Here is a family picture from when I was (I think) three years old, just to help prove that the doubtful parts of my story are true:
Years 1-5:
I was born into a loving house owned by a couple in their 40s, they were... My grandparents. My mother was 17 years old and already was caring for an 18 month old baby boy. (This is my older brother, Tyson). To my knowledge we moved out into the house next door and in the 3 months following my mom would turn out to be pregnant again. This time the child turned out to be a girl, my younger sister Ayah. Ayah and I have the same father, whereas Tyson was born to a different dad. My mom and dad converted to Islam about a year before I was born, my father taught himself how to speak Arabic and wanted to provide his children with Arabic names. (If any of you read my first post this explains the name "Sadeeiq"). Tyson had already been named and suffered the cruel torture of being called "Tyson chicken" his entire uprising. But I digress, my name was selected because my mom (later) told me it was the only one she could pronounce right from the list of names my dad gave her. After I was about two or three years old my family (my mother, father, Tyson, Ayah, and I) moved to an Islamic territory in central California. It was in the mountains and owned by a sheikh in the Middle East. It was an entire community of religious people who all lived in their own little town in the mountains... It sounds a bit like a cult to me now; but that's what life was for a short time. Years later I was told that "the land", as it was called by it's residents, had watchtowers and was regularly keeping watch for men trying to investigate what went on in this peculiar town. (Most likely police or FBI) My mom would "stand guard" over our house each night. My dad sold cars (I think) in the nearby city of Fresno. And frequently would sleep in the city because he didn't have enough gas to make it back to "the land". Oh yeah I forgot to mention that most people on "the land" lived in extremely terrible situations. (My mom used to skip meals to provide food for me and my siblings) Soon enough my parents saw less and less of each other, which led to my dad seeing a girl named Samantha. She had a baby boy who was right around the same age as Ayah. I'm unsure about most the details after this but it ended with my parents breaking up and my mom sending Tyson back to our hometown to live with our grandparents. In the meantime she was trying to find a way to get her, Ayah, and me back to our hometown. Eventually she did and we lived with my grandparents for a while. I remember my fourth birthday... It started with me waking up and walking out of the room I shared with Ayah and Tyson to see my grandpa smiling at me from the giant fluffy chair that he would always sit in. I remember his smile and the way he said "happy birthday bud" to this day. I don't remember much else from around this time but I know that my dad came to visit us over thanksgiving the same year. My sister screamed when she saw him because she didn't remember him and had this irrational fear of men when she was a small child. We had a good enough time and wanted to go live with our dad over the next summer to see what his life is like. I was diagnosed with asthma and eczema during the fourth year of my life. I remember watching the movie Antz in the hospital. During all this time I was in kindergarten at Longfellow elementary school in Mrs. Stollers class. I would like to think she was a sweet old lady but I definitely remember hearing her swear on the phone on several occasions. Soon enough summer came and I thought I was the luckiest kid ever because I was only 4 years old and I got to fly on a plane and take care of my little sister the whole time. She was 3... And I failed to recognize that since we were unaccompanied minors the flight attendant was taking care of us. We got there and I remember going to the Foxwood apartments, it was the apartment in the furthest back-left corner of the complex. I met Samantha's son Julian, who happened to be my step-brother. We celebrated my fifth birthday at a place called Johns incredible pizza, I think 3 kids from the daycare I went to came to the party. My birthday is just a couple weeks before the end of the summer and I left back home not long after. I think sometime during the fifth year is when I changed my middle and last name from the Arabic names. That sums up the first five years, onto the next. (Sorry if this is boring... I can't promise the rest is anymore exciting.)
Year 6:
Once I got back home my mom had rented a house and I had a room with Tyson, now Ayah had her own room. I started first grade in Mrs. Gillioti's class (not sure I spelled that name right). This year I made friends with some boys named Trevor, Kody, Josh, and Micheal. We all went to Josh's birthday and I remember Trevor locked himself in the bathroom to get away from Josh's older brothers pet iguana. Anyway... I won the reading contest and was awarded a biking jersey, band-aid gum, and a book or something. The following summer went pretty similarly to the previous one, however, now I had a new baby sister: Maddison. I was also babysat by the family in the apartment neighboring my dad rather than going to a daycare. During all this time my mom had been dating a man named Shawn... He has a boy the same age as Tyson who was named Justin, and a girl who was Ayah's age named Leah. I don't remember exactly when or how long they dated but I'm pretty sure they broke up around the end of this year.
Year 7:
Second grade was Mrs. Lindvalls class, I was supposed to have a man as a teacher but he was in the military. I think. Trevor and Micheal were both in the same class as me, this was a win. Kody was in Mrs. Greens class and Josh moved away. This year was a pretty boring year. I remember I had a crush on a girl named Diana, Trevor and I went to her birthday party and were eventually paid by her dad for being the only two boys to show up. He gave each of us $5. My grandpa took me and Tyson fishing a few times, we also went ice fishing at a lake a few towns away. Ice fishing is pretty awesome... Tyson slipped and his leg fell in the hole we drilled. My mom started dating a man named Alex... He liked DragonballZ so I figured he was alright. He moved in with us and started paying for cable TV... The best I had before was just Saturday morning cartoons. I do not remember my 7th birthday specifically. I did not go to California due to lack of funds plus Ayah and I wanted to stay with our mom.
Year 8:
This year was not a good year. I liked my teacher Mrs. Miller and my classmates. Kody was the only one I knew from before in it. Third grade is when the standardized testing begins for the students and I missed a day or two because I was hospitalized for an asthma attack. I also found out that I was allergic to a million things. (I will spare you from reading the endless list) I did not go to California this summer either. I went to summer school just to give me something to do and decided to switch to the school hosting the summer program for 4th grade. (Audubon Elementary)
Year 9:
4th grade was memorable, I was the new kid but was okay with it. I was never very social as a kid and was okay just being concerned with school and my family. Mr. Lapioli was my teacher and he started the chess club, which I joined along with Tyson. I also picked up the violin and joined the school orchestra, I wasn't old enough to do band. My grandma and grandpa would pick up my siblings and me from school everyday and watch us until my mom was off work. This summer I went to California and had a great time, I remember truly bonding with my dad for the first time this summer. Back home, my mom and Alex bought a house a few miles away from where we lived. I returned back home and finally had my own room.
Year 10:
This year started at Audubon elementary but demanded that I wake up earlier to make it to school in time since the drive was longer. After the first quarter Ayah and I decided it would be better to transfer to the school across the street from our house. This was a horrible decision. My first day at Monroe elementary started with me getting my dessert taken from me at lunch and my jacket stolen. However, the teacher really enjoyed teaching me and recommended me for this leadership program in Washington D.C.. My mom was incredibly proud and began fundraising at our church, my school, and her work to try and gather the money to send me to this conference. The necessary funds were somewhere around $5,000 and my grandpa donated $3,000, I "paid him back" by doing yard work for a year. (At the time this sounded like a fair trade to me... looking back I was definitely on the winning end of the deal.) I had my first girlfriend in fifth grade, her name was Kayla and we were kind of friends I guess. The entire duration of us "dating" i did not say a single word to her, 8 days of silence. Eventually fifth grade graduation came and parents acted like we were moving out. This summer I went to a summer camp through my church and befriended Jacob, Jarod, Reggie, and Kyle. Those four guys were my roommates for the week and I ended up getting along with them really well. A few weeks later I went to Washington D.C., unfortunately I do not remember very much from this trip. I think I drank 6 red bulls one night and I saw a bunch of the memorials around the city.
Year 11:
Middle school has now officially begun, following my brothers footsteps I enrolled into North Middle School and was a member of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Strangely enough... Kody and Trevor also chose to take the path of the IB program, but I did not talk to them too much this year. I was good friends with two guys named Taylor and Oscar, we did a history project together and decided to just hang from then on out. It was not uncommon for us to stay at each others houses and drink an unhealthy amount of energy drinks. We mostly talked about music and school, I can kind of remember an obsession with guitar hero. This year I joined the book club and told the sponsoring teacher (the one who convinced me to join) that I would only stay if we read "Enders Game"... so we did. In the middle of this year (sometime in early February) my mom and Alex informed my siblings and me that they had broken up. This was a sad event but I am still not sure why, Alex and I only got along because we both liked video games and in retrospect he was just a big child. I did not go to California this summer, but I did go to the camp again, this time Jacob and Jarod (I forgot to mention they are twins) who are a year younger than me, were still in the elementary camp and Reggie didn't even go to the camp this year.
Year 12:
The second year of middle school was a very strange year for me, my appearance and attitude was completely changed. I grew my hair out really long and looked like a little girl, by this point in my life I had also become mildly obese. Trevor (the one from years ago) and I had several classes together this year and were inseparable for a pretty long time. We hung out with Taylor (guy from year before) a lot too but for the most part it was the two of us. It seemed like a good idea to make youtube videos and start a business selling merchandise made out of duct tape. The business unsurprisingly failed due to a lack of customers but the youtube videos were somewhat of a success. One of them reached over 10,000 views... but probably only because they were tagged with "Obama, hot girls.." and many other untrue tags. Each day before school we would go on an adventure to the nearby 7/11 and buy many unhealthy, cholesterol enriched foods. My entire friend group arrived to school about an hour and a half early and had nothing better to do. After the first few weeks of school this year I dropped the violin and started playing the double bass, then after a month switched to bass guitar. After a few months of playing bass guitar I switched to exclusively play guitar and I joined the mariachi band. I also had transferred to guitar class with Trevor and a few of my other friends. This entire year on each wednesday I would go see my allergist and receive two allergy shots, one in each arm. One day in early April I went and got my daily dose then left to go home... and in the middle of the highway went into anaphylactic shock. My throat began to close and I passed out in the back seat of my moms car, all I remember is waking up in an ambulance and asking where I was. I was in the hospital for two weeks, and when I came back to school I had cut off all my hair. Quite a few people failed to recognize me but overall not much had changed in the two weeks I was gone. After school got out I went to California and began bonding with my father once more, it was so strange how similar we were even though I wasn't exposed to him that much. This was the summer my dad introduced me to golf, some of the best memories I have are of us golfing and watching the sunset as we played this summer. Ayah, Maddison, and Julian didn't really enjoy golfing all that much so... it was normally just me, my dad, and sometimes his friend Jason.
Year 13:
Eighth grade was a crazy year for me... this year started with me asking the new girl Sarah to be my girlfriend. She said yes and we dated for about two weeks, she didn't talk to me at all nearly the entire time. Sarah was a cool cat though, just very shy and we broke up. Three days later I started dating another girl, I was in charge of all the lights for the play and she was an actress in the play. That lasted maybe two months then I got dumped. About a month later I started dating another girl and that lasted 5 days, then I got dumped... again. The following four months mostly consisted of going to school, then hanging out with Trevor at this coffee shop near the school until it got dark. A lot of times after this we would go back to one of our houses and chow down on some new york style pizza. We released a second set of videos on youtube and started completely immersing ourselves in guitar. For all the songs with two guitarists I would play background and rhythm while he would be the lead and solo. March came around and I went to see a movie with my family, while watching the movie I stepped out into the hallway and collapsed... due to anaphylactic shock. I was hospitalized once again, but this time for about a week and a half. After I got back to school I started talking to another girl... we started dating on April 8th, exactly a month after her birthday (which she actually happened to share with Trevor). A few weeks later Trevor started dating her best friend so everything was working out perfect. We dated for the rest of eighth grade and almost all of the summer. I did not go to California this summer but instead went on a car ride to northern Canada with the youth group from my church. Then a few weeks after returning went to the camp again, I missed the previous year and everything was way different. Almost all the people that I knew before were gone, aside from Jacob and Jarod (who had both grown like two feet since I last saw them). Tyson was in the high school camp now and I had to kind of start all over again, luckily it all ended well and the new "group" was Jacob, Jarod, Kyle, Travis, Josh, Adam, Reggie, and me. It was fun but the week ended and we all went our separate ways. When I arrived back home from camp and Canada I broke up with my girlfriend... honestly I still don't have a legitimate reason but I just kinda felt like it needed to be done.
Year 14:
Freshmen Year. I continued the IB program into Palmer High School, this year started with the same old stuff, just Trevor and me playing guitar and hanging out. We had gym class together first period and we picked up the Chinese yo-yo. I began taking Chinese class in 7th grade, Trevor took French... but Chinese yo-yos looked fun to him too. After just a couple weeks of school I started dating a girl named Dante. Anyways. Dante and I started dating on August 30th, and we dated until mid January of freshmen year. At this point I had liked Dante very much and was kind of confused as to what happened, I needed something new and my brother talked me into joining the swim team. The issue was that I had a slight fear of water, I knew how to swim in the literal sense. I could stop myself from drowning with a very pathetic doggy paddle, but swimming laps and going underwater without plugging my nose was a completely new thing to me. I joined swim team and hit my growth spurt right around the same time. I went from 5'3" and 140 lbs to 5'10" and 165 lbs over the course of freshmen year, I had slimmed down a lot compared to how I used to be. Trevor and I also started befriending Kody (from years ago) and the three of us formed our own little trio. About a week into swim season I started dating a girl who my friends said I would NEVER be able to get. Well I sure showed them, she was definitely out of my league but I wasn't going to complain about it. The issue was that I wanted it to be a little more serious than it was and I'm not sure I was in the best position to date someone at the time... anyways I broke up with her after two weeks. The rest of the school year involved swimming, and eating. Once school got out I did go to California but this time Ayah didn't go with me, I went for June and she went for July. The reason for this is because I wanted to go to camp in July and still be able to see my dad, this was the solution. I can't remember why Ayah only went for July... she's just weird.
Year 15:
Sophomore year was going to the year for the Almighty, this is the last year of the Middle Years Program for IB, so the easy part. The main thing this year was just to complete something called the personal project that IB assigned to all its students and was pretty much any project the student wanted to do with a bunch of unnecessary documentation about it. I had no idea what to do for the project. I helped start a water polo club, which has been one of the most fun activities I have ever had the joy of experiencing. The year turned out to actually be pretty boring for the most part, Trevor started being super invested in his relationship with the girl he started dating in Year 13. This left Kody and I to just kinda do our own thing and hang out, we probably had more friends at this time than any other time in high school. Trevor, Kody, and I took a class called video production that (if you were good enough) would lead to Terror TV, which is a class that broadcasts a student made TV episode to the school every tuesday. After a quarter of taking the class we were all told we made it into TTV but wouldn't actually be in the class until our Junior year. First semester ended and I decided on a personal project that would be beneficial for purposes other than documentation; My brother and I began training with a teacher from my school at the gym across the street for two hours every morning before school. This was to prepare for swim, the teacher would give us a weights workout for an hour then coach us in the pool for an hour. I would arrive at the gym at 5:00 every morning and leave at 7:00, then go to school which started at 7:40. During this time I remember being forced to walk like a cowboy because if I walked like a regular human being my knees would lock up and I would fall over due to the sore muscles in my legs all the time. Eventually swim season came around and I did pretty well, the worst thing that happened was one night after practice Tyson and I went to a teammates house for dinner and Tyson's car was broken into. The thief took my backpack and both of our swim bags, all of the documentation of my personal project was stolen. Luckily, the police found it all scattered in the middle of the road at like two in the morning. They stole my calculator and a math textbook. Swim season was nearing its end and spring break had started. The last day of spring break I received an email from Dante saying that if I was ever interested in trying to make something work between us that she was definitely interested. The problem was that I was kind of talking to another girl but it wasn't very serious and I wasn't completely sure anything was even there. After about a week of mental conflict I decided to give Dante another chance. We decided to do the incline and she invited her friend who had developed a liking for Trevor, who was recently updated as single. So we went on this little double date and all had a great time, nothing was made official yet though. In the following weeks I started dating Dante again, and Trevor started dating her friend Madison. The following summer went pretty well, Kody started talking to a girl and the three of us were all getting along pretty well again. I went to camp this summer but that was about it, other than that it was just hanging out with friends.
