that was one thing, but rich cousins shit talked me and my mother. Namely the “woke” one that was 19 and constantly in trouble. Not going down that rabbit hole, but it led to mom just not being comfortable with it. I feel bad for her, I wish… she could have kept it. She seemed a lot happier then…

But during this time, my gma pulled another of her stunts on her birthday (early May, I always forget the day). She was asleep when mom and I left to visit my aunt, and she was at the hospital until after we went to bed. We never got a chance to speak to her. The next morning, my grandfather started screaming at us before we left to help my rich aunt with something. About how sorry we were. About how we hurt gma by not wishing her happy birthday. We were planning to say it first thing that morning, but instead he freaked out. He hit me with his cart. When I grabbed it to keep him from hitting me, he tried to punch me. All while saying “your mama hates her mama, and there’s nothing sorrier than that!”

I even brought up that it was no worse than when they treated my birthday like an afterthought, not to mention how they treat mom’s. It was brushed off as “BUT YOUR GMA WAS HURT”.

My grandmother had told my sick mother that she was fully able to do stuff and didn’t because she didn’t want to. Gma has admitted to this. Multiple times. Gpa sees it as that’s her right, so she gets to sit down and do nothing all day while watching the peasants toil, then play sick when she’s not given enough attention. So yes, mom has deep seated issues with her mother plus that. But they treat us like trash while also taking chances to attack us regularly, all while lying through their teeth and never keeping their stories straight.

Similarly to mom, I had a falling out with that person who came back into my life. After about a month we had a big disagreement, and it just didn’t work out. I don’t want to delve into it or point fingers, it’s still a bit of a sore, sad spot for me. I miss them. Maybe I should. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should reach out again. Maybe they’re a bad influence, if the nature of difference in opinion is what we go by. I don’t know. But, you know what they say. Some people come into your life for a lifetime. Some for a season. Some for a reason.

Life was a cycle of issues with gparents, the drama they caused, and stuff at work. My boss got turned into a scapegoat to bring in someone. We’re convinced lied on his application in order to get the job. Incompetent. Assholish. Touted his power every chance he got. Redid the schedule in a way that fucked managers other than him even harder than they already were. It was… bad. He’s still there, to my knowledge, but yeah. It sucked ass.

There was a time that my grandfather grabbed every sharp implement he could to throw at me after trying to hit me with his cart, to the point I had to pull the cart away from him. He was sitting at the table, so he was fine, but I had to set it by my grandmother who was playing “peacemaker”.

All while my grandmother whispered in his ear every time she thought we weren’t around. How she hated our dog. How we were so mean to her because she was soooo weak, despite admitting that was a lie. How she didn’t like our food. She instigated it all, she ran her mouth to every person she could about every other person she could. All while playing poor, poor her. There was even a time my grandfather said “IF I HAD A GUN I’D KILL YOU ALL AND THEN MYSELF!”, and her only response was “YOU WOULD KILL ME?”

I spent a few weeks at war with mom, too. I hate it, but we had periods like that where we were just so pissed off that it turned on each other and we couldn’t stand to be near each other. Hell, we’d antagonize each other. But we would always make up eventually. My relationship with my mother wasn’t… isn’t perfect. But it’s a bond that won’t break so easily. 

Just before the fight, I managed to buy my first car. Not much really, just a half-decent car from 2005 that was well kept. And as we fought… I made plans to leave. I put in my two week’s notice. I looked into getting a rental truck and/or moving service. Melly and I had talked about it, and it became a reality. I was moving from North Carolina to Idaho, abusive situation be damned. Mid-Late October 2019 would be the time.

I made up with mom before it was over. In fact… she was a huge help. She helped me pack the car, finding cheaper alternatives, making sure I had everything I would need, even giving me stuff to make my life easier. To make the move easier. It broke her heart that I was leaving, broke her heart I was heading off to live with someone she didn’t know, one of those internet friends… but she supported me. She pushed me forward, because she wanted me to be safe and free. It broke my heart how much she was working for me, even though it tore her in two. And I miss her. A lot...

I was going to tell my grandparents, at mom’s urging... But they pulled a stunt again as packing began in earnest. So I… left without them knowing. They learned later. They bombarded my phone. I recently made it clear that I have no desire to talk to them ever again. How abusive they are. How hateful they are. How they only talk to people when they WANT something from them, and they’re worthless otherwise. How they judge you for everything you do. You can’t grab a snack or a drink without them getting upset you didn’t ask them what they wanted to eat and then make it for them. I’m the third person to do something like this thanks to their behavior.

If you’re wondering why Sou was so inactive during the Halloween Event, it’s because the move was delayed because mom asked me to stay a little longer. She didn’t know until about halfway through the month thanks to said fighting, so we made the best of it. The end of October through the beginning of November was used to cross about 2700 miles, not including detours. 

