While I was at West Point, my parents had moved to Idaho. So, that's where I went home to. In the winter. With four feet of snow on the ground. And knees that were still pretty shot to hell. So, I didn't get out much or get much exercise. I added roughly 50 lbs of weight that winter.
My parents moved to Fruitland, ID, and I went with them. I worked a couple jobs in the area and moved a couple times myself. Then, I met this girl on the internet.
Erinn was from Texas. We met playing a MUD (multi-user dungeon) called ShadowMUD. She was attracted to my um...creative emoting. I was attracted to her being attracted to me. Anyway, she flew up from Texas to meet me. Things went better than I could ever have imagined. First, she was beautiful. Second, she had that oh-so-sexy Texas accent. Third, she really, really was into me. She stayed for a week and then flew home. For two days. Then she flew back. Less than a month later, I moved to Texas.
So, I was in Texas and in love. I proposed not long after moving there, and in June 1996, we got married. A little over six months from meeting to married. We went to Cancun for our honeymoon. It was a lot of fun. Perhaps the most fun of our entire marriage, although only my second favorite part of it. It was pretty much all downhill from here although I overlooked almost all of the problems for a long time because I was "in love."
The favorite part of my marriage is my daughter Kaylee. While I have a whole lot of regrets about getting married, the mere fact of Kaylee's existence makes all the pain and heartbreak worthwhile. I don't get to see her much for now, but it doesn't change the fact that she is the entire reason I wouldn't ever give up having gotten married.
My marriage ended on the morning of May 19, 1999. This was approxiamately eight or nine hours after I had watched a midnight showing of Star Wars Phantom Menace.
Now single, but still in Texas, I started writing for Computer Games Magazine as a freelance writer. First, I wrote strategy guides, but later I started doing reviews and features. Easily the best job I ever had. This was followed by going to work for a game company in California. While that was also a lot of fun, it stopped being quite as much fun when the company ran out of money. This led me to move back home to my mom's basement...just kidding (really old Lounge joke). Actually, I moved to a tiny little guest house my parents owned where I ran a coffee shop newsletter and did the occassional odd computer job.
After a while, I finally got motivated to get back to living. This took the help of two of my absolute dearest friends. First was Robin.
Robin is an amazing woman. She has a zest for life that I'd not seen before, and never since. She lives her life the way she wants to, and she doesn't particularly care what anyone else thinks about her. She broke me out of my shell. She made me want to be part of the world again. She became my friend. Amazingly enough, all we ever were was just friends. That's all she needed to be to get me living again.
The next step was meeting Spring. In many ways, Spring was the opposite of Robin, at least when I met her. She was married to an insecure, possessive, and controlling husband. But, in her, I saw myself before I'd met Robin. I saw this beautiful person who wanted more from life. She had energy. She had a thirst for fun. And, deep down, she had the self-confidence to take control of her life. I made it a point to bring that out. In the process, I also found more of me. I found that I could have a purpose again. So, I decided to hit the reset button on my life.
The first step in that reset was going back to school. That's pretty much where I am now. The plan is to get my degree. This will be followed by me getting a decent job that pays the bills but doesn't eat up all my time. I've had the better paying jobs that required oodles of time to do. I want no part of them ever again. Instead, I want a job that lets me have enough free time to live.
