Prepare yourself for a wall of text. I probably change writing styles 10 times here but there is a lot of emotion in this post. This is something I'll be glad to look back on in 10 years.

2007
I joined d2jsp. I was a senior in high school that was addicted to Diablo 2. I heard about this place from someone in game telling me to check out trading here since it was safer, better, easier to get what you needed without being scammed.
That was 10 years ago.

2008
I left college to move out of my parents house and in with my then girlfriend. It wasn't the greatest choice but my parents were looking to sell their house (pre-crash) and I didn't want to be a burden on them wherever they decided to move. I started working for the Government full-time and made decent money. This went on for awhile. I got fat, I lost weight, then got fat again.

2009
A lot of Call of Duty.

2010
In March my dad got sick. My dad never got sick as I was growing up. I don't know if I ever saw him take a day off work. He had diabetes and bad circulation in his legs. He was a bit overweight but hey, no health issues other than that. It's important to know that he was a bomb ass cook. He could bbq the shit out of any dead animal. Just the two of us would sneak off to restaurants without my mom and get food or we would take little day trips to the coast. We had a lot of quality time together where I talked about what I wanted in the future. He was fully supportive. My mom was kind of nuts and less easy to talk to but my dad....he was just a good guy.

Six months is all I got with my dad after he was diagnosed in March. Pancreatic cancer is a motherfucker. There is nothing you can do for it. Doctor's won't tell you that though. They recommend really strong rounds of chemo with a huge cocktail of medicine to help you stay alive/less sick. My dad shrank into this shell of the man I knew. He lost all this weight, became gaunt, and just got more sick. He stayed sick. He never had a good day. Every day was a bad day. Everything about those six months was killing me. I started staying at their house helping take care of him. My mom couldn't lift him when he fell or couldn't get out of bed from being weak. He was sad. I was sad. There was this unspoken sorrow between us. We both knew he was dying and we couldn't do anything about it. I didn't want him to do chemo because I knew it was just a band-aid. I never could bring myself to tell him that though. I just wanted him to do what gave him hope. In retrospect, I think he only did chemo because he thought it gave us hope. Fuck, I don't know. Fuck chemo. In September he was gone. I was there when it happened. I'd never seen somebody die. I had watched people dying but had never actually seen somebody die. He was laying in bed and it was just a particularly bad morning. I was crouched down at the side of the bed holding his right hand. My mom was on his left laying down next to him. My sister and her boyfriend were there. He was just so sick. All I could do was look at him and wish it was somebody else suffering. Anybody else. He was fighting to stay with us. We needed him. What were we supposed to do without him? At one point he cried out in pain and looked at me.

"It's okay. You don't have to fight anymore. We'll be okay." That's the last thing I said to my dad when he was alive. In seconds, he was gone. I'll never forget the torrent of emotion that flooded through me. I felt like I just lost a piece of me and it tore me apart. I could feel that he wasn't there anymore. His grip on my hand had loosened and he was at peace. He wasn't in pain anymore. I was devastated. I'll always miss him. I think about him a lot. Every important decision I make I stop and ask myself what his opinion would be. Every. Decision.

So, I decided it was time to go back to college. I was still working for the Government full-time. My girlfriend was working at McDonald's. We were winning! I started going to the gym fairly regularly and lost a lot of weight. I was getting healthy and enrolled for college.

2011
I realized my relationship wasn't making me happy. Maybe it was the grief from losing my dad. Maybe it was realizing I wanted more. I don't know. I had so many aspirations. I wanted to go to school and get a better job. I wanted to do things, have freedom, and have nice things. I wanted to prepare myself to be a good parent someday. My girlfriend just wanted to work at McDonald's and have babies. No, I didn't have babies with her but I saw how quickly we were going to nowhereville. So I left her early in the year. The decision was easy for me. In retrospect, I probably came across very cold to her at the end. Regardless, I made the correct decision.