I stayed at Bree’s for a night, played some Smash with her, and cuddled a bit. It was nice. I wish I could have stayed longer, but… Mom was helping me navigate and find places to eat and such. Ever supporting me. I didn’t want to hurt her by making her think that… I was eager to leave her to go visit someone she didn’t know about… I felt bad no matter what I did there...

I’m happy to be with Melly. I wish I had a job, but the last 2 months have been… a lot better. Granted, I’ve earned the nickname “Berniebear”. The time with my grandparents made my shut-in tendencies worse. I can function well as a member of society, but I can’t… even interact with people Melly knows very well. I just hide in our room. It’s something that weighs on me, but…

Look at how much happened this year. There’s a lot of bad. Like, a lot… But, the good is more important than the bad.

I’m Blake. Not Black. Not Josh. I’m Blake. I’m me.
I made a move across the country through determination. Mom helped me with it, Melly and Bree as well, and I talked to Koko a lot while moving… But here I am. I made it out. I hate, hate leaving mom behind, and I worry about her so much… but even she wanted me to find happiness.

Mom tells me I’m amazing. That most people can’t just do what I did. I don’t know about that. I don’t feel amazing. I feel like I left a woman who had nothing but me behind. But… I want to make her proud. I want to thrive and show her I can do it. I want to be happy for her. And I pray for her happiness in the future.

I made it sad again. Bad. But I promise, I look at 2019 as… a good year, oddly. It’s an awful one. Dreadful. But the positive changes are huge, and I need to be more positive. So here’s to 2020, a new decade, a new place, and a new me.

I didn’t intend for the Year of Rebirth to coincide with my rebirth… But hell if it didn’t.

 

[yui 572]

It's 4:20 in the morning (haha blaze it me funny) and I should be sleepin, but fuck it here's a recap of my 2019 as I remember it.

A lot of 2019 wasn't anything special to me one way or the other, but things picked up real hard in the home stretch. Due to space constraints and me simply owning the least amount of shit out of everyone, I started the year living in half a laundry room and basically being a dog-sitter for my mother's dog that I didn't like enough to commit 10-15 minutes of my day every day to walking. However bad you're imagining living in half a laundry room may be, it was probably about that bad. Cramped, no privacy, people kept coming and going to get their clothes, and no door meant you could hear everything going on in the house. Not good when living with five other people, a dozen birds all in the relatively nearby living room, four dogs, and none of those other people have the same sleep schedule as you.

Two events of note happened in 2019 that changed lots of things for me, all for the better. The lesser of these hit in early July, when Sai pointed me to a mobile emulator I could use on my PC. For the two people on this forum who don't know this yet, I don't own a phone. This was the one and only factor stopping me from diving headfirst into the gacha hell called Fate/Grand Order, but with an emulator, I was free to suffer at my leisure. I won't go so far as to say this game changed my life, but it sure has had an impact. It was also an excellent gateway drug to get me to finally get into the Fate franchise as a whole like I'd wanted to for quite some time prior to this. Thanks, emulators!

The important one - much to my surprise when I looked at dates - was less than two months ago. In mid-November, two of my siblings moved out to go be adults, and I took over my brother's room. This was an event I'd been anticipating for months, since them being gone meant I wouldn't be living this Harry Potter-ass laundry room life anymore. And indeed, I'm now in a cozy-ass bedroom, with a desk instead of a shitty end table for my PC (I kept the end table too though; my desk is a bit on the small side), space to actually put all my crap and move around, and a closet so I can actually put my shirts somewhere and still have room for all the rest of my clothes too. Speaking from experience, it's easy to take little things like that for granted.

And then 2019 wrapped up with Christmas, as years tend to, setting me on the path of the artist with the gift of a drawpad, which was a path I've wanted to start walking down for quite some time. I need to draw things more often though. I won't get better if I don't keep practicing. But that's an update for a 2020 retrospective thread.

EDIT: Oh, right, and the siblings that moved out. Three out of our four dogs belonged to one of them, and those three had basically taken over the back yard. With them gone, mom's dog didn't have to go on dedicated walks anymore; just let out back for a bit. So I don't have to deal with the dog anymore unless mom's out of town (like she is right now, unless she came home earlier tonight and simply didn't say hi), and even when I do, it's way faster.

[Chaos Sonic 442]

A bit of ambience for y'all...

2019, lemme just say this was quite the roller coaster of a year for me. I'll just skip the first three months of 2019, just for the sake of getting to what I really want to talk about (plus nothing happened within those months aside from me turning 26 in Feb, as well as buying my own PS4 and TV).