Year 16:
The second half to year sixteen is the first half to the worst year of my life. The second part will be found in year 17. Junior year started out fine, this time it was in the Diploma Program of IB, which is quite a bit more rigorous but it was still doable. Right at the end of the summer, just a couple weeks after my sixteenth birthday I got a job at the pool I used to train at every morning as a lifeguard. This was a pretty enjoyable time for me because I had a source of income, having money makes life a lot more fun. Things with Dante were going pretty well and I became a common fan at my high schools cross country meets simply because Dante, Tyson, and Trevor were all in cross country. I had water polo once or twice a week during the fall and would see the cross country team meet on those days. A few months into the school year I got my license and my grandpa let me have his 89' ford ranger pickup. I drove that truck around until January when I got a 98' nissan sentra.. Kody, Trevor, and I were in TTV and we were producing videos like a three piece machine, except we only worked with each other. Most the other kids in the class worked with their friends that weren't in TTV, but seeing as our core friends were all in TTV it was more convenient to just work with each other. As first semester ended the teacher basically demanded that we either stop working together or make three times as many pieces, so we quit. The work load was too high and we didn't have the time to meet the requirements with sports and IB. Around the same time I quit TTV I also started playing the video game Dota 2, which consumed me for too long. My days of second semester before swim season started would just be going to school, then going home and playing dota for hours. Soon swim season started and broke the addiction, this swim season was especially memorable because it was Tyson's last season, and he was one of the captains of the team this year. Additionally, Ayah had fallen into some bad habits and was forced to go live with my dad right at the start of second semester. This was especially hard on me and I blamed myself for a lot of the things she was doing wrong. On a lighter note, this swim season Dante was able to come watch me race a few times and each time she did I set personal records in my events. In the middle of the season Trevor and Madison had broken up, but they still seemed like they ended mostly on good terms. Swim season ended and the school year with it, Tyson had graduated and was about to move out. Him moving out was just a second blow to Ayah leaving a few months earlier, I was so used to having them there and with them gone I didn't know what to do with myself. I still saw Tyson every once in a while but he became very committed to a relationship and was hard to contact sometimes. I never saw him by himself, which wouldn't have been an issue in moderation but sometimes I really just wanted to hang out with my brother, not him and his girlfriend. Right around when school was getting out Kody and Trevor became very upset with me and refused to talk to me, the reason was because I had been prioritizing Dante above the two of them, when in truth Dante felt I wasn't prioritizing her either. As summer started I began taking on an immense amount of hours at work, my boss was sending me to guard at other locations around the city. One day at an artificial beach I was working at I was forced into a situation that felt like a nightmare. There were over seventy patrons on the "beach" about forty-five were kids that couldn't swim, on the other side of this lake was a man started drowning in the "no swimming" area. The only people on duty were me and another guy who was on his very first shift. The man was easily over a ten minute swim away and leaving the beach would jeopardize the safety of all the patrons on it. A man who was with his family left the beach and started racing for the man but after minutes of sprinting was not even half way to the man. However, the swimmer managed to get the attention of a man on a jet ski and directed him to help save the drowning mans life. The swimmer came back and told me I should've been the one out in the water trying to save that man. He asked me why I didn't go and I told him I couldn't risk anything happening on the beach and then he said "That's bullshit. That's complete bullshit. You have a ability to do great things and save people, but you have to use it. Don't feed me that shit." But I used all the excuses I could to justify myself, such as the other guy being new, and the safety of all the swimmers on the beach being at risk, that the city could sue the company I work for because thats outside our boundary (meaning I would lose my job)... but that was all bullshit. I look back to this day and wish I could go back and redo it all over again. Is my job worth more than the life of that man? No. I still hate the decision I made. After a few weeks I went to camp and saw my friends again, this year was a hard year at camp. Tyson was gone and everyone was leaving, and I had a lot going on back at home that I didn't want to deal with. I returned home for a few days then almost immediately went to California. I saw my dad and two sisters. In the last year he had divorced Samantha and moved into a new home, his best friend (who I regarded as an uncle) had died, the split of her parents had Maddison seem older and more serious than ever before and Ayah wasn't showing the improvement I had hoped she would. I still tried to make the best of the time I had there and eventually found my way back home. During all the traveling I had done Dante and I were fighting more and more everyday. My birthday approached and on the night of my birthday we nearly broke up after over a year of dating. That was how year 16 ended, my dad had lost his best friend and wife, my sister moved away, my brother moved out, my friends weren't talking to me, I almost let a man die, and I was about to break up with my girlfriend.
Year 17:
Year 11:
Middle school has now officially begun, following my brothers footsteps I enrolled into North Middle School and was a member of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Strangely enough... Kody and Trevor also chose to take the path of the IB program, but I did not talk to them too much this year. I was good friends with two guys named Taylor and Oscar, we did a history project together and decided to just hang from then on out. It was not uncommon for us to stay at each others houses and drink an unhealthy amount of energy drinks. We mostly talked about music and school, I can kind of remember an obsession with guitar hero. This year I joined the book club and told the sponsoring teacher (the one who convinced me to join) that I would only stay if we read "Enders Game"... so we did. In the middle of this year (sometime in early February) my mom and Alex informed my siblings and me that they had broken up. This was a sad event but I am still not sure why, Alex and I only got along because we both liked video games and in retrospect he was just a big child. I did not go to California this summer, but I did go to the camp again, this time Jacob and Jarod (I forgot to mention they are twins) who are a year younger than me, were still in the elementary camp and Reggie didn't even go to the camp this year.
Year 12:
7th Grade Candid
The second year of middle school was a very strange year for me, my appearance and attitude was completely changed. I grew my hair out really long and looked like a little girl, by this point in my life I had also become mildly obese. Trevor (the one from years ago) and I had several classes together this year and were inseparable for a pretty long time. We hung out with Taylor (guy from year before) a lot too but for the most part it was the two of us. It seemed like a good idea to make youtube videos and start a business selling merchandise made out of duct tape. The business unsurprisingly failed due to a lack of customers but the youtube videos were somewhat of a success. One of them reached over 10,000 views... but probably only because they were tagged with "Obama, hot girls.." and many other untrue tags. Each day before school we would go on an adventure to the nearby 7/11 and buy many unhealthy, cholesterol enriched foods. My entire friend group arrived to school about an hour and a half early and had nothing better to do. After the first few weeks of school this year I dropped the violin and started playing the double bass, then after a month switched to bass guitar. After a few months of playing bass guitar I switched to exclusively play guitar and I joined the mariachi band. I also had transferred to guitar class with Trevor and a few of my other friends. This entire year on each wednesday I would go see my allergist and receive two allergy shots, one in each arm. One day in early April I went and got my daily dose then left to go home... and in the middle of the highway went into anaphylactic shock. My throat began to close and I passed out in the back seat of my moms car, all I remember is waking up in an ambulance and asking where I was. I was in the hospital for two weeks, and when I came back to school I had cut off all my hair. Quite a few people failed to recognize me but overall not much had changed in the two weeks I was gone. After school got out I went to California and began bonding with my father once more, it was so strange how similar we were even though I wasn't exposed to him that much. This was the summer my dad introduced me to golf, some of the best memories I have are of us golfing and watching the sunset as we played this summer. Ayah, Maddison, and Julian didn't really enjoy golfing all that much so... it was normally just me, my dad, and sometimes his friend Jason.
Year 13:
Eighth grade was a crazy year for me... this year started with me asking the new girl Sarah to be my girlfriend. She said yes and we dated for about two weeks, she didn't talk to me at all nearly the entire time. Sarah was a cool cat though, just very shy and we broke up. Three days later I started dating another girl, I was in charge of all the lights for the play and she was an actress in the play. That lasted maybe two months then I got dumped. About a month later I started dating another girl and that lasted 5 days, then I got dumped... again. The following four months mostly consisted of going to school, then hanging out with Trevor at this coffee shop near the school until it got dark. A lot of times after this we would go back to one of our houses and chow down on some new york style pizza. We released a second set of videos on youtube and started completely immersing ourselves in guitar. For all the songs with two guitarists I would play background and rhythm while he would be the lead and solo. March came around and I went to see a movie with my family, while watching the movie I stepped out into the hallway and collapsed... due to anaphylactic shock. I was hospitalized once again, but this time for about a week and a half. After I got back to school I started talking to another girl... we started dating on April 8th, exactly a month after her birthday (which she actually happened to share with Trevor). A few weeks later Trevor started dating her best friend so everything was working out perfect. We dated for the rest of eighth grade and almost all of the summer. I did not go to California this summer but instead went on a car ride to northern Canada with the youth group from my church. Then a few weeks after returning went to the camp again, I missed the previous year and everything was way different. Almost all the people that I knew before were gone, aside from Jacob and Jarod (who had both grown like two feet since I last saw them). Tyson was in the high school camp now and I had to kind of start all over again, luckily it all ended well and the new "group" was Jacob, Jarod, Kyle, Travis, Josh, Adam, Reggie, and me. It was fun but the week ended and we all went our separate ways. When I arrived back home from camp and Canada I broke up with my girlfriend... honestly I still don't have a legitimate reason but I just kinda felt like it needed to be done.
Year 14:
Post growth spurt and swim season
Freshmen Year. I continued the IB program into Palmer High School, this year started with the same old stuff, just Trevor and me playing guitar and hanging out. We had gym class together first period and we picked up the Chinese yo-yo. I began taking Chinese class in 7th grade, Trevor took French... but Chinese yo-yos looked fun to him too. After just a couple weeks of school I started dating a girl named Dante. Anyways. Dante and I started dating on August 30th, and we dated until mid January of freshmen year. At this point I had liked Dante very much and was kind of confused as to what happened, I needed something new and my brother talked me into joining the swim team. The issue was that I had a slight fear of water, I knew how to swim in the literal sense. I could stop myself from drowning with a very pathetic doggy paddle, but swimming laps and going underwater without plugging my nose was a completely new thing to me. I joined swim team and hit my growth spurt right around the same time. I went from 5'3" and 140 lbs to 5'10" and 165 lbs over the course of freshmen year, I had slimmed down a lot compared to how I used to be. Trevor and I also started befriending Kody (from years ago) and the three of us formed our own little trio. About a week into swim season I started dating a girl who my friends said I would NEVER be able to get. Well I sure showed them, she was definitely out of my league but I wasn't going to complain about it. The issue was that I wanted it to be a little more serious than it was and I'm not sure I was in the best position to date someone at the time... anyways I broke up with her after two weeks. The rest of the school year involved swimming, and eating. Once school got out I did go to California but this time Ayah didn't go with me, I went for June and she went for July. The reason for this is because I wanted to go to camp in July and still be able to see my dad, this was the solution. I can't remember why Ayah only went for July... she's just weird.
Year 15:
Sophomore year was going to the year for the Almighty, this is the last year of the Middle Years Program for IB, so the easy part. The main thing this year was just to complete something called the personal project that IB assigned to all its students and was pretty much any project the student wanted to do with a bunch of unnecessary documentation about it. I had no idea what to do for the project. I helped start a water polo club, which has been one of the most fun activities I have ever had the joy of experiencing. The year turned out to actually be pretty boring for the most part, Trevor started being super invested in his relationship with the girl he started dating in Year 13. This left Kody and I to just kinda do our own thing and hang out, we probably had more friends at this time than any other time in high school. Trevor, Kody, and I took a class called video production that (if you were good enough) would lead to Terror TV, which is a class that broadcasts a student made TV episode to the school every tuesday. After a quarter of taking the class we were all told we made it into TTV but wouldn't actually be in the class until our Junior year. First semester ended and I decided on a personal project that would be beneficial for purposes other than documentation; My brother and I began training with a teacher from my school at the gym across the street for two hours every morning before school. This was to prepare for swim, the teacher would give us a weights workout for an hour then coach us in the pool for an hour. I would arrive at the gym at 5:00 every morning and leave at 7:00, then go to school which started at 7:40. During this time I remember being forced to walk like a cowboy because if I walked like a regular human being my knees would lock up and I would fall over due to the sore muscles in my legs all the time. Eventually swim season came around and I did pretty well, the worst thing that happened was one night after practice Tyson and I went to a teammates house for dinner and Tyson's car was broken into. The thief took my backpack and both of our swim bags, all of the documentation of my personal project was stolen. Luckily, the police found it all scattered in the middle of the road at like two in the morning. They stole my calculator and a math textbook. Swim season was nearing its end and spring break had started. The last day of spring break I received an email from Dante saying that if I was ever interested in trying to make something work between us that she was definitely interested. The problem was that I was kind of talking to another girl but it wasn't very serious and I wasn't completely sure anything was even there. After about a week of mental conflict I decided to give Dante another chance. We decided to do the incline and she invited her friend who had developed a liking for Trevor, who was recently updated as single. So we went on this little double date and all had a great time, nothing was made official yet though. In the following weeks I started dating Dante again, and Trevor started dating her friend Madison. The following summer went pretty well, Kody started talking to a girl and the three of us were all getting along pretty well again. I went to camp this summer but that was about it, other than that it was just hanging out with friends.
Year 16:
We look like goons but one of the last photos of me and Ayah before she left.
The second half to year sixteen is the first half to the worst year of my life. The second part will be found in year 17. Junior year started out fine, this time it was in the Diploma Program of IB, which is quite a bit more rigorous but it was still doable. Right at the end of the summer, just a couple weeks after my sixteenth birthday I got a job at the pool I used to train at every morning as a lifeguard. This was a pretty enjoyable time for me because I had a source of income, having money makes life a lot more fun. Things with Dante were going pretty well and I became a common fan at my high schools cross country meets simply because Dante, Tyson, and Trevor were all in cross country. I had water polo once or twice a week during the fall and would see the cross country team meet on those days. A few months into the school year I got my license and my grandpa let me have his 89' ford ranger pickup. I drove that truck around until January when I got a 98' nissan sentra.. Kody, Trevor, and I were in TTV and we were producing videos like a three piece machine, except we only worked with each other. Most the other kids in the class worked with their friends that weren't in TTV, but seeing as our core friends were all in TTV it was more convenient to just work with each other. As first semester ended the teacher basically demanded that we either stop working together or make three times as many pieces, so we quit. The work load was too high and we didn't have the time to meet the requirements with sports and IB. Around the same time I quit TTV I also started playing the video game Dota 2, which consumed me for too long. My days of second semester before swim season started would just be going to school, then going home and playing dota for hours. Soon swim season started and broke the addiction, this swim season was especially memorable because it was Tyson's last season, and he was one of the captains of the team this year. Additionally, Ayah had fallen into some bad habits and was forced to go live with my dad right at the start of second semester. This was especially hard on me and I blamed myself for a lot of the things she was doing wrong. On a lighter note, this swim season Dante was able to come watch me race a few times and each time she did I set personal records in my events. In the middle of the season Trevor and Madison had broken up, but they still seemed like they ended mostly on good terms. Swim season ended and the school year with it, Tyson had graduated and was about to move out. Him moving out was just a second blow to Ayah leaving a few months earlier, I was so used to having them there and with them gone I didn't know what to do with myself. I still saw Tyson every once in a while but he became very committed to a relationship and was hard to contact sometimes. I never saw him by himself, which wouldn't have been an issue in moderation but sometimes I really just wanted to hang out with my brother, not him and his girlfriend. Right around when school was getting out Kody and Trevor became very upset with me and refused to talk to me, the reason was because I had been prioritizing Dante above the two of them, when in truth Dante felt I wasn't prioritizing her either. As summer started I began taking on an immense amount of hours at work, my boss was sending me to guard at other locations around the city. One day at an artificial beach I was working at I was forced into a situation that felt like a nightmare. There were over seventy patrons on the "beach" about forty-five were kids that couldn't swim, on the other side of this lake was a man started drowning in the "no swimming" area. The only people on duty were me and another guy who was on his very first shift. The man was easily over a ten minute swim away and leaving the beach would jeopardize the safety of all the patrons on it. A man who was with his family left the beach and started racing for the man but after minutes of sprinting was not even half way to the man. However, the swimmer managed to get the attention of a man on a jet ski and directed him to help save the drowning mans life. The swimmer came back and told me I should've been the one out in the water trying to save that man. He asked me why I didn't go and I told him I couldn't risk anything happening on the beach and then he said "That's bullshit. That's complete bullshit. You have a ability to do great things and save people, but you have to use it. Don't feed me that shit." But I used all the excuses I could to justify myself, such as the other guy being new, and the safety of all the swimmers on the beach being at risk, that the city could sue the company I work for because thats outside our boundary (meaning I would lose my job)... but that was all bullshit. I look back to this day and wish I could go back and redo it all over again. Is my job worth more than the life of that man? No. I still hate the decision I made. After a few weeks I went to camp and saw my friends again, this year was a hard year at camp. Tyson was gone and everyone was leaving, and I had a lot going on back at home that I didn't want to deal with. I returned home for a few days then almost immediately went to California. I saw my dad and two sisters. In the last year he had divorced Samantha and moved into a new home, his best friend (who I regarded as an uncle) had died, the split of her parents had Maddison seem older and more serious than ever before and Ayah wasn't showing the improvement I had hoped she would. I still tried to make the best of the time I had there and eventually found my way back home. During all the traveling I had done Dante and I were fighting more and more everyday. My birthday approached and on the night of my birthday we nearly broke up after over a year of dating. That was how year 16 ended, my dad had lost his best friend and wife, my sister moved away, my brother moved out, my friends weren't talking to me, I almost let a man die, and I was about to break up with my girlfriend.