In September of 2011, I was on Plenty of Fish chatting up people for friends (yes this was an option at the time) and decided to switch it up and add dating to my desires. I don't know how it is now, but back then you just kind of browsed peoples pictures like Tinder and clicked Yes or No on whether you'd meet them. This cute ass girl clicked yes on me and I clicked yes on her. She was fucking pretty. So I did what any non-puss man would do and asked her on a date. She said yes! We went bowling.

She. Fucking. Destroyed. Me.

We kept dating then became a thing. Then it happened. At the end of 2011, I got out of my part of the lease on my old apartment with the ex. Yep, I was stuck there for awhile after we had broken up. So yeah, I left her but I couldn't LEAVE. Well, as luck would have it I was not welcome in the apartment and to be honest, I didn't really want to be there anyways. So I did what any person would do. I left. Lucky for me, I was in school full-time by now but was actually out of my Government job on Furlough. Thanks Government! I didn't qualify for Unemployment, or I did but it was screwy and I wasn't making any money. I got a job at Big Lots!

October 2011:

I became homeless. Fuck, you didn't see that one coming did you? I guess I didn't become homeless in a traditional sense. I just didn't have anywhere to go since I had no money. My mom was in the process of losing their house. They never sold it. They never got a will done. They didn't do what you're supposed to do when someone is dying. No life insurance, nothing. My mom was fucked. So she walked. She just left the house one day with all her stuff in a moving truck. So, when I became homeless, I moved back in to the old house. The bank hadn't taken it yet. I didn't have running water. I had to fill up gallon buckets with water from the neighbors hose so I could flush the toilet. I used my tiny big lots check to pay for a gym membership so I could shower. I had electricity but no gas. The heater was gas. I got a bunch of free firewood from a friend and made use of the fireplace in that big empty house.

Meanwhile, my then girlfriend stayed with me. She didn't mind that I had a less than spectacular living situation. She knew I was working to get out of that mess quick. I was in that old house until January 1st. At this point I really narrowed down who cared about me. My sister came and visited me once. I can't blame her. She was going to school full-time and had a job. She had shit of her own to do. My mom never came though. She couldn't make time to come visit her son who was living in a house without running water by himself with no heat in winter. Maybe I sound resentful but I feel like that's pretty shitty. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom. I'll always love my mom but really? She couldn't come see how I was doing? She couldn't try to help me get the fuck back on my feet? Really? My girlfriend was there the whole time. She would stay super late, then I'd take her home. Eventually she spent the night. That made that old house slightly less lonely feeling. I had one friend come by and take me out for beers and to play pool on his dime. He realized my situation was shitty but we always kept in touch. Everyone else just kind of fucking bailed on me. I guess my life sucked too much for friends to want to be around me. Somehow, I managed to stay in school full-time through this whole ordeal. Someone I went to high school with had been coming to the gym with me. He told me his parents had just bought a new house. Joking, I said his parents should rent out their old house to me. I was pretty broke. It was a good joke.

2012
His parents fucking did it. They let me rent a room in their old house. I lived with my friend. I moved in on January 2nd. The house was pretty old but they made me a pretty sweet deal. I only had to pay $400/mo for half a house with utilities included in my rent. They didn't even care that I couldn't get them rent until my school grants came in. They didn't mind if I got behind on rent. They invited me to Christmas and dinner and to watch football games and a whole bunch of other stuff. My friend will never realize how much his family means to me. Without them and without my then girlfriend, I would probably be dead. I was working back for the Government and bought my first car. I bought a 2005 Mustang GT and man that car was a blast.

2013
I transferred to a university and got a job at the school library. I proposed to my girlfriend. I married my girlfriend. That girl is my wife! That girl who stuck with me through all that bad shit is my wife. This girl was pretty much the tits. She was the best thing that had ever happened to me and I only managed to date her for about a year and a half before I realized it was wife time. We were both going to school and working. We were working towards a better life. We had plans! 2013 was a pretty good year.