It really all just went down a different direction for me April 1st, well...back tracking slightly. Most of you know that in Nov./Dec., I was blessed with a job thanks to my dad getting a new one and me taking his old job. It was hard work and I'll admit there was quite a bit of times I actually broke down (first major job here), but it was good, and dad was able to help me out through it. Late March, however, I was presented an individual that according to him, was to be my helper. I asked my supervisor about it and he confirmed this and asked me to train the guy in what we did over there at Husqvarna's IT. ...April 1st, I leave work that Monday and get a phone call that says my contract has been terminated. I find out, that the guy I was training...was my replacement, but the kicker is...he didn't even know he was my replacement as he was just told he was going to assist me with projects since Husqvarna got money for more than one IT person. At first, I hoped it was a April Fools joke, but it wasn't. So April 1st was the first hurdle this year had on me...but April wouldn't be 100% done with me.

April 22nd: my dad passed due to a massive heart attack. This, I know, a good portion of people remember me mentioning on the old site. He was 47, married about 27 years...and one of my best friends...and just like that, he was gone. A year prior (namely Aug. 2018), he flipped his truck and went to the hospital. I figured he'd be perfectly fine...many people have heart attacks and still live...but my dad was a bit overweight and had high blood pressure, so I guess that played a different factor. I'm still trying to come to grips on the fact that he's not here and that he won't just walk into the door like he always does. A good portion of the year, I honestly wanted to just give up on everything and just crater. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, a good handful of you from YCM and NCM didn't let me. Between you guys and my friends and family IRL, you all kept me going, even when I didn't want to at this time. So I'm actually grateful to all of you who helped me out.

With that, the next couple of months I did my best to try and push forward. My family and I really had our moments, namely my brother and his temper. I can't count the nights that there was an argument because him and his girlfriend were arguing and mom would say something and he'd get pissed and then THEY'D get into an argument, with me attempting to play the mediator. Still, we got through all of it. We hung out, we joked, we watched practically the end of Phase 3 of the MCU...though it killed us not to see him with us. Through all this, Sai and Yui helped me out a lot...hell, even got me to play Fate/Grand Order on a few emulators, just so I can enjoy the hell that is gacha (and jeeeeeez it is indeed a hell).

What really killed me though, was in Aug. Down here where I'm from, we have an annual festival/fair that's known as the Watermelon Festival. My church does the clean up of it all three days (Thurs - Sat) and one massive go through on Sunday. For the past few years, my dad was the one that spearheaded this little operation. This year, my pastor called me specifically and asked if I'd like to take up his position and spearhead it. I broke, but I only told him I'd do it happily. That was a difficult time, but I did what I could and the results were pretty good. Quite a number of the church members came up to me after and told me I did a great job and that dad would've been proud...again, I broke when I heard this so yeah, bit of a pattern here.

Oh, in October, I finally decided to go back into running an RP in the RP Section, after being meme'd for the longest time by a good number of individuals (coughsai,yui,andrepcough). No longer is the meme of "WHERE'S GRIMM NIGHTS, SONIC?!" a thing, as now I've revamped the old idea of mine with thanks to Sai and Yui and it's developed into something even better. And with a much brighter and more interesting cast than the last time, so I'm hoping for a great ride with Grimm Nights and hope it thrives greatly within this year.

Now we come to Christmas and the end. It was bittersweet, he wasn't here...but mom, bless her heart, did everything she could to make sure me and my brother had a good Christmas. From a Switch Lite to just getting bits and pieces here and there just to make sure we were happy. It really upset me that she would spend that much when she herself lost her job not even a month after my dad passed...but as mothers do, she only told me to shut up and not worry about it, even though I did and still do.

Where does this leave me in the wake of 2019?

• I'm still unemployed
• Hurting still because of my dad's passing
• Still pushing forward...still reaching for what I can in order to make something of myself

2020 is a new year and a new decade. I'm doing my best in order to keep going. True to my typecast nature (of either being shounen or seinen), I'm not giving up and I'm pushing through. My dad would've told me to keep going, so I'm doing just that. Be it IRL or here on NCM, I intend to be better. Don't know how that or anything is going to look like, but it's happening.

[Thar 502]

To start my retrospective of last year, I’ll go further back about another month because I feel like that’s when it truly started.

On December 1st of 2018 I moved into a new apartment that was closer to my current job at the time. For context, I was fired from my job before in February that year and managed to find work somewhere down further south about a month later, giving me about a 45 minute commute. When my lease expired for my last place in November, the one I ended up moving into was about a 5 minute drive away, which was nice.