Year 17:
My grandpa and I thuggin from day one.
August started and senior year began, things were kind of looking up... Kody and Trevor seemed to have forgiven me, and Dante and I were doing good. After about a week of school my grandpa was declared terminally ill, we knew he was sick but it nothing could've prepared me for how fast this all happened. Tyson and I started taking turns staying the night with our grandparents to help my grandpa move around. My grandpa wasn't able to walk and was pretty much just living in his big fluffy chair. Sometimes at night he would fall out of the chair and we would need to lift him back up into it, my grandma has a herniated disk in her neck and can't really do any hard labor. We also had to help him to and from the bathroom, I remember he always tried to seem as happy as he could whenever my grandma was around. Tuesday, September 10th was my day to stay with them... I got up at least 5 times that night to help him get back into the chair. The next day came and I left for school, it was lunchtime and school when my mom called and told me "grandpa died almost a half hour ago". I teared up and left without getting the food I had already paid for, I saw Dante on the way and we were in the middle of a "break" that she needed due to stress. I told her what happened and we sat outside... I don't remember the complete conversation, but I told her I was going to leave and I would call her later. I went home and found out that my grandpa died in my moms arms... he asked my grandma for popsicles and ginger ale so she left to the store. Then he asked my mom for help to go to the bathroom and when she picked him up he died in her arms. The next day I stayed home from school, Dante called me and asked if she could come see me. She came over and broke up with me. My life was a wreck. The following weeks are all kind of blurred together. It was at this point that I started to have horrible anxiety attacks with no warning. I was very blessed to have had Trevor, and Kody to help me out with some stuff, I didn't want to let my mom know what was going on due to the fact that her dad just died. Sometimes I would just be sitting in class and it would become really hard to breathe, so i would ask to go to the restroom (I normally do this if I need to use my inhaler because I used to really dislike using my inhaler in front of people). I would try to use my inhaler and it wouldn't help, and then I would start crying and I had no idea why. Then I would get more angry because there was nothing I could do to help and it would just make the whole situation worse. This was life for two to three months. During this time our house was foreclosed because my mom couldn't afford to keep paying for it and Tyson had to move back in because he wasn't able to keep paying all his bills since he started making less money. My grades in school also began slipping and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't stay focused in school, I missed class a lot but even if I was there it wouldn't have made a difference. I pulled through and lasted through first semester. Winter break was starting and I started hanging out with Trevor nearly every day, then one day I got a call from him. I was informed that Trevor and Dante had started talking and it was becoming pretty serious, I panicked and didn't really do anything at first. Then later stopped talking to Trevor completely, Kody and his girlfriend (the one he started talking to in year 15) have proven to be loyal friends. At this time I completely immersed myself back into work and started doing intense workouts every day. I remember several days I tried to lift myself out of bed and would just collapse back down. I actually was approached by a couple of different of girls who were all super great and definitely showed interest in me but I just didn't want anything like that, and it wasn't their fault.
I had a couple friends, Steven and Weiliang, who were really helpful in talking to and eventually we often got together for game nights with 4-8 people. Game nights were great, we played obscure yet addictive board games; both co-operative and every man for himself style. Weiliang blogged and it looked really fun and interesting so I started to blog, it was a great way to utilize all my spare time.
I started talking to another girl around the start of february and we started dating the day before Valentines day. From the start we knew I was going to be moving away for college but... we still figured we could enjoy the time we still have. We went on crazy drives through the mountains and wouldn't return home until super late, I remember one night I dropped her back off at home at 5 in the morning. Even though we didn't actually do anything except talk it was so fun and I wished we didn't have to conclude the night.
I also started playing a nation simulation game called "Politics and War", its a really awful game but it's so addictive and now that I have worked up to a position as leader of an alliance I can't really quit without losing respect from people. Eventually my friends and I had to design secret code words when discussing game nights due to people at school becoming upset with us for not inviting them and being "exclusive". Swim season also started and I was one of the captains, pretty much every member of the team got sick at some point this year but the team as a whole was much more formidable this year than any other year.
Graduation came and it was pretty much exactly as expected... I instantly stopped talking to ninety percent of the people I had know since sixth grade. My dad and sisters came to visit during this time and my father earned a lot of respect from me during this trek of his. He was so willing to help with anything and didn't complain at all the entire time, he also handled rough situations with my sisters very well and just was so composed. I was very impressed. Summer started and I just began to work a lot. A few friends and I planned a camping trip, this was some of the best quality time I got to spend my girlfriend before she went on a trip to California for ten days, this trip was one of the most fun events I have ever done.
I started to hang out with some of my co-workers a lot due to an excess of free time. Eventually she got back and gave me some of the greatest gifts I have ever received; a panda snapback, a panda keychain, a panda wallet, a stuffed Pumba with bugs in his mouth (from Disney's "The Lion King"), and a small ceramic panda for my zen garden.
Year 18:
Year 18 started out with a bit of drama - the girl I was dating in the previous section and I had gotten into an argument and broken up. The breakup didn't last long though; we ended up getting back together a few days after my 18th birthday. Going into the relationship I was very unsure and found it hard to commit to it as much as I had before for a couple reasons. One reason was because I was moving away to Montana within the next month and would be going to school there for (hopefully) four years. I also had developed some trust issues with her that had come around due to the complications that caused us to break up a few days earlier. Despite the reasons to NOT become involved with her again - I still did.
Now a bit out of nowhere the aunt I had reconnected with, but not yet officially met in person offered to pay for me to go meet her and the older of her two daughters in Orlando a few days before I was moving to Montana. At first I declined the gracious offer simply because I wanted more than 12 hours of being in Colorado to prepare for the next part of my life, however, eventually I was swayed into going. The trip to Orlando was amazing; my brother and his girlfriend at the time also went to meet the long lost relatives. I really disliked his girlfriend. We arrived to find the hotel that my aunt booked was not only huge and ornate, but also had a water taxi system that would bring us into the Universal Studios resort. It was very strange to meet my aunt in person, initially I wanted nothing to do with her because she refused to talk to anyone in the family until after my grandpa died - the man who raised helped raise me and I took care of while he was terminal. Upon talking to her again and accepting the offer to go to Orlando to meet them I decided I would start the relationship with a blank slate, and just see how things went once I met her. She was very similar to me, I was going to school to study accounting and she had her CPA. We also listened to the same music and watched the same t.v. shows, pretty much anything I could think of that interested me, also interested her. As you know, I had been studying mandarin Chinese for the last 5 or 6 years, and she had studied abroad in china when she was younger. It was a welcoming experience. It is always interesting to meet cousins and stuff because they are always much younger than my siblings and me. This is because my parents were so young when we were born, but the benefit is that my aunts and uncles back home get free babysitters.
Anyways, the trip to Orlando was great for so many reasons; it was the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at, the resort was pretty sweet, Hogwarts was there, my aunt paid for a VIP tour so we cut every line, pretty much take a trip to an amusement park out of a movie - then throw that into reality. That's what it was. It was great.
I decided I hate having to clump everything into one paragraph each year, so I'm going to continue now that the formatting doesn't make me hate myself. After four short days in Orlando we flew back to Colorado and I would have just about half a day to prepare for the drive to Montana. That night my girlfriend came over and helped me back then stayed the "night" (we left at like 4:00 am and tried to stay up the whole time).
The half day went by quickly and before I knew it I was on the road with my mom and Devon, a friend who I went to middle school and high school with, and is the only other person from my high school that would be going to Montana for school.
We arrived to the dorms soon enough but were a day early, so we paid $20 or something to stay an extra night before the move-in date. I actually think this is completely worth it because trying to get all of your possessions inside of those dorms with only two elevators in there while everyone else is trying to do the same sounds like absolute hell. This week was very busy because we had orientation and everyone was moving in and trying to make new friends at the same time, which put all the people doing orientation now instead of earlier in the summer at a disadvantage. I remember my roommate put my loft together for me during this week. I was very thankful. The first weekend I ended up going to a party with a few guys I met in the college of business orientation and Devon came too.
The party scene wasn't really for me and Devon so we decided to head back to campus and call it a night, just as we got into the parking lot of school some guys in a car drove by and gave us a beer saying they didn't want to be seen with it while driving. I took a sip and then gave it to Devon to finish off, he handed it back for a moment but I refrained from drinking any more and told him he could have the rest shortly after, but before I could hand it back a police officer drove by. The police officer turned around and I was given a ticket for possession of alcohol while underage - just my luck to get it when I hadn't been drinking irresponsibly and left a party full of alcohol because I wasn't feeling comfortable there. This small half sheet of paper meant that I had to go to the courthouse, pay a fine, sign up and take a class, take another class (which I would find out about later), and do some community service. I did everything and it was in the past, after about three weeks of getting it. I wanted that to just be in the past and to move on as quickly as I could, and because of that experience I didn't really go out and party or do anything "edgey" because I was afraid of getting into trouble like that again. My roommate and I didn't really click, he was very into getting hammered every weekend and doing loud things; I tend to be a more quiet person. He isn't a bad guy, but our personalities just weren't compatible. Around september/october my girlfriend and I broke up, I had sort of figured it was inevitable due to the distance. I had made a few friends in my astronomy class and I was good friends with a girl that listened to some good music and watched good music. I think she is the only person as weird as I am with that stuff that goes to Montana State University. I don't really talk to any of the people I did first semester, except for her.
Second semester seemed promising, right at the start I had decided to get back into swimming so I was pretty tired most of the time because I was getting in some good yards every day. My roommate had a friend who came and met all of us first semester and registered to go to MSU for the second semester. He didn't seem to really care for his roommate so just crashed in our dorm room for 3 or 4 nights. It was pretty cool because he and I got along really well, and I saw him pretty much everywhere I went. Wes and I were destined to be roomies. It didn't take long before he and I moved into a room that just cleared down the hall, and another friend moved into my old room. It was a decision that everyone involved benefitted from. My new roommate and I would watch movies like Frozen together and blast Katy Perry all the time. We were, without a doubt, the most effeminate room on the all male floor, that seemed to be a hub of athletes. About two months into the semester we started talking to a guy I met first semester but never got to know too well, he lived a few rooms down the hall. His name was John and he is literally the worst human being I have ever met. Just kidding, but I had to put that last sentence there for the purpose of quoting it when I tell him I wrote about him in my blog. Onto the story of the sexy seven - We also talked to Colton quite a bit, he went to high school with Wes and I had known him a little from first semester. Jake was another one who went to high school with them, and I knew who he was but never really talked to him until after Wes and I were roommates. Bjorn was our friend that pretty much lived in our room half the time, his roommate was very straight-edge. Tanner would go to bed by like 10 every night and was up by 7 every morning, and he was not okay with Bjorn lurking after hours. This led to Bjorn coming and chilling with Wes and me every night until 1 or 2 in the morning, we got to know him very well. Keenan was Johns roommate, and he was always very distant and quiet, one of those guys that seemed to prefer being left in solitude. I always made it a challenge to get people like him to come out of their shell with me and I would like to think I succeeded with him. Well not too long after we all had gotten to know each other we had a house lined up for us to live in. The Sexy Seven: Umar, Wes, John, Colton, Bjorn, Jake, Keenan.
Over spring break my aunt paid for me to go visit her in Washington DC - where she actually lived. I was going to see the city and visit her other daughter and husband, in addition to seeing her and the older of the two girls again. The trip was great, I explored all of capitol hill one day, went and saw pandas another. Rebecca, my aunt, had the same taste in movies as me so we went and saw a few movies over the week I was there; we saw "Kingsmen: The Secret Service", "Hot Tub Time Machine Two", and I feel like there was a third but I am just forgetting it. We also saw Demetri Martin's stand-up comedy one night, and went to listen to Jukebox the Ghost live. It was a pretty awesome week.
After spring break was pretty quick, we only had about a month left of school and one week of that was finals. All I really remember that was significant at the time was that I had become very committed to using my chinese yo-yo again, so much so that I had gotten some of my friends attached. About a week before I went back to Colorado I started talking to a girl I knew back home, but never really talked to; I recently found out she was going to MSU in the fall. Over time we developed feelings for each other and after a couple weeks in Colorado we started dating. Not long after she left to California to work at a boy scout camp for the summer. Around this time I mainly hung out at hookah bars with friends and would just socialize with people I hadn't talked to in a long time. One night at the hookah bar I found out a boy I knew from swim (and had recruited when I met him and his family at the pool I lifeguarded at) killed himself. This hit me very hard and triggered a very depressing emotional response out of me, he was very young and I wish I had been able to go back and do something about it before it was too late. A few days later I went to California for my sister's high school graduation. The drive to California was amazing, we saw some spectacular rock formations in Utah and stopped to explore a bit of Vegas. Fortunately the girl I was dating didn't work too far away from where I was and we were able to take her to the farm house we were staying at for the week on one of the nights we were there. After a week or so my mom and Caleb (my sister's friend that came with us from Colorado) started their drive back to Colorado, but I stayed for a flight I had the next day. To Washington DC.
I was going to the nation's capital once again for an internship that my aunt had secured me at the place she worked. It was an accounting internship for the CFO and main accountant of the company... which was her. The job experience (so far) has been wonderful, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity I've been given. The place that the internship is at is less than a mile from capitol hill, so going to see the Smithsonian museums, the white house, and the memorials around the area is all within reasonable walking distance. After about a week of living with my aunt we went to an EDM concert, it was R3hab. The night of the concert was the night that the girl back in California and I broke up, I think the distance was just too much and caused issues that wouldn't have really existed otherwise. Not too long after that we went and saw the Foo Fighters perform on the 4th of July, it was one of the most memorable nights because not only was it the Foo Fighters - but there was also Joan Jett and the Black Hearts, Buddy Guy, LLCoolJ, and Trouble Funk, not to mention the astounding fireworks show at the end. Two days after seeing all of them we went and saw the Imagine Dragons concert, with Metro and Halsey performing as well. That was a very eventful weekend. I hope all of you are jealous.