2014
Doing our daily grind, I get approached by the ONE friend who had visited me when I was homeless and taken me out for beers and pool. We get to talking and he thinks I should apply for a job at T-Mobile. He talks me into it. He helps me with my resume. I buy a suit. I go for an interview for a sales job at T-Mobile and I guess I don't do so hot. The manager can't hire me since I don't have the qualifications. Damn. Bummer. Instead, he offers me another position. It's a brand new position essentially being the back room bitch. Hey man, I'll take it! I got my foot in the door. So from April to August I do back room bitch job and I love it. I feel good, we have healthcare benefits and dental and vision and life is just going great! In August my manager promotes me. I end up becoming a force to be reckoned with in sales. My first month I am #2 in the store. Every month from then to the end of my stay with T-Mobile I was a top 3 sales rep in my store and a top 10 rep in our district. I get my wife hired by T-Mobile this same year. We buy a second car in December

2015
We move out of my friend's parents house. We're making good money so it's time to go be adults. I fought my way out of a shit situation to get here. We rent a nice house on the other side of town, way closer to both our jobs. At some point this year, I move to a different T-Mobile store because they need help and boy did they need help. Unfortunately, the lifestyle we had started living had a higher cost than I was able to make up for at this other store. Lower traffic meant less opportunities to make money and boy did I make a lot less money. I ended up pretty depressed about bring home less bacon so I did what any reasonably decent salesperson would do. I jumped ship. I went to AT&T in November for what looked to be a huge pay raise. 2015 was ending well and 2016 was looking bright!

2016
We move to a new house in January. February rolls around and I nope the fuck out of AT&T. This place is insane. They want me to work 55+ hours a week while going to school full-time to make about 600 more monthly than I was at T-Mobile working 30 hours a week? Nope. Fuck that. Seeeeeeya!

Don't do what I did kids. I quit my job without a backup plan. We had money in the bank. I cashed out my 401k. I was unemployed for almost three months. I spent most of this time just trying to decide what the fuck to do. I was still in school and hadn't gotten a degree yet (bad grades from lack of time while working). I knew I didn't want to work for a company like AT&T ever again. That shit was nuts. So I did what any unemployed dude with a working wife would do. I sat on our money and played Call of Duty a lot while I waited for the right job opportunity to pop up and for the next semester to start.

**Hey future self, don't judge past self for this one. The wife knew I was trying to figure out what to do. I made the right decision. We didn't lose a lot of money. I did a little uber/lyft on the side for extra cash.

Now, at this point you have to realize that my wife and I wanted to start trying for kids. It was part of why I left AT&T. There was no way I would be able to be a good dad to kids and a good husband to my wife if I was never home. In April I found a job. I found a work from home job. I won't elaborate too much based on all of the NDA's I signed but let me just say this: I have a great job. There are no healthcare benefits (thankfully wife still gets those through T-Mobile) but I work from home full-time. I am home all the time. This job is the fucking tits. This is nice. Shit is going well again!

July 4th 2016
My wife wakes me up and asks me to come look at something. There's a pregnancy test on the counter in our restroom. It's positive. I'm going to be a dad. We had been trying for a few months with disappointment. Oh man, the nerves. The feelings! We're both ecstatic. Holy shit I'm going to be a dad. I tell my best friend. We take my mom out to dinner and tell her. We take my sister out to lunch and tell her. We tell my wife's mom. We tell my wife's whole family. Everyone knows! Life is great! I'm going to be a dad. Holy. Fucking. Shit. I am so nervous. I hope I'm going to be a good dad. Our due date is March 11th of next year. FREEDOM BABY!

Everything is a blur now. My dates are funny. We went to meet an OBGYN and get our first ultrasound. On the way into the ultrasound room we're trying to decide if we would want to know the sex of the baby. We don't, but we do. The baby is about 11.5-12 weeks now so they should be able to tell. I almost want to just say TELL ME. WHAT IS IT!!?!? I must know!

I'm staring at the monitor looking for our baby. How do they see babies on these things? She keeps taking pictures with it. Weird stuff.

