DAY 29 OF 31 OF THE MAY DEEP THOUGHT WRITING CHALLENGE
Five Life-Changing Events And How They Changed My Life
A closer look at the major events that have steered my life in one way or another
I know that I could think of much more than five events but the five events that I’m going to share with you in this article are going to be the five that I feel get to the root of all of the major events that shaped my life today. Some of these are going to be good and some are going to be negative and life-altering.
Losing My Scholarship and My First Relationship In A Short Timeframe
I had gotten a scholarship for a full-ride to college to pursue my dream of becoming a teacher. It was the one thing despite shifting around my majors that I was sure I wanted to do after high school. I won the scholarship out of thousands of applicants in my school district and was only one of two students selected that year.
I was in a relationship with my abusive ex at the time and she distracted me more than I care to admit. She always wanted stuff to be about her so she constantly had me pulled from school to go on vacations and road trips when I should’ve been focused on getting good grades in my first year of college.
I ended up flunking out of my first couple of semesters of college and ultimately losing my scholarship for good. Then after she saw that I was upset about it and didn’t want to hang out with her much, our own relationship started deteriorating and she ultimately ended up leaving me for my sister. These events made it harder for me to pursue my dream of becoming a teacher.
I never got to get all the way there before I was unable to work anymore. It also soured me for future relationships and made me jaded for the longest time. I’m still overcoming many of these traumas today. I had a little blowup with my partner this morning that led to a shouting match and crying and I told him that when we go to camp later, I want to sort through these feelings more as they may be rooted in this very trauma.
My Dad’s Sexual Assault
I wrote about this one just the other day when exploring whether hardships make people stronger or not. The short answer, if you haven’t read it yet, is that it doesn’t. Case in point, I’m not stronger because my dad sexually assaulted me.
I still have a ton of hangups around the whole thing. My dad and I don’t talk and haven’t really had a solid conversation with each other in over a decade and a half. That is a relationship that I just have to accept is no longer. Not just because he shouldn’t have one with me but because even if I do want one, he has no interest in it.
He also doesn’t have remorse for what happened. I have a lot of hangups with relationships with men. It also caused me to stay in the closet a lot longer than I would’ve liked to. I didn’t come out until the age of 29 and I still found myself weird about gay relationships until I found a relatively healthy one.
Losing A Ton of Weight
In the year leading up to my 30th birthday, I lost over 125 pounds. I’ve since gained it back now at the age of 40 but I was overweight, I went on a crash diet through a 12-step program and then all of a sudden, I wasn’t overweight anymore.
I had an older girlfriend at the time and we split after we were both in the program and I lost the weight while she struggled. It was more complicated than that but that’s when I decided to come out as gay. I started dating a ton of guys and doing the things that I was afraid to do before then.
As an overweight male for most of my 20s, I didn’t have very much self-confidence at all. In my 30s, I started branching out, putting myself out there, and started dating, and that led to the fourth life-changing event on this list. I have since carried that confidence with me since I lost the weight even after a decade of gaining that back.
Meeting the Love of My Life
I’ve written about Mike a ton. You can go back to all of my stories in Susie Winfield’s challenge and read about my relationship of nearly a decade at this point. I have a caring, compassionate, and patient partner who is helping me work through a lot of trauma. He’s got his own baggage as well. We have been through so much together and a lot of life-changing events have even happened while we’ve been together.
We got forced out of the last rental in March 2020 and haven’t lived in a permanent residence since then as now we are living in our RV after a year of living in the box truck tiny home that my partner and I had spent years and thousands of dollars fixing up.
Without Mike, I’d have been lost at this point. He is very creative and intelligent. He is also very handy and can build and do a lot. That Hack Robin Wilding🌟even called him my Swiss army partner. Yes, I’m bringing that up again. It’s epic.
He has changed my life for the better in so many ways. I feel a ton stronger with him by my side. He also forces me to step out of my comfort zone and to also confront things when they need to be confronted.
Getting and Losing My Job at Verizon Wireless
This job was my highest paying to date. It even paid more than a starting teacher’s salary by the time I was forced out. I made it to the corporate world in a sense and I wanted to make the most of it. I showed my strong and hard work ethic working at this job.
While many of my coworkers slacked, I found a way to utilize my brain to the fullest. I found creative solutions to customers’ billing issues all the time and my numbers while I was there reflected that. I constantly got leading metrics with the company and got large bonuses as well for my efforts.
I was definitely the person that every supervisor wanted on their team. I got so good that I eventually got to taking supervisor-level calls and was given more authority and freedom in decision-making. I worked at the job for nearly four years in three different cities.
Yeah, Verizon was also the reason I moved out of California after the call center closed down in my hometown of Sacramento and mainly the reason why I ended up in Chicago and then Erie, Pennsylvania. I got an opportunity to travel with the company and keep my job each time.
When I was no longer able to work in August 2018 due to increasing chronic pain and various medical conditions, I felt sad having to leave my high-paying job and trying to find an alternative with my partner. I probably ran myself into the ground working so hard at Verizon Wireless, leading to a forced early retirement. This event changed me a lot and is the main factor that has led to our situation today.
Conclusion
As you can see, even in naming only five events, you can also see that there were smaller events within each of those major ones that also affected my current situation and the way I live my life.
I have spent years trying to recover from pain, trauma, hardships, and many external factors to get to where I am now. I never would’ve imagined at 18 being a brainiac and an overachieving kid on a scholarship that I’d be doing the things that I’ve done and ending up where I am today.
I’m grateful and fortunate for my life lessons but I just wish some days that these lessons were easier and less traumatic and painful. Every day, though, I just press on and continue to try to make the most of everything. That’s the biggest impact these events have had on me.
Autistic Widower (“AJ”), Brett Jenae Tomlin, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Trisha Faye, Karen Schwartz, NancyO, Katie Michaelson, Bernie Pullen, Michelle Jimerson Morris, Amy Frances, Julia A. Keirns, Ravyne Hawke, Pamela Oglesby, Harry Hogg, Tina, Pat Romito LaPointe, Brandon Ellrich, Misty Rae, Karen Hoffman, Susie Winfield, Vincent Pisano, Marlene Samuels, Ray Day, Randy Pulley, Michael Rhodes, Lu Skerdoo, Pluto Wolnosci, Paula Shablo, Bruce Coulter, Ellen Baker, Leigh-Anne Dennison, Jennifer Marla Pike, Carmen Ballesteros, Marlana, MSW, Patricia Timmermans, Keeley Schroder, Jerry Dwyer, Teisha LeShea, Jacinta Palmer, Ruby Noir, and myself, The Sturg.