Year 19:
This year began with me still living in Washington D.C. with my aunt while interning for her at a cable telecommunications company. The night of my birthday I went to P.F. Changs with my aunt and two cousins. I reread my writing about year 18 and I did not even come close to expressing how much I care about these three girls. Rebecca, my aunt, has done so much for me for how long we have known each other. I can only dream that I am able to help a relative as much as she helps me when I am older, having her in my life has been one of, if not THE best thing to happen to me in the last couple years. Sylvia, my 4 year old cousin, really touched my heart this summer - I didn't have a lot of younger cousins because most were around my age or reaching middle school ages. Spending time with her was so fun and we never wasted a moment, she was always ready to go go go. I found that I became very jaded and cynical as a person without having people so innocent and pure in my life, and young children truly are the purest people. Josie, my 9 year old cousin, was another example of showing me how good people really are. Josie and I have quite a bit in common, a philosopher might say it is because we are both cancers, so maybe that's it. I love all three of them from the bottom of my heart though, I will always cherish the memories I was able to make with them last summer. Eventually, my internship came to it's conclusion and I returned to Colorado for a few days, nothing exceptional happened in these days before I started my drive back to Montana.
This was going to be a big destination for me because I would be moving into the house some friends and I started a lease on in June. This will be my first long term home since the start of my senior year of high school, prior to this I had been sleeping (in order of occurrence) in a spare bedroom, a yoga mat, a dorm room air mattress, a farmhouse, couches, another air mattress, and the same spare bedroom. The last time I truly had my own room and bed was the house I moved out of right around the time my grandpa died, needless to say I was pretty excited. I pulled up to the house and Jake was home, greeting me and helping me carry a few things inside. As the day went on Bjorn, Chris, Colton, and Wes all finished their days and came home. It was so great to see everyone again; it's amazing how I had only known these people for less than a year and was already so close to them. The weekend after I got home we decided to throw a party to honor Jake since he would be leaving to Orlando for an internship at Disney World during first semester. During the summer the roomies became very close with Allie, and Erica (mostly through Chris and Colton) - so I met these two and we became friends relatively quickly. One of my first interactions with Allie was her approaching me saying "Can I ask you a question?" and my reply was "ugh, before you ask, I'm not gay.". Turns out that was not the question she had prepared and I just looked silly for assuming that, but it's okay because it was funny. Chris had just been living in the house over the summer while John, Keenan, and I were gone and would actually be moving into a house with Allie and another friend of theirs named Mack who was also gone all summer. Now, apparently Allie had really talked me up to Mack and set the bar REALLY high for the type of person I am and when Mack met me I failed to meet her high expectations of me. For this reason Mack and I will never be friends. Just kidding, but that is another sentence I will be able to quote when I tell her I wrote about her in my life story.
Soon enough, classes started and Wes had hooked me up with a job at a car rental company in the airport up the highway so my schedule became pretty busy. However, throughout the semester I began going to the house Chris, Allie, and Mack lived in to hang out with them. During the chill sessions there I got to know Charlotte, Frankie, and Marissa. Oh also, Erica and Mack were both in sororities - but not the same one; Erica is in AOPi, while Mack is a PiPhi. Around Halloween we had a party at our house and I met a girl named Sarah, we clicked and ended up going on a date the following week but unfortunately she would be graduating within the next year and didn't want to commit to anything because she didn't see anything lasting beyond her graduation. That Halloween my roommates John and Keenan dressed up as the Lonely Island with me (we just wore turtlenecks we bought at goodwill and chains we found in Hot Topic). It was an eventful Halloween to say the least, Mack invited me to a party and I brought John with me, then John dropped us off at another party, then we went back to CAMs(Chris, Allie, Mack's) house. A couple weeks later Mack talked me into going to her sorority formal with her, mostly because she didn't have a date and wanted someone to go with who she would normally hang out with because she doesn't like a whole lot of people in her sorority. That was actually a very fun event, I really underestimated the amount of people I would know there but since I ended up knowing quite a few people I had a good time. One of the funniest things that happened to me was at the formal: a guy named Lee who lived on my floor in the dorms unzipped his pants in front of me, this revealed the end of a bag of wine that he was trying to get me to drink out of. Anyways, not long after this I went home for thanksgiving break and it was one of the most emotionally stressful weeks I have had in a long time. My sister was still going down a pretty scary path and one night when I was very sick I woke up to a call from her at 3 am. She was staying the night with a guy who became belligerently drunk and kicked her out to the streets without her shoes on. It was a notably cold night as well and she was about 5 miles from where we lived, she also wasn't the greatest person with direction so she probably would have gotten lost. I left to pick her up as fast as I could and in the car we got into a pretty heated argument, it pained me to see my baby sister put herself in these situations and I had a bit of a breakdown. We didn't talk for the following day then our mom sort of stepped in to mediate the situation, however, she didn't know all the details of what had happened. We made up, sort of, before I returned to Montana to finish off the semester. The last two weeks of classes we fine, I had essentially concluded my time working at the car rental place, I didn't enjoy the job at all and they were incredibly unorganized. Around this time I had decided that I wanted to apply for Montana residency.... which has a whole bunch of stuff that comes with it, none of which I really feel like typing right now - but basically, I would not be in classes for the spring semester while I would be waiting to get residency. Classes got out and I stayed in Bozeman for about a week and a half to hang out with friends and relax a bit. Robell, the person renting Jake's room for the semester, would not be staying for another semester so we got another person named Kiley to move into the gov club with us.
After my time for some R&R expired in Bozeman I drove back to Colorado, the drive was exceptionally boring this time probably since I had done it so recently. Once I arrived back to Colorado I took a different approach to the trip, typically I go and try to see all my friends before I leave again; however, this time I prioritized spending time with my family over seeing my friends. My brother was visiting at the same time which was awesome because since I moved away we have grown closer. I often give him a lot of shit for some of the stuff he has done in the past but he is my best friend and I don't think I trust anyone on earth more than I trust Tyson. I've learned a lot from my relationship with him and the issues with our sister has definitely pushed us and our mom closer together.
After winter break I returned back to Montana and began my application for Montana residency. This would enable me to pay in-state tuition as a resident of Montana but while applying you can not be enrolled in more than 6 credits, however, my scholarships did not apply to part time so it would still cost quite a bit. Due to this I did not take classes this semester and instead started working as a women's shoe salesman at Macy's.
It took just over a month to find a job, once I found it I was working just about as much as I could - I had grown bored with home life while I had no obligations. Not long after I started this new job I found out my grandma (dad's mom) was diagnosed with cancer, and around the same time my uncle (dad's brother) was in acoma in the hospital. I reconnected with my dad not long after this, unfortunately it was short lived due to some tensions we would later address. My sister moved back in with my mom and was starting to fall behind in her beauty school from skipping classes, she had to increase how many hours per week she was going to make up for it. I really started to miss my family this semester because I think I'm reaching that point in life where I know I'm truly not going to be around them the same way I was in high school and before that ever again. I planned a trip to go visit my brother in Atlanta at the start of May, then I just worked and tried to stay on top of things. Work was nice because I ended up making a few friends at work, none that I really would see outside of work regularly until very recently but quite a few that would come to parties at my house and we would hang out very occasionally. Michele and Ivy were the two I probably became the closest friends with, ironically enough Michele didn't even like me when we first met.
During the middle of the semester my youngest sister, Maddison, reached out to me saying she wanted to get to know me - because we never really truly got to know each other. It was really sad but she was right, I hadn't been in California for an extended period of time since she was like 8 or 9 years old. Her saying this struck a note with me because it opened my eyes to the fact that I had been so worried about Ayah and making sure she was doing okay that I hadn't put any effort into getting to know Maddison. One of my biggest regrets in life thus far is the lack of relationship I have with my baby sister, and it is something I do plan to work on for the coming years. She starts high school next year, I'm really excited to see the kind of person she becomes and all that she accomplishes during these crucial years coming up in her life.
The trip to visit Tyson came up soon enough and I went to visit him, we co-ordinated it so that my mom would be visiting him at the same time as me. The trip was absolutely wonderful, we went to the aquarium there and it was the most impressive one I have seen so far. I also met some of his friends and it is really amazing to me how interesting people are, the idea that everyone else has a life equally as complex as your own is just a crazy thing to sit down and think about. This visit also warmed my heart, I'm not ever around young children anymore because I live in a college town and it's just me and all my 20 year old friends. Tyson's good friends have a little girl that we saw quite a few times during my 5 days there. She was so fun and just awesome to be around, it was an experience I really needed because rarely am I exposed to that kind of fun and innocence anymore. It was beautiful.
After a few months of living with Kiley the sexy seven had all started growing apart. Nothing against Kiley but I am sure this distancing can be attributed to his presence in the house. He started to annoy just about everyone else so we all started avoiding communal areas and socializing with each other because we didn't want to see him. He left for a summer camp to counsel at when summer started and shortly after he departed Colton told me he was going to be moving out after the summer. At this point, I had decided I didn't want to replace Colton because our last replacement ended up being Kiley, who really just brought issues. I spoke with Weston and told him about Colton, and that I think we should start looking for somewhere else to live. Weston said we can't abandon Bjorn, and I agreed, so we asked Bjorn if he would be down to find a place for the 3 of us. This was an incredibly difficult time in my life because I felt like I was being a terrible friend to John, who at the time was arguably my best friend.
This summer resulted in being a time where Colton and I became seriously good friends, he took me to his hometown and I met his family - it was great because it was so different than my home life. He was from a small town, everyone knew each other, they raised animals where he lived, just a very "country" style life. In return I brought him to Colorado with me at the end of July (for my birthday), and he became my first friend from Montana to meet my family and friends from back home. Up until that point, there had been essentially 0 crossover between my old life in Colorado and my current life.
You could tell this trip was very meaningful just based off of the interactions between my family members and me. My mom and I clearly were long overdue for seeing each other, and I think it shocked Colton to see how close I am with her because I'm pretty bad about keeping contact with her from Montana. As I've lived away from home for longer I realize more how lucky I was to have my mom instead of someone else while I was growing up.
Year 20:
Soon enough, the big move happened, it was filled with drama and bullshit so I'll spare the details and just say it damaged some bridges beyond repair. John and Weston will probably never speak to each other outside of a group setting again. Bjorn and Colton didn't talk for several months and actually just managed to talk about things two weeks ago (so 8 months later). Right after we moved into the new place I actually went to the east coast to visit Rebecca and my two cousins. This was my first time ever seeing the Atlantic Ocean, at the time Pokemon Go was still in it's prime. Rebecca and I would go Pokemon hunting most night, and I will always cherish those nights; I don't tell her enough but she is very special to me and I am so thankful to have her in my life. I've just never been good at expressing my emotions. I don't think it bothers her that I poorly express these things to her, I can tell she still knows.
Eventually I returned to Montana and went back to work, at this point I had lost a good amount of my friends because of all the drama from the house and people just moving on. I had a very open schedule with regards to my social life. One day at work a girl named Christina invited me to her birthday, it was dinner at some BBQ place in town. I went, and it was actually a pretty good time, I talked to the new girl, Sarah, for quite some time and eventually called it a night and went home. Later that night I was getting groceries and found that my card was actually her card, so I contacted her online and told her that the restaurant gave us back each others cards. It was funny, because if that never happened we probably would have never talked much more. We ended up becoming really close friends, I would say she was my best friend August 2016 until she moved to Denver at the end of January 2017.
December was interesting because John, my old roommate, had started talking to me quite a bit more. He met a girl and she made him very happy, I honestly couldn't be happier for him. Anyways, after a couple months of being with her he actually decided to propose and she said yes. I was to be a groomsmen in their wedding this coming summer.
Wes moved away at the end of January as well. I'm pretty sure he was getting pretty tight on money and needed to make more ASAP - so he moved back to North Dakota to work in the oil fields again. This was a hard time for me, losing two very close friends. Then right after this happened I managed to ruin another friendship with my friend Ivy. She had been pretty flirtatious with me and I had been tutoring her in math for a while, anyways we let things happen one night and it just made things weird. We didn't really talk for about a month, then we did but it hasn't really been the same since. So 3 friends down.
This resulted in me falling into a bit of an isolated mindset and I would just work and play video games trying to distract myself from my abandonment issues. I went to visit my family when my sister finished beauty school, and this was a good time, it was the first time I had seen my dad in well over a year, and since we had reconnected. Returning to Montana was a struggle because I had so many issues with my flights and had no one to pick me up, luckily someone I used to work with named Jessica offered to pick me up and after this night she immediately became super good friends with Bjorn and me. Jessica recently had her closest friend move away, and I think she was a bit bored with her current situation so we were a new input and it was refreshing for her. It was good for me and Bjorn too because we started to hang out in our living room and with each other rather than just playing games all the time.
Around this time I met a girl that I was pretty much instantly interested in, which isn't too common. I didn't really hesitate to start talking to her and found out about all sorts of things she had gone through, she is probably among the more interesting people I have met in Montana but it wasn't meant to be and we quit talking pretty quickly. That is my own fault too, I wasn't around enough to be there for all of her emotional needs.
One day, Jessica proposed the idea of Bjorn, myself, and her going to Europe. We talked about it and soon enough they talked me into it. In early May of 2017 we left Bozeman and drove to Salt Lake City, to fly out of SLC to London. The flight to London was a pretty good time, Jessica and I watched Game of Thrones on her laptop and Bjorn, just across the aisle, was being given quite a bit of alcohol by the flight attendant.
Once we landed we recovered for a bit and went to the hotel bar. London is really dark feeling, gothic and kind of gloomy - although maybe it was just from the time of year I was there. A couple days in Jessica and I had clearly developed feelings for one another and started being pretty public with some affection - however, we did not do anything super serious during this time and agreed not to make any bold decisions until we were in our home country. Bjorn had some strong feelings and concerns about this and we went on a walk to discuss it, he was pretty apprehensive and said he would think about it and get back to me. One night we went out drinking and this basically consisted of Bjorn and I getting plastered while Jessica struggled to keep us from doing anything too stupid. At one point this night Bjorn followed me into the bathroom and said he approved, this was so great because I had honestly been stressing about the whole situation pretty hard.
Shortly after our night of fun we flew to Dublin, Ireland - which is greatest city on earth. Everyone in Dublin was exceptionally helpful and friendly, I honestly can't wait until I'm able to go back. In London we had been offered cocaine a number of times just by passerby's on the street - in Ireland we made friends with people at the first pub we walked into.
Soon enough our Europe adventure came to an end and we flew back to Salt Lake, at this point Jessica and I were basically together just not officially with titles. Shortly after arriving home in Bozeman we agreed we were together and she had moved in right around the same time. She had her own room but we really just shared mine and binged "The Office" every night.
Upon my return my current job at Macy's was cutting my hours worse than before and I had decided to start looking for a new job, I applied a few places and had an interview with a gift shop at the airport. I guess I nailed the interview and got and offer a couple days later, I would be hired on as an assistant manager. After following common standards of working two weeks after notice of resignation I had fully switched over to my new job, which was a lot of fun. About two weeks into the new job I fell really sick, like worse than ever before and in a weird way. Normally, when I get sick it is with my asthma, lungs, etc but this time it was a horrible fever, chills, dizziness, and constant fatigue. A week or so of this suffering passed before I finally made it to an urgent care clinic, they misdiagnosed me with a sinus infection and prescribed me some really strong antibiotics. Note that I said misdiagnosed - I got fucked up from these antibiotics, to the point of jaundice with my eyes and skin turning yellow. I went to the ER and after some blood tests it was found that I had mono. The rest of the summer consisted of me going to work from 6 am to 3 pm, going home and sleeping until the next day. Truly, this had been the least fun summer of my life and I would never with this idle lifestyle on anyone.
My birthday was quickly approaching and it was going to be my 21st. However, John (from the sexy seven) was getting married and I was to be a groomsman in his wedding - and his bachelor party was the night of my birthday. To add to this I also still had mono and really couldn't consume any alcohol. I ended up having a really great time at the bachelor party and even though it was the ideal 21st birthday I was around fun people and had a good time, which is all I could really ask for.
