Thanks man.

I look at life a lot different now.

There are lows still and will be for some time, if not always. Luckily the every day while not technically “happier” is appreciated more than ever before. I can sit around with my son and build race tracks and paint and introduce him to my childhood movies and cartoons and that is a perfect day now.

No need to go spend money on shit any more or vacations all the time or throwing huge BBQs feeding 30 people prime rib to feel happy. I would have never noticed a lot of the roads I was going down if not for this.

I would have never had the courage to walk away from my abusive family. The isolation though is a blessing and a curse at the same time. It saddens me beyond my ability to put into words right now to not have any one to share my beautiful family with, and the problems you have with your family can never be formulated into a way that balances the scales or at least tilts them in the favor of being worth it.

I made the mistake of not taking care of my depression after words. I took time off work, about 7 months or so, but being a single income family the savings were going to go quick. We paid off our credit cards and I cashed out my 401k at the absurd penalty rate just to stay home. At the time I argued that it was fine, my wife couldn’t even get out of bed, our son was only a year and a half or so and well long story short I don’t care I wasn’t ready.

We needed up in a huge hole that we are hoping to be free from soon but that mountain is closed to climbed(clommed? Mounted?) and if it wasn’t for having to pay my wife’s tuition in full this year we’d be done. I’m proud of how hard I’ve worked the last three years. I went from making $1700 a week with a $200/month gas allowance and free board to making $16.50 an hour working 12 hour rotating shifts making fucking dog food. I couldn’t get through a interview and blew one for a Cellar Super Visor at a Winery I had been trying to get hired on at as years. I ended up at a temp agency just defeated. I was always strong in front of my wife. For my wife. But I literally cried at the easiest things.

I worked that dog food job for a year, within 4 months I went from being a forklift driver to moving through every position and becoming a shift supervisor over seeing a 45 person production plant at night. I left there because I had a shot to get back into the wine industry with Gallo.

It was a seasonal lead position but I knew if I worked my ass off I could get hired on, I took a $1000/month pay cut (the dog food place would let me work 120 hours a paycheck and while I was only making $23 I was able to bring home decent checks - no where worth the time missed working 60 hour graveyard work weeks) just to end up not getting hired on but was promised to be hired full time a few months later.

I was defeated but in that defeat I ended up blessed. I reached out to my first boss of 8 years from Franzia who moved up into Sonoma County and told him what I was going through. He let me start talking and I talked for about ten minutes his response was short and simple. Send me your resume. Fast forward and I was given a shot to be a Operations Coordinator for a large winery(more brokers but I digress) and it has been a blessing to learn this side of the industry after so many in the tactile side.

The bitter sweet part of the last part? Guess how it feels to not have a single family member to share that with. No parent to say they are proud. I’m not saying poor me, I fucking wish I could get the fuck over it, but god damn dude I can’t figure it out and just typing this is making my blood pressure rise. Anger is interesting. If you let it fester long enough it feeds your body like all the positives endorphins do except instead of joy and laughter it’s just destruction. Loathing.

The only thing I can’t figure out or solve or find a solution to is my anger. That’s kinda the reason I’m on a tangent right now. I finally started therapy this week and just to finally take that step after three years I know I’m about to start the last fight. As mentioned earlier, is it ever a fight that is going to end or will it rage senselessly and constantly as it seems to at times, removing me from my self and going to the isolated places in my mind I’ve built, just as the isolated world around me?

Who knows...