Anyway, the start of 2019 up through about the middle of the year wasn’t very memorable. I only seem to remember working and living a day-to-day life as I have been doing. However, around the end of June, the company I worked for had to downsize due to net losses in revenue and they laid me off. From then on until later, I was living off unemployment benefits while paying rent. That time was a learning experience for me on how unemployment benefits worked and how much of a pain in the ass it is to work with.

That being said, I spent the next 5 months looking for work as I did before in February the year before, this time keeping a record of my search for the Department of Unemployment Security to audit in order to keep getting paid. Granted, while 5 months felt like an eternity compared to the one month it took me last time, it still wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been and I was still actually pretty lucky, but relative to my past experiences, it was pretty excruciating. Either way, things managed to work out in the end when I decided to move back in with my parents. I was able to land a job in town within the week I moved all my stuff in and my life felt normal again.

So you’d think that everything was great now, right? Well… almost. There’s still one issue: My apartment, despite my plans to sever the lease early, is still under contract. As if clearing the unit and putting all my furniture into storage wasn’t enough of a task in itself, the plan was to drop off the keys while we were there, have the move-out inspection done the next day, and then pay the termination fee and get it out of the way. Turns out the office was closed that day despite the fact that they should’ve been open during those hours. So assuming there’s no other option, we decide to mail the keys after we got home… without realizing that we could’ve just put the keys through the drop box by the door. Had we thought of that at the time, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

We’re in the endgame now: My keys were being delivered via the slowest method of shipping in the world with no way of tracking it, so all we could do at that point was check in often and hope for an update. The issue? Not a single answer to my phone calls, no call-backs from my voicemail messages, and not even an email response for the past couple months. Despite it being the postal service, we were sure that the keys would have arrived within the month. Hell, even if they haven’t and if they were lost in the mail, the least I could ask for is a response or an update every so often. This leads me to believe that they do, in fact, have my keys but are holding me on contract to keep me paying rent while ignoring me completely in order to avoid having to communicate the situation with me if I asked.

With all that aside, 2020 is looking up for me. I got a new set of golf clubs for Christmas, so this year I plan on going out and playing more often. The same goes for pool, as it seems to be a regular outing for my family to just go to a bar, drink some beers, and play pool. I’m also very close to having all credit card debt paid off completely that I’ve accumulated throughout the past several years. As of today, I only have one account left to pay off, which is a little over $2000, but compared to the approximate $12K total that I had a few years ago (from simple credit card spending, mind you. Not student loans), I call that one hell of a step forward. Once that’s done, I can finally… put myself in more debt with a new car! After that? Possibly a house? Who knows? At least it’s not a crummy apartment run by crummy management. It’ll be worth the investment once I save enough for a downpayment.

Tl:dr - the second half of 2019 was in a valley that I ended up climbing out of towards the end (with some gremlins still trying to claw at my feet as I pull myself up from the edge)

[Comrade Duck 178]

I don't remember a lot of 2019. It went by really quickly. But I'll start with the things that led me to today:

 

January:

A project that was near and dear to me was going well. My last project. It was keeping me distracted and kept me (multiple times) from taking my own life. This was before I was diagnosed with depression.

 

February:

Celebrated my 1 year anniversary with my girlfriend on the 9th. We had to work. Played hookie that weekend and skipped work and took her on a date. I went broke. It was worth it.

 

March:

N/A

 

April:

Finals. They went well. Ready for the summer.

 

May:

Not as ready for summer as I'd hoped. Still depressed but not doing anything about it. Nightmares, breakdowns, self-isolation (little did I know).

 

June-August:

W O R K

Kept me busy and occupied my mind enough to not be depressed because I was always exhausted. Finally decide to see someone about my depression. Get diagnosed. Get my medicine later in the year.

 

October:

This is where things went downhill. I'd lost players to my project and it felt like hope was lost. I abandoned it without a second thought and fucked off. Depression was worsening. Barely making it through school.

 

November:

Lose a friend. Another gets kidnapped and killed. My sister is dealing with a stalker. I'm getting desperate. Barely clinging on to life. Scared for my family and my girlfriend. Attempt to take my own life again. Saved by my better half. Finally get my meds.

 

December:

Barely pass my classes. Starting to get my head straight. Decent birthday. Decent Christmas. Had a great New Year. Got drunk, didn't do anything embarrassing. Finally have my driver's license. Feeling better.

 

The year was hard for me. Depression turned little things into big things, caused me to lose friends, abandon projects, and give up on a lot of shit. I was desperately trying to get my shit together toward the end of the year. Decided to stay out of school this spring (2020) and thank goodness I did. But the timing was lucky. Despite this virus going around, things are better for me personally. I've got a dream job (on hold) once this virus shit settles, I'll be making great money with opportunity for advancement, and I'm finally writing for myself again. I'm looking forward to the rest of the year.