Year 21:
His wedding was July 29th, it was beautiful and I'm so thankful I was able to be a part of it. Looking back I had been in a really depressed state of mind at this time (for no good reason really) and this event was one of the first to start pulling me out of it. Jessica was really great to me this entire time and I really don't know how I will ever be able to thank her for taking care of me during this time, between the mono and emotional stuff going on.
A couple weeks after the wedding I drove to Seattle with Wes to watch the Dota 2 international tournament (Called TI). This is an event I have been wanting to go to since I was 16, and finally would be able to go. We met up with Randall and stayed at Bryan's house, Bryan went to high school with me and is one of two people I continued speaking with to this point in my life. Bryan had work and wouldn't be able to make it to the event, but we still tried to meet up with him at the end of each day to talk about the games and stuff that went down. This was such an amazing experience and I hope we get to make it tradition to go every year. Jessica also let us take her car to Seattle for this trip because mine had some unexpected issues, and that was seriously like the nicest thing anyone had done for me. It was a week long trip and she let us take her car.
September was pretty simple, nothing huge to note on a personal level but I think it was around this time that my brother had been dumped by Anne. He was in a bad place for a bit but after taking in a puppy and working on himself a bit Tyson bounced back, I'm super proud of him. October came and Jessica had her 23rd birthday, she really cares about birthdays and Halloween so it was a pretty big deal. We went to visit her hometown and went to Halloween parties that her friends were hosting, I had a good time but she was doing makeup with friends for most of one party and I just made friends with others there. Felt more like a party I would go to solo than as a couple, it was a good time regardless though.
In early November we went to visit my family in Colorado, and this was a pretty weird and awkward trip. Jessica has never been the healthy type, eats quite a bit of fast food, doesn't work out much, etc. and my family is incredibly immersed in the world of nutrition and activity. Needless to say, this trip did not go amazingly and upon landing back in Bozeman Jessica broke up with me. Things were really weird for a few days because we were still roommates but after a day or so she said she was moving away to a nursing school in Idaho. I was really beat up about it to be honest, I blamed myself and felt like I had messed up. Then something happened and we kind of got back together but I think we both knew it was more out of convenience in retrospect. We didn't keep talking after she moved. I don't know. That stuff is hard and confuses me.
Her moving actually was kind of a gigantic "fuck you" to me and Bjorn though. This meant me and him had a month to find a new roommate or a new place, we opted to move somewhere else and got to work on finding it. We actually had to pay more for rent in the new place but it was quite the upgrade with aesthetics and features.
After moving I decided I needed to buckle down and adult for realsies. I started limiting myself to 2 hours of video games per day and got up early enough to not be rushed for work. It was a point to not flake out on plans with friends and work harder at maintaining relationships with family and friends I had grown apart from. I reconnected with an old coworker named Brooke, who now worked for Skywest. She ended up adding me to her flight benefits and now I can fly on planes as a standby just by paying the taxes. Right before the first trip I had planned with her I was downtown for a friends birthday, we were at one of the hip, young bars - which I typically avoid. After bumping into a buddy from the dorms we played some pool and at the pool tables I saw Christina, who I used to work with at Macy's. We caught up a bit and she ended up messaging me that night. We kept talking for a while and then it was made clear that we had feelings for each other. The problem is that I leave town almost any time I get the chance and she is insanely busy with work. So we just agreed to play it by ear and not really rush into anything. Right after all this happened Brooke and I went to vist my family in Colorado.
Colorado was awesome, me and Tyson really connected, he is my best friend. We both have done a lot of personal growth in the last year and I think we both saw it in each other this trip. My heart felt a lot during this trip. A couple weeks later I went to San Francisco. This trip was mostly me on my own, which I actually think was a bit better. It allowed me to go out barhopping with a french couple I met my first night there, Brooke isn't 21 and wouldn't have been able to do this.
The second day my Maddison, my dad, and my dad's girlfriend drove up to meet with me. This was fun, my dad seemed happier than he had in a long time but that also could just have been because he was much thinner and healthier than I had ever seen him. I think it was pretty clear to both of us that we are very different people but we still found some common ground to connect on. It was a bit weird with his girlfriend only being a couple years older than me, but in all honesty I mostly went to see Maddison. She was fucking 16 now, that blows my mind. I don't even know her and she is my baby sister. She is smart, and independent, it was amazing to see her personality show because I was never there to watch it bloom from what she was like as a small child into what it is now. That night my dad and his girlfriend left to get some edibles, so me and Maddison just hung out at the hotel room talking and this was a moment I will hold very dear for a long time. We discussed things about our family and other siblings, psychology in children, relationships and toxic behaviors, it was liberating being able to talk to her about these things. My other sister would never have any interest in discussing such subjects with me. I told her I want her to come visit me this summer, and I've already got a date and ticket lined up to bring her here. I just am waiting to make sure the days work.
After being and San Francisco I took a day trip to Chicago on my way back to Bozeman, walked around downtown for a few hours. It was neat.
In a few weeks I will be going back to Washington, D.C. and going to a concert with my aunt Rebecca. Super stoked for this.
I started eating much healthier, which is a lot easier when you don't live across the street from a convenience store.. turns out. Rather than doing some trending diet *cough cough keto* I just cut sugar and fried foods out of my diet entirely. I lost a ton of weight the first 10 days, like almost a pound per day - but it slowed down notably after that.
Not too long after I started this healthy lifestyle I took about a 10 day trip to Ireland with a co-worker who also had flight benefits. It was a bit unexpected because we weren't exceptionally close to each other but this trip was probably my favorite trip to date. She is absolutely the most fun travel buddy I've had so far and we just did so much in such a short amount of time. We did a cliff walk in Howth, explored all the big sights of Dublin, pub crawled almost every night in Dublin, went to Downpatrick and saw the Ballynoe Stone Circle, saw some sights where they filmed Game of Thrones, went to Belfast and visited some notable places there. It was just a fantastic trip.
A couple months later my sister found out she was pregnant and I was very excited to go see her again. I went out to Colorado again for my aunts wedding and met up with my mom, brother, sister, and dad. It was quite a dramatic event when my dad was told about my sister bearing a child. I was maintaining steady progress with my weight at this time and focused a lot on caloric intake during the whole week of visiting.
I continued this progress pretty well until about June of 2018, at this time I started having some pretty dramatic things occurring in my life. I almost felt like I was living in one of those shitty tv shows that is just constant drama and emotional back and forth. My employer hires on many more people at the start of the summer to prepare for the busy travel season at the airport, and one of the people hired on was Jasmine. She was a quiet 17 year old girl that lived in some tiny town most the year but was in Bozeman for the summer. We ended up talking a bit and going on a hike one day, she kissed me and I was kind of taken back because I didn't quite know what to think. To keep things short, I ended up saying this is a bad idea, found out she had a boyfriend I didn't know about and she then got upset with me for not wanting to be together. After a couple weeks I had already long moved on and was talking to someone else named Delaney pretty casually just over social media and in passing as she worked as a barista at the airport.
Year 22:
Things began to pick up pretty quickly with Delaney and I eventually told Jasmine I'm seeing someone else. She didn't do the best at respecting this and would say pretty inappropriate things to me at work but it never did much more than annoy me and Delaney. Alternatively, things with Delaney were going incredibly well. My youngest sister, Maddison, came to visit me and Delaney took us to see Yellowstone, where her father happened to work. This was actually before we were really talking romantically and I made sure to keep the flirting and stuff to a minimal amount while my sister was visiting. Upon Maddison's departure Delaney and I hung out and went on what I consider to be our first date; we went to a park and painted my zen garden box together - then walked her moms dog. It was amazing, she challenged me to think in a more creative fashion and I think she's so beautiful. Soon enough we were inseparable and hanging out every day and staying with each other almost every night. My mom came to visit at the end of July and Delaney met her as well, one day when Delaney and I both had work our parents actually went floating down the river together and got to know each other. I really felt everything was so perfect with her, she is so down to earth and kind, our parents get along, she has already met some of my close family.... it just felt so fucking good.
Things continued to pick up, I continued traveling and went to Australia (after a shortage of seats on the flight I planned on taking to Amsterdam) in August for a week. To be honest I was so stoked to be there, it was an amazing experience and I do hope to return one day. After I came back from the land down under Delaney took about a week trip to New Jersey so we didn't get a whole lot of time back together. THEN of course when she got back we only had a week before I left for a two week trip to travel across England and Scotland. This trip was pretty great, I met up with a friend I've played video games online with for a few years and we just went wherever sounded cool for two weeks. By the end of the trip we had been through London, Bath, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Newcastle.
Finally, Delaney and I don't have any more trips planned until the one we have with each other at the end of October. This was the time I think of as the golden era of our relationship, we would go driving around for fun and just talk and listen to music with each other. We started watching old movies we liked as kids and shared the nostalgia of it with each other, she would cook us breakfast pretty often and I would bring her burritos unannounced late at night. We started watching certain youtube content creators together and would talk about it after, everything was just so smooth and it felt great to just be content.
The trip to Colorado for Kody's wedding had come and we flew in and met Tyson in Denver. We stayed in Colorado springs the first few days until the wedding events had all concluded. We mostly stayed with my grandma and it was pretty fun, when I had to go to wedding party events Delaney and my grandma would hang out. I've never seen my grandma open up to anyone in my life the way she did with Delaney. My grandma is very old-fashioned and Delaney is vegan, and yet my grandma was so willing to go out of the way to try vegan dishes and restaurants with Delaney. I later found out she told Delaney some pretty funny stories I never knew about her and my grandpa as well. I remember one day she let me borrow her car, I drove Delaney all around town the whole day and showed her my history. I showed her my elementary schools, the places I lived, places I worked, and places I would hang out at with friends. I've never had the opportunity to show someone who didn't know me when I was younger so much of me and my roots. I'll always be thankful for her being interested and so willing to let me show her this part of my life.
After the trip to Colorado we returned back to Montana and kinda just mellowed out for a while. We both were pretty spent financially after the trip and ready to just save up and kinda get back to the grind again. Christmas came and I gave her my old computer as I had built a new one, and I bought her a drawing tablet to use with it. She gave me a beanie, and a clock with the background being a vinyl record cut out to the shape of some Dota 2 heroes. This is also the first year that Bjorn and I have done a proper Christmas, we got a fake tree, lights for our deck, and he was also there with Delaney and I when we all opened presents with each other that morning. We exchanged gifts with him as well but we spent much less on those gifts.
Delaney and I were going to Vegas to meet up with her grandparents, mom, stepdad, and sisters in late January but we wouldn't be leaving for the drive until about half a day after the rest of the group. The first part of the drive went pretty well, we stopped in Lava Hot Springs and stayed there for the night, it was good and the first time I've ever stayed in a hotel with someone I'm romantically involved with. Unfortunately the next day took a turn for the worst as when we got about half way through Utah the transmission in Delaney's car broke and we were stranded in a small town. Eventually it all worked out with her step-dad, Patrick, coming to pick us up from Vegas and driving us back. Vegas was fantastic, we hit up some dope restaurants and went through the art district. The last day and a half was mostly just us two because the rest went to the Grand Canyon, so we walked around the strip and saw the sights. Since the car we were using had broken down we had to fly back to Montana, it went smoothly and we made it back all in one piece.
Mid-February I took a trip out to Colorado once again to meet my nephew, this trip I was going alone and it was definitely a lot more simple than any I had taken in a good while. I stayed at my moms and kinda just helped with being there for Ayah and hung out with family. It was a necessary trip and made me decide it was time to find a new job due to some problems that had begun to form with mine.
Patrick hooked me up with a job at Darigold and I would be starting mid march. As I came back to Montana from Colorado things with Delaney started to feel different, she didn't seem as excited when I came back and was consistently more low-energy than she was before, it resulted in us breaking up after some time.
Moving forward I took a trip back to Colorado on a whim just to visit my family and see the baby for a short time. Upon returning to Montana I started doing seasonal work at Trugreen as a lawn care specialist. It's actually one of the jobs I've most enjoyed so far, a lot of independent work and everyone is really chill.
Around this time I started going to Missoula about every other weekend to hang out with Gabe, a friend I met through Weston.
I had a couple friends, Steven and Weiliang, who were really helpful in talking to and eventually we often got together for game nights with 4-8 people. Game nights were great, we played obscure yet addictive board games; both co-operative and every man for himself style. Weiliang blogged and it looked really fun and interesting so I started to blog, it was a great way to utilize all my spare time.
I started talking to another girl around the start of february and we started dating the day before Valentines day. From the start we knew I was going to be moving away for college but... we still figured we could enjoy the time we still have. We went on crazy drives through the mountains and wouldn't return home until super late, I remember one night I dropped her back off at home at 5 in the morning. Even though we didn't actually do anything except talk it was so fun and I wished we didn't have to conclude the night.
I also started playing a nation simulation game called "Politics and War", its a really awful game but it's so addictive and now that I have worked up to a position as leader of an alliance I can't really quit without losing respect from people. Eventually my friends and I had to design secret code words when discussing game nights due to people at school becoming upset with us for not inviting them and being "exclusive". Swim season also started and I was one of the captains, pretty much every member of the team got sick at some point this year but the team as a whole was much more formidable this year than any other year.
Graduation came and it was pretty much exactly as expected... I instantly stopped talking to ninety percent of the people I had know since sixth grade. My dad and sisters came to visit during this time and my father earned a lot of respect from me during this trek of his. He was so willing to help with anything and didn't complain at all the entire time, he also handled rough situations with my sisters very well and just was so composed. I was very impressed. Summer started and I just began to work a lot. A few friends and I planned a camping trip, this was some of the best quality time I got to spend my girlfriend before she went on a trip to California for ten days, this trip was one of the most fun events I have ever done.
Rare photo of me with both parents.
I started to hang out with some of my co-workers a lot due to an excess of free time. Eventually she got back and gave me some of the greatest gifts I have ever received; a panda snapback, a panda keychain, a panda wallet, a stuffed Pumba with bugs in his mouth (from Disney's "The Lion King"), and a small ceramic panda for my zen garden.
Year 18:
Taken in Orlando. It was a hot day.
Year 18 started out with a bit of drama - the girl I was dating in the previous section and I had gotten into an argument and broken up. The breakup didn't last long though; we ended up getting back together a few days after my 18th birthday. Going into the relationship I was very unsure and found it hard to commit to it as much as I had before for a couple reasons. One reason was because I was moving away to Montana within the next month and would be going to school there for (hopefully) four years. I also had developed some trust issues with her that had come around due to the complications that caused us to break up a few days earlier. Despite the reasons to NOT become involved with her again - I still did.
Now a bit out of nowhere the aunt I had reconnected with, but not yet officially met in person offered to pay for me to go meet her and the older of her two daughters in Orlando a few days before I was moving to Montana. At first I declined the gracious offer simply because I wanted more than 12 hours of being in Colorado to prepare for the next part of my life, however, eventually I was swayed into going. The trip to Orlando was amazing; my brother and his girlfriend at the time also went to meet the long lost relatives. I really disliked his girlfriend. We arrived to find the hotel that my aunt booked was not only huge and ornate, but also had a water taxi system that would bring us into the Universal Studios resort. It was very strange to meet my aunt in person, initially I wanted nothing to do with her because she refused to talk to anyone in the family until after my grandpa died - the man who raised helped raise me and I took care of while he was terminal. Upon talking to her again and accepting the offer to go to Orlando to meet them I decided I would start the relationship with a blank slate, and just see how things went once I met her. She was very similar to me, I was going to school to study accounting and she had her CPA. We also listened to the same music and watched the same t.v. shows, pretty much anything I could think of that interested me, also interested her. As you know, I had been studying mandarin Chinese for the last 5 or 6 years, and she had studied abroad in china when she was younger. It was a welcoming experience. It is always interesting to meet cousins and stuff because they are always much younger than my siblings and me. This is because my parents were so young when we were born, but the benefit is that my aunts and uncles back home get free babysitters.
