You've done a good job of committing to the revival here. It would not have happened without you.
I seriously had nothing to do with it. That's not modesty. If anything, it was PrincessNadia who registered and started posting on like 10 threads in one or two days, and that made me respond in kind, which snowballed. Mauron, too. Ever steadfast Mauron, who has stood a diligent vigil here with a few others. 
Then to them shall accolades go!
But you deserve them too: You were the one who made me feel welcome on my return. Thanks!
I'm definitely in a better place now. A large part of it came from internal change. There's so much I can't control. I gave up religion and trying to make it fit to my worldview. I recognized that the person I married wasn't who I thought she was, but that that's okay and I need to stop fighting and just accept it. I finally said fuck it and quit my job, was unemployed and trying to support a wife and kid with whatever odd jobs I could scrape together, but it gave me just enough time to jump onto something else. It's still not the career I long for, but it is sufficient and the money is good. I gave up social media and the blatant manipulation it entails.
It's so much easier to be true to oneself when you're not inundated with media's interpretation of what you should be, or by comparing yourself to the facade others put up on social media.
Are things better? From a financial standpoint, a little but not really. Our generation has been fucked over by the baby boomers and the American dream we were promised is a dead promise. The less I fight and accept that life won't be quite the way I want it, the better I've felt. Maybe it's defeatism on my part. There's peace in accepting that I'll never be some Hollywood bigshot writer like I had hoped. The dream isn't dead, but the likelihood is small. I can deal with that.
So yeah, I'm in a better place overall. Healthy weight, healthier mindset, no longer a desire to end my existence.
A big part of pulling myself up out of my rut was my child (I now have 2) and the death of my best friend, Daniel. Daniel and I were childhood friends and to this day our parents are besties. We became reacquainted after college and our friendship grew immensely. We were fighting many of the same demons with depression and started texting and calling each other daily, helping each other tread water. We lived about 2 hours apart, which is ironic, given that we both grew up ~1000 miles away from here.
He shot himself two years ago.
The only difference between him and I was that I had a child that was dependent on me, and the love for my child was a liferaft I was able to cling to. Daniel didn't have that and he chose to end it all. His brother and I had to clean out his apartment a week later. It was mortifying. They had to cut the drywall away to get ride of the mess, take the tile up from the floor. His blankets and mattress were gone. Sorry for the vivid imagery. I was both jealous and pitied him. The hole he left to myself and others is one that will never heal.
But it game just enough push up the hill to start recovery. It's stupid it took his suicide to do so, but it was a REALLY sobering thought.
Sorry for rambling. I tend to do that a lot these days. But yeah, I'm in recovery.
There's a lot of meat there, and I don't necessarily have anything to add. I just wanted to say I hear ya. And I'm glad you were able to find your footing on the path that life prepared for you.
Are you? Not a metaphysical question, I'm seriously asking. I assume you're no longer 135 pounds and living off of measly scraps.
Weight wise I am good--actually at my heaviest ever of 190. I'm the opposite of most Americans, having spent my life feeling too thin and wanting to be heavier, but being absolutely terrible at gaining weight. It's even been a joke with friends of mine over the years, who have struggled to lose weight and keep it off.
But the reason I'm a little heavier lately isn't as cool: There are not a lot of important things in my life that I have much control over right now. With due acknowledgement of the fact that I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and an income, I am not in a good place at all. A couple weeks ago, I decided that focusing on eating more is like basically one of the only things that I actually can control right now, so it's been sort of this glum consolation prize: Yes, I can pork up a little bit, which is awesome (it truly is; I love fat) but only because I don't have the ability to spend that time and energy on more important things.
Gonna be a long road, but one step I've taken to try and move forward is hanging out here on the Compendium again, and that's not the only step, so at least I'm not doing nothing to improve my situation, and we'll see how things play out.
If we ever do it, we do it smarter than before. No need to advertise it like CE did. Let it be subtle, fly under the radar, then release with a bang.
Exactly.
Mauron, too. Ever steadfast Mauron, who has stood a diligent vigil here with a few others.
The problem was I rarely left Kajar Labs. While it's been useful for the hacking portion of the community, it's not as good for the rest of the site.
Indeed! I don't know if we ever interacted at all back when I was still at the Compendium. To me you feel like a total newcomer, even though by this point you're a Guru and have probably put in as much time here as I have!!