Something is wrong. The tech is moving the probe thing around a bunch.

"There is no heartbeat."

I think we both felt like something was wrong when we were staring at the monitor. My wife just lost it. It crushed her. I can only imagine that she felt the same way I did when I lost my dad. You feel like a piece of you is gone. In our case, our first baby was gone. We had already picked out names for this little baby. We were going to name it after my dad or my sister who died before I was born with middle names giving respect to people in my wife's family. Fuck it, I was crushed too. I don't know if I've ever been so miserable for myself and someone else at the same time before. This was everything. We had been planning for this first baby for five years. It was part of our plan to improve our lives and have a family. We knew we had to have good jobs, somewhere good to live. We wanted to be ready. We didn't want to bring a kid in to this world with a shitty roll of the dice. We wanted a baby. We have so much love to give each other that it was time to share that with our first child. This part of 2016 was awful. My wife felt responsible. I felt helpless. All we could do was comfort each other.

Miscarriage is weird. When you're pregnant, everyone is excited. When you have a miscarriage, nobody talks about it. My wife and I talked about it but everyone else just went on with their lives pretending like we hadn't been pregnant in the first place. It's almost as if people lost their memories about our baby simply because we were no longer having one.

Fast forward to December. I'm sad. I don't really feel Christmas this year. I'm keeping that to myself though. I feel resentment to whatever God, if there even is one, that allowed this to happen to us. All I want to do is make my wife happy. I just want her to be happy. I don't care how sad I get, I want my wife to be happy. I want the people around me to be happy. I buy a few select gifts for the people that matter most to me and surprise my wife with the PS4 she's been wanting. Christmas still sucks. Nobody in our family talks about us trying for kids or anything around Christmas time. I guess talking about babies after a miscarriage leaves a sour taste in people's mouths? Fuck it, I don't know. Who cares?

Fuck 2016.

2017
Here we are in a new house (again!). Renting is a weird thing. You find a place you like and there is always this looming threat of the owner deciding to sell. Unfortunately, I don't want to live in this city until I die so we refuse to buy here. We're planning a move out of state in 2018. The bad stuff that has happened here is starting to outweigh the good stuff. The only good things in my life are my wife and my friends. My family is enough of an anomaly that I could likely go the rest of my life without seeing them and feel little sadness.

I'm still working that badass job!

January 10th 2017
I wake up to go to the restroom. There is a pregnancy test on the counter. Could it be? It is! My wife is pregnant again! We go to the family Doc on the 12th for some professional pee analysis. It's confirmed! I'm excited. I'm nervous. She's nervous. She's scared. What if it happens again? Well, we've survived this once. We already know what can happen. We're hoping for the best. We want to be parents so badly. We're so ready. We have good jobs. We make good money. We have a nice house. Our bills are always paid on time. We are ready. I want to be a dad. I want my kids to get here already so I can read them stories and teach them about being good people. I want to see excitement in their eyes when they learn something new or when they realize how proud I am of them. I need this because I already love them and they're not even here yet. We want this. September 19th is when we're due.

I'm in my last semester of school. Things are set. We're ready. February 3rd is fast approaching. That's the date of our OB appointment. There may be a heartbeat when we get our first ultrasound this time. I'm hoping there is.


Hi future self! I hope when you look back and read this you overlook all the mistakes you made when writing it. I hope you've gotten everything you wanted and I hope you and your wife are still together and as happy as you are now. Your 4th marriage anniversary is coming up next month too and you guys have still never had a fight. Sure, you call each other bitches A LOT but it's fucking hilarious. You both have good heads on your shoulders and have waited patiently for everything that comes to you. You've both worked hard to get where you are. Just read this post. You've come from practically NOTHING and become fantastic people. You're both kind and caring. You're both willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. You want people to do better because you've been there. You know what it's like to struggle. You know what it's like to hurt. You've been completely devastated and risen out of the ashes to see the light of a new day. This is present-self checking out and wishing you a fantastic 2017.