Anyways, the trip to Orlando was great for so many reasons; it was the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at, the resort was pretty sweet, Hogwarts was there, my aunt paid for a VIP tour so we cut every line, pretty much take a trip to an amusement park out of a movie - then throw that into reality. That's what it was. It was great.
I decided I hate having to clump everything into one paragraph each year, so I'm going to continue now that the formatting doesn't make me hate myself. After four short days in Orlando we flew back to Colorado and I would have just about half a day to prepare for the drive to Montana. That night my girlfriend came over and helped me back then stayed the "night" (we left at like 4:00 am and tried to stay up the whole time).
The half day went by quickly and before I knew it I was on the road with my mom and Devon, a friend who I went to middle school and high school with, and is the only other person from my high school that would be going to Montana for school.
We arrived to the dorms soon enough but were a day early, so we paid $20 or something to stay an extra night before the move-in date. I actually think this is completely worth it because trying to get all of your possessions inside of those dorms with only two elevators in there while everyone else is trying to do the same sounds like absolute hell. This week was very busy because we had orientation and everyone was moving in and trying to make new friends at the same time, which put all the people doing orientation now instead of earlier in the summer at a disadvantage. I remember my roommate put my loft together for me during this week. I was very thankful. The first weekend I ended up going to a party with a few guys I met in the college of business orientation and Devon came too.
The party scene wasn't really for me and Devon so we decided to head back to campus and call it a night, just as we got into the parking lot of school some guys in a car drove by and gave us a beer saying they didn't want to be seen with it while driving. I took a sip and then gave it to Devon to finish off, he handed it back for a moment but I refrained from drinking any more and told him he could have the rest shortly after, but before I could hand it back a police officer drove by. The police officer turned around and I was given a ticket for possession of alcohol while underage - just my luck to get it when I hadn't been drinking irresponsibly and left a party full of alcohol because I wasn't feeling comfortable there. This small half sheet of paper meant that I had to go to the courthouse, pay a fine, sign up and take a class, take another class (which I would find out about later), and do some community service. I did everything and it was in the past, after about three weeks of getting it. I wanted that to just be in the past and to move on as quickly as I could, and because of that experience I didn't really go out and party or do anything "edgey" because I was afraid of getting into trouble like that again. My roommate and I didn't really click, he was very into getting hammered every weekend and doing loud things; I tend to be a more quiet person. He isn't a bad guy, but our personalities just weren't compatible. Around september/october my girlfriend and I broke up, I had sort of figured it was inevitable due to the distance. I had made a few friends in my astronomy class and I was good friends with a girl that listened to some good music and watched good music. I think she is the only person as weird as I am with that stuff that goes to Montana State University. I don't really talk to any of the people I did first semester, except for her.
Second semester seemed promising, right at the start I had decided to get back into swimming so I was pretty tired most of the time because I was getting in some good yards every day. My roommate had a friend who came and met all of us first semester and registered to go to MSU for the second semester. He didn't seem to really care for his roommate so just crashed in our dorm room for 3 or 4 nights. It was pretty cool because he and I got along really well, and I saw him pretty much everywhere I went. Wes and I were destined to be roomies. It didn't take long before he and I moved into a room that just cleared down the hall, and another friend moved into my old room. It was a decision that everyone involved benefitted from. My new roommate and I would watch movies like Frozen together and blast Katy Perry all the time. We were, without a doubt, the most effeminate room on the all male floor, that seemed to be a hub of athletes. About two months into the semester we started talking to a guy I met first semester but never got to know too well, he lived a few rooms down the hall. His name was John and he is literally the worst human being I have ever met. Just kidding, but I had to put that last sentence there for the purpose of quoting it when I tell him I wrote about him in my blog. Onto the story of the sexy seven - We also talked to Colton quite a bit, he went to high school with Wes and I had known him a little from first semester. Jake was another one who went to high school with them, and I knew who he was but never really talked to him until after Wes and I were roommates. Bjorn was our friend that pretty much lived in our room half the time, his roommate was very straight-edge. Tanner would go to bed by like 10 every night and was up by 7 every morning, and he was not okay with Bjorn lurking after hours. This led to Bjorn coming and chilling with Wes and me every night until 1 or 2 in the morning, we got to know him very well. Keenan was Johns roommate, and he was always very distant and quiet, one of those guys that seemed to prefer being left in solitude. I always made it a challenge to get people like him to come out of their shell with me and I would like to think I succeeded with him. Well not too long after we all had gotten to know each other we had a house lined up for us to live in. The Sexy Seven: Umar, Wes, John, Colton, Bjorn, Jake, Keenan.
Over spring break my aunt paid for me to go visit her in Washington DC - where she actually lived. I was going to see the city and visit her other daughter and husband, in addition to seeing her and the older of the two girls again. The trip was great, I explored all of capitol hill one day, went and saw pandas another. Rebecca, my aunt, had the same taste in movies as me so we went and saw a few movies over the week I was there; we saw "Kingsmen: The Secret Service", "Hot Tub Time Machine Two", and I feel like there was a third but I am just forgetting it. We also saw Demetri Martin's stand-up comedy one night, and went to listen to Jukebox the Ghost live. It was a pretty awesome week.
After spring break was pretty quick, we only had about a month left of school and one week of that was finals. All I really remember that was significant at the time was that I had become very committed to using my chinese yo-yo again, so much so that I had gotten some of my friends attached. About a week before I went back to Colorado I started talking to a girl I knew back home, but never really talked to; I recently found out she was going to MSU in the fall. Over time we developed feelings for each other and after a couple weeks in Colorado we started dating. Not long after she left to California to work at a boy scout camp for the summer. Around this time I mainly hung out at hookah bars with friends and would just socialize with people I hadn't talked to in a long time. One night at the hookah bar I found out a boy I knew from swim (and had recruited when I met him and his family at the pool I lifeguarded at) killed himself. This hit me very hard and triggered a very depressing emotional response out of me, he was very young and I wish I had been able to go back and do something about it before it was too late. A few days later I went to California for my sister's high school graduation. The drive to California was amazing, we saw some spectacular rock formations in Utah and stopped to explore a bit of Vegas. Fortunately the girl I was dating didn't work too far away from where I was and we were able to take her to the farm house we were staying at for the week on one of the nights we were there. After a week or so my mom and Caleb (my sister's friend that came with us from Colorado) started their drive back to Colorado, but I stayed for a flight I had the next day. To Washington DC.
I was going to the nation's capital once again for an internship that my aunt had secured me at the place she worked. It was an accounting internship for the CFO and main accountant of the company... which was her. The job experience (so far) has been wonderful, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity I've been given. The place that the internship is at is less than a mile from capitol hill, so going to see the Smithsonian museums, the white house, and the memorials around the area is all within reasonable walking distance. After about a week of living with my aunt we went to an EDM concert, it was R3hab. The night of the concert was the night that the girl back in California and I broke up, I think the distance was just too much and caused issues that wouldn't have really existed otherwise. Not too long after that we went and saw the Foo Fighters perform on the 4th of July, it was one of the most memorable nights because not only was it the Foo Fighters - but there was also Joan Jett and the Black Hearts, Buddy Guy, LLCoolJ, and Trouble Funk, not to mention the astounding fireworks show at the end. Two days after seeing all of them we went and saw the Imagine Dragons concert, with Metro and Halsey performing as well. That was a very eventful weekend. I hope all of you are jealous.
Year 19:
The real OG graduating.
This year began with me still living in Washington D.C. with my aunt while interning for her at a cable telecommunications company. The night of my birthday I went to P.F. Changs with my aunt and two cousins. I reread my writing about year 18 and I did not even come close to expressing how much I care about these three girls. Rebecca, my aunt, has done so much for me for how long we have known each other. I can only dream that I am able to help a relative as much as she helps me when I am older, having her in my life has been one of, if not THE best thing to happen to me in the last couple years. Sylvia, my 4 year old cousin, really touched my heart this summer - I didn't have a lot of younger cousins because most were around my age or reaching middle school ages. Spending time with her was so fun and we never wasted a moment, she was always ready to go go go. I found that I became very jaded and cynical as a person without having people so innocent and pure in my life, and young children truly are the purest people. Josie, my 9 year old cousin, was another example of showing me how good people really are. Josie and I have quite a bit in common, a philosopher might say it is because we are both cancers, so maybe that's it. I love all three of them from the bottom of my heart though, I will always cherish the memories I was able to make with them last summer. Eventually, my internship came to it's conclusion and I returned to Colorado for a few days, nothing exceptional happened in these days before I started my drive back to Montana.
This was going to be a big destination for me because I would be moving into the house some friends and I started a lease on in June. This will be my first long term home since the start of my senior year of high school, prior to this I had been sleeping (in order of occurrence) in a spare bedroom, a yoga mat, a dorm room air mattress, a farmhouse, couches, another air mattress, and the same spare bedroom. The last time I truly had my own room and bed was the house I moved out of right around the time my grandpa died, needless to say I was pretty excited. I pulled up to the house and Jake was home, greeting me and helping me carry a few things inside. As the day went on Bjorn, Chris, Colton, and Wes all finished their days and came home. It was so great to see everyone again; it's amazing how I had only known these people for less than a year and was already so close to them. The weekend after I got home we decided to throw a party to honor Jake since he would be leaving to Orlando for an internship at Disney World during first semester. During the summer the roomies became very close with Allie, and Erica (mostly through Chris and Colton) - so I met these two and we became friends relatively quickly. One of my first interactions with Allie was her approaching me saying "Can I ask you a question?" and my reply was "ugh, before you ask, I'm not gay.". Turns out that was not the question she had prepared and I just looked silly for assuming that, but it's okay because it was funny. Chris had just been living in the house over the summer while John, Keenan, and I were gone and would actually be moving into a house with Allie and another friend of theirs named Mack who was also gone all summer. Now, apparently Allie had really talked me up to Mack and set the bar REALLY high for the type of person I am and when Mack met me I failed to meet her high expectations of me. For this reason Mack and I will never be friends. Just kidding, but that is another sentence I will be able to quote when I tell her I wrote about her in my life story.
Soon enough, classes started and Wes had hooked me up with a job at a car rental company in the airport up the highway so my schedule became pretty busy. However, throughout the semester I began going to the house Chris, Allie, and Mack lived in to hang out with them. During the chill sessions there I got to know Charlotte, Frankie, and Marissa. Oh also, Erica and Mack were both in sororities - but not the same one; Erica is in AOPi, while Mack is a PiPhi. Around Halloween we had a party at our house and I met a girl named Sarah, we clicked and ended up going on a date the following week but unfortunately she would be graduating within the next year and didn't want to commit to anything because she didn't see anything lasting beyond her graduation. That Halloween my roommates John and Keenan dressed up as the Lonely Island with me (we just wore turtlenecks we bought at goodwill and chains we found in Hot Topic). It was an eventful Halloween to say the least, Mack invited me to a party and I brought John with me, then John dropped us off at another party, then we went back to CAMs(Chris, Allie, Mack's) house. A couple weeks later Mack talked me into going to her sorority formal with her, mostly because she didn't have a date and wanted someone to go with who she would normally hang out with because she doesn't like a whole lot of people in her sorority. That was actually a very fun event, I really underestimated the amount of people I would know there but since I ended up knowing quite a few people I had a good time. One of the funniest things that happened to me was at the formal: a guy named Lee who lived on my floor in the dorms unzipped his pants in front of me, this revealed the end of a bag of wine that he was trying to get me to drink out of. Anyways, not long after this I went home for thanksgiving break and it was one of the most emotionally stressful weeks I have had in a long time. My sister was still going down a pretty scary path and one night when I was very sick I woke up to a call from her at 3 am. She was staying the night with a guy who became belligerently drunk and kicked her out to the streets without her shoes on. It was a notably cold night as well and she was about 5 miles from where we lived, she also wasn't the greatest person with direction so she probably would have gotten lost. I left to pick her up as fast as I could and in the car we got into a pretty heated argument, it pained me to see my baby sister put herself in these situations and I had a bit of a breakdown. We didn't talk for the following day then our mom sort of stepped in to mediate the situation, however, she didn't know all the details of what had happened. We made up, sort of, before I returned to Montana to finish off the semester. The last two weeks of classes we fine, I had essentially concluded my time working at the car rental place, I didn't enjoy the job at all and they were incredibly unorganized. Around this time I had decided that I wanted to apply for Montana residency.... which has a whole bunch of stuff that comes with it, none of which I really feel like typing right now - but basically, I would not be in classes for the spring semester while I would be waiting to get residency. Classes got out and I stayed in Bozeman for about a week and a half to hang out with friends and relax a bit. Robell, the person renting Jake's room for the semester, would not be staying for another semester so we got another person named Kiley to move into the gov club with us.
After my time for some R&R expired in Bozeman I drove back to Colorado, the drive was exceptionally boring this time probably since I had done it so recently. Once I arrived back to Colorado I took a different approach to the trip, typically I go and try to see all my friends before I leave again; however, this time I prioritized spending time with my family over seeing my friends. My brother was visiting at the same time which was awesome because since I moved away we have grown closer. I often give him a lot of shit for some of the stuff he has done in the past but he is my best friend and I don't think I trust anyone on earth more than I trust Tyson. I've learned a lot from my relationship with him and the issues with our sister has definitely pushed us and our mom closer together.
After winter break I returned back to Montana and began my application for Montana residency. This would enable me to pay in-state tuition as a resident of Montana but while applying you can not be enrolled in more than 6 credits, however, my scholarships did not apply to part time so it would still cost quite a bit. Due to this I did not take classes this semester and instead started working as a women's shoe salesman at Macy's.
It took just over a month to find a job, once I found it I was working just about as much as I could - I had grown bored with home life while I had no obligations. Not long after I started this new job I found out my grandma (dad's mom) was diagnosed with cancer, and around the same time my uncle (dad's brother) was in acoma in the hospital. I reconnected with my dad not long after this, unfortunately it was short lived due to some tensions we would later address. My sister moved back in with my mom and was starting to fall behind in her beauty school from skipping classes, she had to increase how many hours per week she was going to make up for it. I really started to miss my family this semester because I think I'm reaching that point in life where I know I'm truly not going to be around them the same way I was in high school and before that ever again. I planned a trip to go visit my brother in Atlanta at the start of May, then I just worked and tried to stay on top of things. Work was nice because I ended up making a few friends at work, none that I really would see outside of work regularly until very recently but quite a few that would come to parties at my house and we would hang out very occasionally. Michele and Ivy were the two I probably became the closest friends with, ironically enough Michele didn't even like me when we first met.
During the middle of the semester my youngest sister, Maddison, reached out to me saying she wanted to get to know me - because we never really truly got to know each other. It was really sad but she was right, I hadn't been in California for an extended period of time since she was like 8 or 9 years old. Her saying this struck a note with me because it opened my eyes to the fact that I had been so worried about Ayah and making sure she was doing okay that I hadn't put any effort into getting to know Maddison. One of my biggest regrets in life thus far is the lack of relationship I have with my baby sister, and it is something I do plan to work on for the coming years. She starts high school next year, I'm really excited to see the kind of person she becomes and all that she accomplishes during these crucial years coming up in her life.
The trip to visit Tyson came up soon enough and I went to visit him, we co-ordinated it so that my mom would be visiting him at the same time as me. The trip was absolutely wonderful, we went to the aquarium there and it was the most impressive one I have seen so far. I also met some of his friends and it is really amazing to me how interesting people are, the idea that everyone else has a life equally as complex as your own is just a crazy thing to sit down and think about. This visit also warmed my heart, I'm not ever around young children anymore because I live in a college town and it's just me and all my 20 year old friends. Tyson's good friends have a little girl that we saw quite a few times during my 5 days there. She was so fun and just awesome to be around, it was an experience I really needed because rarely am I exposed to that kind of fun and innocence anymore. It was beautiful.
After a few months of living with Kiley the sexy seven had all started growing apart. Nothing against Kiley but I am sure this distancing can be attributed to his presence in the house. He started to annoy just about everyone else so we all started avoiding communal areas and socializing with each other because we didn't want to see him. He left for a summer camp to counsel at when summer started and shortly after he departed Colton told me he was going to be moving out after the summer. At this point, I had decided I didn't want to replace Colton because our last replacement ended up being Kiley, who really just brought issues. I spoke with Weston and told him about Colton, and that I think we should start looking for somewhere else to live. Weston said we can't abandon Bjorn, and I agreed, so we asked Bjorn if he would be down to find a place for the 3 of us. This was an incredibly difficult time in my life because I felt like I was being a terrible friend to John, who at the time was arguably my best friend.
This summer resulted in being a time where Colton and I became seriously good friends, he took me to his hometown and I met his family - it was great because it was so different than my home life. He was from a small town, everyone knew each other, they raised animals where he lived, just a very "country" style life. In return I brought him to Colorado with me at the end of July (for my birthday), and he became my first friend from Montana to meet my family and friends from back home. Up until that point, there had been essentially 0 crossover between my old life in Colorado and my current life.
You could tell this trip was very meaningful just based off of the interactions between my family members and me. My mom and I clearly were long overdue for seeing each other, and I think it shocked Colton to see how close I am with her because I'm pretty bad about keeping contact with her from Montana. As I've lived away from home for longer I realize more how lucky I was to have my mom instead of someone else while I was growing up.
Year 20:
Soon enough, the big move happened, it was filled with drama and bullshit so I'll spare the details and just say it damaged some bridges beyond repair. John and Weston will probably never speak to each other outside of a group setting again. Bjorn and Colton didn't talk for several months and actually just managed to talk about things two weeks ago (so 8 months later). Right after we moved into the new place I actually went to the east coast to visit Rebecca and my two cousins. This was my first time ever seeing the Atlantic Ocean, at the time Pokemon Go was still in it's prime. Rebecca and I would go Pokemon hunting most night, and I will always cherish those nights; I don't tell her enough but she is very special to me and I am so thankful to have her in my life. I've just never been good at expressing my emotions. I don't think it bothers her that I poorly express these things to her, I can tell she still knows.
Eventually I returned to Montana and went back to work, at this point I had lost a good amount of my friends because of all the drama from the house and people just moving on. I had a very open schedule with regards to my social life. One day at work a girl named Christina invited me to her birthday, it was dinner at some BBQ place in town. I went, and it was actually a pretty good time, I talked to the new girl, Sarah, for quite some time and eventually called it a night and went home. Later that night I was getting groceries and found that my card was actually her card, so I contacted her online and told her that the restaurant gave us back each others cards. It was funny, because if that never happened we probably would have never talked much more. We ended up becoming really close friends, I would say she was my best friend August 2016 until she moved to Denver at the end of January 2017.
December was interesting because John, my old roommate, had started talking to me quite a bit more. He met a girl and she made him very happy, I honestly couldn't be happier for him. Anyways, after a couple months of being with her he actually decided to propose and she said yes. I was to be a groomsmen in their wedding this coming summer.
Wes moved away at the end of January as well. I'm pretty sure he was getting pretty tight on money and needed to make more ASAP - so he moved back to North Dakota to work in the oil fields again. This was a hard time for me, losing two very close friends. Then right after this happened I managed to ruin another friendship with my friend Ivy. She had been pretty flirtatious with me and I had been tutoring her in math for a while, anyways we let things happen one night and it just made things weird. We didn't really talk for about a month, then we did but it hasn't really been the same since. So 3 friends down.
This resulted in me falling into a bit of an isolated mindset and I would just work and play video games trying to distract myself from my abandonment issues. I went to visit my family when my sister finished beauty school, and this was a good time, it was the first time I had seen my dad in well over a year, and since we had reconnected. Returning to Montana was a struggle because I had so many issues with my flights and had no one to pick me up, luckily someone I used to work with named Jessica offered to pick me up and after this night she immediately became super good friends with Bjorn and me. Jessica recently had her closest friend move away, and I think she was a bit bored with her current situation so we were a new input and it was refreshing for her. It was good for me and Bjorn too because we started to hang out in our living room and with each other rather than just playing games all the time.
Around this time I met a girl that I was pretty much instantly interested in, which isn't too common. I didn't really hesitate to start talking to her and found out about all sorts of things she had gone through, she is probably among the more interesting people I have met in Montana but it wasn't meant to be and we quit talking pretty quickly. That is my own fault too, I wasn't around enough to be there for all of her emotional needs.
One day, Jessica proposed the idea of Bjorn, myself, and her going to Europe. We talked about it and soon enough they talked me into it. In early May of 2017 we left Bozeman and drove to Salt Lake City, to fly out of SLC to London. The flight to London was a pretty good time, Jessica and I watched Game of Thrones on her laptop and Bjorn, just across the aisle, was being given quite a bit of alcohol by the flight attendant.
Good ol' Benjamin
Once we landed we recovered for a bit and went to the hotel bar. London is really dark feeling, gothic and kind of gloomy - although maybe it was just from the time of year I was there. A couple days in Jessica and I had clearly developed feelings for one another and started being pretty public with some affection - however, we did not do anything super serious during this time and agreed not to make any bold decisions until we were in our home country. Bjorn had some strong feelings and concerns about this and we went on a walk to discuss it, he was pretty apprehensive and said he would think about it and get back to me. One night we went out drinking and this basically consisted of Bjorn and I getting plastered while Jessica struggled to keep us from doing anything too stupid. At one point this night Bjorn followed me into the bathroom and said he approved, this was so great because I had honestly been stressing about the whole situation pretty hard.
Shortly after our night of fun we flew to Dublin, Ireland - which is greatest city on earth. Everyone in Dublin was exceptionally helpful and friendly, I honestly can't wait until I'm able to go back. In London we had been offered cocaine a number of times just by passerby's on the street - in Ireland we made friends with people at the first pub we walked into.
Soon enough our Europe adventure came to an end and we flew back to Salt Lake, at this point Jessica and I were basically together just not officially with titles. Shortly after arriving home in Bozeman we agreed we were together and she had moved in right around the same time. She had her own room but we really just shared mine and binged "The Office" every night.
Upon my return my current job at Macy's was cutting my hours worse than before and I had decided to start looking for a new job, I applied a few places and had an interview with a gift shop at the airport. I guess I nailed the interview and got and offer a couple days later, I would be hired on as an assistant manager. After following common standards of working two weeks after notice of resignation I had fully switched over to my new job, which was a lot of fun. About two weeks into the new job I fell really sick, like worse than ever before and in a weird way. Normally, when I get sick it is with my asthma, lungs, etc but this time it was a horrible fever, chills, dizziness, and constant fatigue. A week or so of this suffering passed before I finally made it to an urgent care clinic, they misdiagnosed me with a sinus infection and prescribed me some really strong antibiotics. Note that I said misdiagnosed - I got fucked up from these antibiotics, to the point of jaundice with my eyes and skin turning yellow. I went to the ER and after some blood tests it was found that I had mono. The rest of the summer consisted of me going to work from 6 am to 3 pm, going home and sleeping until the next day. Truly, this had been the least fun summer of my life and I would never with this idle lifestyle on anyone.
My birthday was quickly approaching and it was going to be my 21st. However, John (from the sexy seven) was getting married and I was to be a groomsman in his wedding - and his bachelor party was the night of my birthday. To add to this I also still had mono and really couldn't consume any alcohol. I ended up having a really great time at the bachelor party and even though it was the ideal 21st birthday I was around fun people and had a good time, which is all I could really ask for.
Year 21:
His wedding was July 29th, it was beautiful and I'm so thankful I was able to be a part of it. Looking back I had been in a really depressed state of mind at this time (for no good reason really) and this event was one of the first to start pulling me out of it. Jessica was really great to me this entire time and I really don't know how I will ever be able to thank her for taking care of me during this time, between the mono and emotional stuff going on.
A couple weeks after the wedding I drove to Seattle with Wes to watch the Dota 2 international tournament (Called TI). This is an event I have been wanting to go to since I was 16, and finally would be able to go. We met up with Randall and stayed at Bryan's house, Bryan went to high school with me and is one of two people I continued speaking with to this point in my life. Bryan had work and wouldn't be able to make it to the event, but we still tried to meet up with him at the end of each day to talk about the games and stuff that went down. This was such an amazing experience and I hope we get to make it tradition to go every year. Jessica also let us take her car to Seattle for this trip because mine had some unexpected issues, and that was seriously like the nicest thing anyone had done for me. It was a week long trip and she let us take her car.
September was pretty simple, nothing huge to note on a personal level but I think it was around this time that my brother had been dumped by Anne. He was in a bad place for a bit but after taking in a puppy and working on himself a bit Tyson bounced back, I'm super proud of him. October came and Jessica had her 23rd birthday, she really cares about birthdays and Halloween so it was a pretty big deal. We went to visit her hometown and went to Halloween parties that her friends were hosting, I had a good time but she was doing makeup with friends for most of one party and I just made friends with others there. Felt more like a party I would go to solo than as a couple, it was a good time regardless though.
In early November we went to visit my family in Colorado, and this was a pretty weird and awkward trip. Jessica has never been the healthy type, eats quite a bit of fast food, doesn't work out much, etc. and my family is incredibly immersed in the world of nutrition and activity. Needless to say, this trip did not go amazingly and upon landing back in Bozeman Jessica broke up with me. Things were really weird for a few days because we were still roommates but after a day or so she said she was moving away to a nursing school in Idaho. I was really beat up about it to be honest, I blamed myself and felt like I had messed up. Then something happened and we kind of got back together but I think we both knew it was more out of convenience in retrospect. We didn't keep talking after she moved. I don't know. That stuff is hard and confuses me.
Her moving actually was kind of a gigantic "fuck you" to me and Bjorn though. This meant me and him had a month to find a new roommate or a new place, we opted to move somewhere else and got to work on finding it. We actually had to pay more for rent in the new place but it was quite the upgrade with aesthetics and features.
After moving I decided I needed to buckle down and adult for realsies. I started limiting myself to 2 hours of video games per day and got up early enough to not be rushed for work. It was a point to not flake out on plans with friends and work harder at maintaining relationships with family and friends I had grown apart from. I reconnected with an old coworker named Brooke, who now worked for Skywest. She ended up adding me to her flight benefits and now I can fly on planes as a standby just by paying the taxes. Right before the first trip I had planned with her I was downtown for a friends birthday, we were at one of the hip, young bars - which I typically avoid. After bumping into a buddy from the dorms we played some pool and at the pool tables I saw Christina, who I used to work with at Macy's. We caught up a bit and she ended up messaging me that night. We kept talking for a while and then it was made clear that we had feelings for each other. The problem is that I leave town almost any time I get the chance and she is insanely busy with work. So we just agreed to play it by ear and not really rush into anything. Right after all this happened Brooke and I went to vist my family in Colorado.
Colorado was awesome, me and Tyson really connected, he is my best friend. We both have done a lot of personal growth in the last year and I think we both saw it in each other this trip. My heart felt a lot during this trip. A couple weeks later I went to San Francisco. This trip was mostly me on my own, which I actually think was a bit better. It allowed me to go out barhopping with a french couple I met my first night there, Brooke isn't 21 and wouldn't have been able to do this.
The second day my Maddison, my dad, and my dad's girlfriend drove up to meet with me. This was fun, my dad seemed happier than he had in a long time but that also could just have been because he was much thinner and healthier than I had ever seen him. I think it was pretty clear to both of us that we are very different people but we still found some common ground to connect on. It was a bit weird with his girlfriend only being a couple years older than me, but in all honesty I mostly went to see Maddison. She was fucking 16 now, that blows my mind. I don't even know her and she is my baby sister. She is smart, and independent, it was amazing to see her personality show because I was never there to watch it bloom from what she was like as a small child into what it is now. That night my dad and his girlfriend left to get some edibles, so me and Maddison just hung out at the hotel room talking and this was a moment I will hold very dear for a long time. We discussed things about our family and other siblings, psychology in children, relationships and toxic behaviors, it was liberating being able to talk to her about these things. My other sister would never have any interest in discussing such subjects with me. I told her I want her to come visit me this summer, and I've already got a date and ticket lined up to bring her here. I just am waiting to make sure the days work.
My sister is better than yours
After being and San Francisco I took a day trip to Chicago on my way back to Bozeman, walked around downtown for a few hours. It was neat.
At Trump Tower
In a few weeks I will be going back to Washington, D.C. and going to a concert with my aunt Rebecca. Super stoked for this.
I started eating much healthier, which is a lot easier when you don't live across the street from a convenience store.. turns out. Rather than doing some trending diet *cough cough keto* I just cut sugar and fried foods out of my diet entirely. I lost a ton of weight the first 10 days, like almost a pound per day - but it slowed down notably after that.
Not too long after I started this healthy lifestyle I took about a 10 day trip to Ireland with a co-worker who also had flight benefits. It was a bit unexpected because we weren't exceptionally close to each other but this trip was probably my favorite trip to date. She is absolutely the most fun travel buddy I've had so far and we just did so much in such a short amount of time. We did a cliff walk in Howth, explored all the big sights of Dublin, pub crawled almost every night in Dublin, went to Downpatrick and saw the Ballynoe Stone Circle, saw some sights where they filmed Game of Thrones, went to Belfast and visited some notable places there. It was just a fantastic trip.
A couple months later my sister found out she was pregnant and I was very excited to go see her again. I went out to Colorado again for my aunts wedding and met up with my mom, brother, sister, and dad. It was quite a dramatic event when my dad was told about my sister bearing a child. I was maintaining steady progress with my weight at this time and focused a lot on caloric intake during the whole week of visiting.
I continued this progress pretty well until about June of 2018, at this time I started having some pretty dramatic things occurring in my life. I almost felt like I was living in one of those shitty tv shows that is just constant drama and emotional back and forth. My employer hires on many more people at the start of the summer to prepare for the busy travel season at the airport, and one of the people hired on was Jasmine. She was a quiet 17 year old girl that lived in some tiny town most the year but was in Bozeman for the summer. We ended up talking a bit and going on a hike one day, she kissed me and I was kind of taken back because I didn't quite know what to think. To keep things short, I ended up saying this is a bad idea, found out she had a boyfriend I didn't know about and she then got upset with me for not wanting to be together. After a couple weeks I had already long moved on and was talking to someone else named Delaney pretty casually just over social media and in passing as she worked as a barista at the airport.
Year 22:
Things began to pick up pretty quickly with Delaney and I eventually told Jasmine I'm seeing someone else. She didn't do the best at respecting this and would say pretty inappropriate things to me at work but it never did much more than annoy me and Delaney. Alternatively, things with Delaney were going incredibly well. My youngest sister, Maddison, came to visit me and Delaney took us to see Yellowstone, where her father happened to work. This was actually before we were really talking romantically and I made sure to keep the flirting and stuff to a minimal amount while my sister was visiting. Upon Maddison's departure Delaney and I hung out and went on what I consider to be our first date; we went to a park and painted my zen garden box together - then walked her moms dog. It was amazing, she challenged me to think in a more creative fashion and I think she's so beautiful. Soon enough we were inseparable and hanging out every day and staying with each other almost every night. My mom came to visit at the end of July and Delaney met her as well, one day when Delaney and I both had work our parents actually went floating down the river together and got to know each other. I really felt everything was so perfect with her, she is so down to earth and kind, our parents get along, she has already met some of my close family.... it just felt so fucking good.
Things continued to pick up, I continued traveling and went to Australia (after a shortage of seats on the flight I planned on taking to Amsterdam) in August for a week. To be honest I was so stoked to be there, it was an amazing experience and I do hope to return one day. After I came back from the land down under Delaney took about a week trip to New Jersey so we didn't get a whole lot of time back together. THEN of course when she got back we only had a week before I left for a two week trip to travel across England and Scotland. This trip was pretty great, I met up with a friend I've played video games online with for a few years and we just went wherever sounded cool for two weeks. By the end of the trip we had been through London, Bath, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Newcastle.
Finally, Delaney and I don't have any more trips planned until the one we have with each other at the end of October. This was the time I think of as the golden era of our relationship, we would go driving around for fun and just talk and listen to music with each other. We started watching old movies we liked as kids and shared the nostalgia of it with each other, she would cook us breakfast pretty often and I would bring her burritos unannounced late at night. We started watching certain youtube content creators together and would talk about it after, everything was just so smooth and it felt great to just be content.
The trip to Colorado for Kody's wedding had come and we flew in and met Tyson in Denver. We stayed in Colorado springs the first few days until the wedding events had all concluded. We mostly stayed with my grandma and it was pretty fun, when I had to go to wedding party events Delaney and my grandma would hang out. I've never seen my grandma open up to anyone in my life the way she did with Delaney. My grandma is very old-fashioned and Delaney is vegan, and yet my grandma was so willing to go out of the way to try vegan dishes and restaurants with Delaney. I later found out she told Delaney some pretty funny stories I never knew about her and my grandpa as well. I remember one day she let me borrow her car, I drove Delaney all around town the whole day and showed her my history. I showed her my elementary schools, the places I lived, places I worked, and places I would hang out at with friends. I've never had the opportunity to show someone who didn't know me when I was younger so much of me and my roots. I'll always be thankful for her being interested and so willing to let me show her this part of my life.
After the trip to Colorado we returned back to Montana and kinda just mellowed out for a while. We both were pretty spent financially after the trip and ready to just save up and kinda get back to the grind again. Christmas came and I gave her my old computer as I had built a new one, and I bought her a drawing tablet to use with it. She gave me a beanie, and a clock with the background being a vinyl record cut out to the shape of some Dota 2 heroes. This is also the first year that Bjorn and I have done a proper Christmas, we got a fake tree, lights for our deck, and he was also there with Delaney and I when we all opened presents with each other that morning. We exchanged gifts with him as well but we spent much less on those gifts.
Delaney and I were going to Vegas to meet up with her grandparents, mom, stepdad, and sisters in late January but we wouldn't be leaving for the drive until about half a day after the rest of the group. The first part of the drive went pretty well, we stopped in Lava Hot Springs and stayed there for the night, it was good and the first time I've ever stayed in a hotel with someone I'm romantically involved with. Unfortunately the next day took a turn for the worst as when we got about half way through Utah the transmission in Delaney's car broke and we were stranded in a small town. Eventually it all worked out with her step-dad, Patrick, coming to pick us up from Vegas and driving us back. Vegas was fantastic, we hit up some dope restaurants and went through the art district. The last day and a half was mostly just us two because the rest went to the Grand Canyon, so we walked around the strip and saw the sights. Since the car we were using had broken down we had to fly back to Montana, it went smoothly and we made it back all in one piece.
Mid-February I took a trip out to Colorado once again to meet my nephew, this trip I was going alone and it was definitely a lot more simple than any I had taken in a good while. I stayed at my moms and kinda just helped with being there for Ayah and hung out with family. It was a necessary trip and made me decide it was time to find a new job due to some problems that had begun to form with mine.
Patrick hooked me up with a job at Darigold and I would be starting mid march. As I came back to Montana from Colorado things with Delaney started to feel different, she didn't seem as excited when I came back and was consistently more low-energy than she was before, it resulted in us breaking up after some time.
Moving forward I took a trip back to Colorado on a whim just to visit my family and see the baby for a short time. Upon returning to Montana I started doing seasonal work at Trugreen as a lawn care specialist. It's actually one of the jobs I've most enjoyed so far, a lot of independent work and everyone is really chill.
Around this time I started going to Missoula about every other weekend to hang out with Gabe, a friend I met through Weston.
*It's been about 5 years since I updated this post, reading it sometimes hurts, sometimes brings smiles, but most of all it shows me the growth within myself. There are some parts I am quite ashamed of having thought or viewed from a certain angle, but for the sake of posterity I am going to leave it. Let's pick up with where this left off, just before I turned 23.*
One weekend I was in Missoula with Gabe and the boys, and we were going bar hopping downtown. We got to one of the lower quality but "you know the staff there" type of places and Gabe was talking it up with one of the ladies there. They called me over and she asked if I would make her a tie-dye shirt, similar to the one I was wearing, for her - and she would set me up on a date with her friend who lived in Bozeman. The whole thing sounded pretty fun so I agreed and arranged a date with the friend, Quinn.
Quinn and I immediately hit it off, we went hiking, and stayed up late talking on the phone pretty much any night we didn't stay with the other. After a few months we had a small birthday celebration for me turning 23, which made me feel old as I had learned her friends(and her) were at the bar with fake IDs and were actually just completing their first year of college at 19.
Year 23:
Year 23 is a pretty crazy year to be honest, and I'm sure most the readers that calculate what year it is with my age have a pretty good guess as to why.
Coming right out of my birthday I was updated by Wes and Jake that they were no longer working in North Dakota and wanted to all move together and get a place in Missoula. We had talked about doing this plan for years but it all ended up happening faster than I think any of us had expected.
Things were going really well with Quinn at this time, we had just gone to a friends wedding in Canada, she got a passport just to go with me. So the guys suggested her coming too, she and I could share a room and they could each get their own room - I pitched the idea to her and she was in. So we all moved to Missoula in September of 2019.
I started a new job at the Missoula airport around this time, within a couple months I had quickly advanced to being a ramp supervisor for the second side of the weeks night shift. This job was incredibly stressful and physically demanding as we were always understaffed and overworked. The pay was very low for the level of work required, however, we got to fly for free on United and Delta. I did not get to take full advantage of this due to scheduling and financial problems but Quinn and I did go to San Diego and it was one of the most fun trips I've gone on.
Before moving to Missoula Quinn made it very clear she wanted to get a kitten as soon as possible. So we did get her a kitten named Maki, and in many ways my first pet too. She is a sassy and strong personalitied torti cat.
Quinn and I were really close around the time we went to San Diego. She was really struggling to find a job she liked and we were hearing more and more news about COVID becoming a thing in the US, though Montana did hold out for a long time before it reached us. Not long after the San Diego trip was the shutdown, social distancing period of time in 2020. Wes, Jake, and Quinn all were unemployed for a bit and due to tax filing conditions or lack of energy they were not able to get the stimulus unemployment checks. I luckily was able to get unemployment for the reduction of hours as the airport was having minimal, but a couple, flights. Jake had found a partner during the winter before this named Emilee, and she had really inspired him to find a path to follow in life. He ended up deciding he was going to be moving out and getting a place with her, so Quinn and I also left to get our own place.
After the leases were signed and everyone was looped in on everyting, just a couple weeks before, Wes had taken all his anxiety meds in attempt to take his life. I was at work and contacted by someone he played online games with and really had never talked to before, I called Quinn and she was the only one about to be home - she found wes inside and he right away told her what he had done. She called the police and the ambulance showed up to take him in for care - we didn't see him for 3 days.
I remember the night it happened I called his dad to tell him, and messaged a couple of his closest friends to let them know what had happened but that he seemed alright for now. I was not allowed to be updated by the hospital but his dad told me a few days later he had stabilized and was going to be okay, but he was getting admitted for a while out of town in Great Falls. Wes called me a few times while he was there, he didnt have his own phone so it was pretty limited when we both were free to talk. Quinn handled the entire thing amazingly well, and looking back I still admire that she was able to step up and help my friend when no one else was able to. Eventually he was discharged and I was the one who drove to pick him up and bring him back to Missoula, he ended up moving in with his parents for a while.
Quinn and I had a new place lined up right after all of this happened, it was a cute little duplex with a long driveway and tons of windows. I really liked the place, and it was the first place that really felt not "shared" but like "ours/mine". She had started a job as a hostess and was aiming to get to server as they made very good money in tips. Things never really went bad, but we definitely started to feel the drain of covid, and the house grew quieter with each day.
Year 24:
Turning 24 was pretty good, the airport hours were still reduced and I was doing pretty okay with Quinn working again and me getting the unemployment checks for a few more weeks. The fall of 2020 I got really sick, and I was worried it was covid - it ended up being a respiratory infection but due to my health concerns I had left my job at the airport. Aside from the pandemic, I was working around jet fumes all day. I applied to a few different jobs that seemed promising in terms of opportunity to promote. I landed myself a job working for an insurance company based out of Missoula, answering the phone calls from patients who have our insurance and providers that they are seeing.
I got myself a kitten right after my birthday this summer as well. His name is James but he goes by Jimmy, and he is a little orange tabby.
Allegiance was a great job to find, I really do consider myself lucky that I found the job when I did, I think it ended up providing me with a lot of stability when I most needed it. It was a work at home job as well so I was able to be home much more of the time. Things at home weren't necessarily bad, but things really started to feel like Quinn and I just had no flame anymore. A little after the new year I asked her about it, and sorta laid out how I felt about the whole things. I think we just grew apart and changed as people, the world has been rapidly changing around us due to the fallout of a global pandemic we were super unprepared for. However, I brought up the lease renewing at the start of summer, and that we should decide if we want to work through this then lets do it, but if we don't. then we should consider looking at options now and plan for that.
3 days after the new year of 2021 something happened to Jimmy, Maki regularly went outside as she was pretty hyper and one of those really hard to tame cats. She would make a run for it out there anytime the door was open, and throw herself at doors thinking she could open them. Maki was an impressive cat though, quite large, strong, very smart and quick to learn. Jimmy..... he is a sweet little dumb boy. We let him out a handful of times and he mostly just burrowed under the bush right next to the porch to watch things from the shadows and really never moved. We let him out as Quinn left for her night shift around 4 pm, and I went to go let him back in about 15 minutes later. I couldn't find him anywhere. I started walking around the block calling his name and panicking, I don't know where my 7 month old kitten could've gone to.... he had never been the bold type before.
I made it in the full circle and got back to the house, Maki would sometimes be out all night before she came back in, I'm sure he was fine. As I walked up to the door I saw the little fluff of orange under my neighbors truck in their driveway.
"come here jimmy, whats going on little guy?".....
My heart sunk.... he hobbled over halfway then I started tearing up and running over, he was hobbling really badly. I picked him up and one of his legs was dangling from him so I tried to hold it in place and get him inside. He collapsed and passed out at my feet. I called the first vet place that google showed me, fuck that idiot that answered that phone. He said to give it a night and see how he was doing in the morning. I call a second place, they can get him in, however, Quinns car is broken, and she took mine to work. Jake is free and comes to pick us up, he helps me get jimmy packed up and we take him.
At the vets office we waited 3 hours before they got back to us with more information, Jake had to leave halfway through and the saint left me his car while Emilee picked him up. Jimmy's leg was fractured next to a growth plate, saving it was looking at about $9500 and unlikely to work, amputation was about $3000. They referred me to surgeons in the area I could schedule it with and said it needed to be done within two weeks before it heals badly. None of the places would take me in. I called the emergency vet back and they were able to schedule him a couple days later. My poor boy lost his leg. I have not experienced sadness, and anger before in the ways I experienced it throughout this ordeal. I had the most difficult time finding places to even see a kitten with a broken leg, one outright wanted to ignore the whole thing. There was no scratch, bite, or tire marks on the injury so there is not much of an idea what couldve done it to him. I felt broken. I wanted to be a good pet owner so badly, and I have always had such a deep care for animals, and I felt like the world had picked on me - not even me, but my poor kitten. And I resented it. I resented the people that made it hard to get him taken care of, and I resented myself for letting it happen.
She said she wanted to make things work, she wanted to work through it and she could tell that we still loved each other, which I don't disagree with at all, to an extent I think we will always love each other, we went through a lot of personal and global events together, it was almost like a speedrun.
2 weeks before the lease renewed things clearly hadn't been improving as we had hoped. I was in a rough spot mentally, as I had fully severed all ties with the entirely of my dads side of my family. The fight causing it was a pretty explosive argument between me and him over the phone. I think she also had a lot going on internally, and in retrospect - i think if we would've just been sad together, instead of trying to hide it from the other person then it would have helped a lot. I don't think either was us was sad at anything specifically regarding each other, just the situation of the world and life in general. Anyways, she had told me at this time that she wanted to break up and didn't think things would work. I tried telling her if she had anything specific to work on that I'm willing to try and make it work but she said we tried and it didn't work out. I accepted her decision, and I said I can work on packing up my things and sleep in the spare room. I wont have a place for Jimmy right away but I'll get him as soon as I do.
Wes had been given a place to live by his parents, his dad owned a mobile home a bit outside of town and it was just him and a roommate there, with plenty of open space. Wes let me couch surf there for quite a while. I went to Quinns to do laundry on weekends and visit with the cats, I just wanted to make sure they didnt forget me, the clean clothes was nice too though.
The most recent breakup was a really freeing experience. I had a lot of unexplored and unseen things in the area, as I moved to it in a relationship. I wanted to make the most of it and hiked around like a madman that summer, I wanted to socialize and met with friends from the internet to smoke weed many times. And with one of them it ended up turning into an interest of mine. I met Cheyenne on tinder but the first several times we hung out we just smoked weed and vibed for a while, no romance or anything pricy or committal and always in a public space such as a park.
After a few times of walking 10 miles of conversation together I decided to make a move, and she clearly was waiting for me to do it. We went hiking together, and to the fair, and lots of cheesy couple dates. Things were super fun, and I think we both felt that we were in a spot of self discovery and happiness with another. As much as things with Quinn didn't work out, they didn't explode, and I think the world knew that something truly special was on the way to me.
Cheyenne had just moved to the area from Northern California, she was living in student housing in a studio with her 11 year old dog Kitana. She loves nature, hiking, politics, history, drama, anime, and games. She is by all means a nerd and a tree hugger. She keeps herself guarded very well, there is a long history of her vulnerabilities being exploited by those she revealed them to - but inside, inside I see her for the person she truly is. She is a more caring and loyal friend and anyone I've ever met. She is honest beyond belief, she is empathetic and quick to see the pain in others as she has felt it so much herself, she is passionate and loves to hear people talk about what they love, and she loves to talk about what she loves, she is smart and challenges me to hold myself accountable, and she teaches me every day on how to relate to the suffering of others - even if through means of a tiktok and her commentary on it.
Year 25:
I made things official bf/gf status with Cheyenne sometime around my birthday 2021. I don't remember exactly when...... but sometimes around then. I started renting a room I saw posted online from a couple about a year younger than me - Carter and Candra. It was only about 2 miles from Cheyennes apartment, and my work was in the middle of those two locations. I had started working in office after Quinn and I broke up, due to HIPAA I did not have a space to qualify for working at home.
Most important about this though, is I got Jimmy back. Cheyenne helped me move in all my stuff from Wes' barn into the new room, and helped me get my boy back home. I was so happy to have my cat back again. A roommate named Oliver was renting the last empty room of the house, and moved in the same week I did. He was a bit odd, so I just sorta stayed cordial with him.
"It all happens so slowly, then all at once."
Thanks for reading guys! This is the most popular post I have so I will do what I can to keep it alive for you guys.
-Umar
Wow. This single-handedly destroys every post I've written, and probably every post I ever wrill write. A great story.
ReplyDeleteThat was heartwarming. Good luck bud. :) (BTW I came here from Reddit)
ReplyDeletehaven't read all of this yet but very interesting so far. i am the person you showed this to at an ihop last friday night lol. you seem cool.
ReplyDeleteAh yes the casual friday night IHOP shameless blog promotion :v I'm glad you like it so far!
DeleteSylvia, Josie, and I love ya tons :)
ReplyDelete