About 7 months ago or so my wife found out that her job was being terminated. Without getting into details that would only lead to name-calling and finger-pointing, suffice it to say that without her extra income we could no longer afford to live in Virginia Beach, so we decided to move to Tennessee where my stepmother owned a house that was available for rent. Through a series of miracles (or coincidences if you can't bring yourself to believe in miracles) we got the house and our wonderful friend Melissa moved with us...with no jobs and very few prospects. But hey, what's life without adventure, and how could we call ourselves Christians without believing that somehow God would aid us? Now, 7 months and some change later here we are with jobs and an extra roommate (my brother-in-law Lee) and things are starting to look up.
That's the background. Simple, short, all those things we as Americans love. So now we get to what the point of this blog is. Shortly after we moved here I asked people on the YoJoe! forums if they had any comic books for sale because I wanted to buy them. Numerous people messaged me and I said I would get back to them, except I never did. Now, this might seem like a little thing to you, but it's not to me. I try my best to be an honorable and truthful person, though like us all I fail at times. I considered the guys on the forums to be like a mini-family and I took my good name there very seriously. By setting these people up with the hope that I would buy their comics and thus give them some extra money, then pretty much dropping off the face of the earth for months, I feel that I betrayed them and tarnished my good name on the forums. Maybe I'm overreacting...it's happened before. But I want to say that I am sorry from the very bottom of my being for any ill-will I may have caused by my actions.
My reason for dropping off the face of the earth in a sense is simple: depression. Yes, I struggle with depression and at times it can be pretty severe. Those of you who don't suffer with it may not be able to understand how it affects people, but it basically makes you not want to do anything. I didn't want to read, write, collect toys, watch movies, etc. In short, I didn't want to do anything I loved doing, and while I chalked it up to various things like the price of toys being insanely high (which they really are) it boils down to the fact that instead of doing the things I love I was busy fending off thoughts ranging from how worthless I am to how I should end it all...if you know what I mean. Depression is a scary thing, and it steals your life from you even if you don't take the final step. What scares me more is that there are people who are very dear to me who have also struggled with depression, gotten "help" via medication, and then that same medication caused them to commit suicide. My Uncle David was one such person, and I miss him every day.
So there you go. I know this is pretty heavy stuff for this blog, but I needed to explain myself and I needed to get it off my chest. I'm not looking for pity or sympathy, just understanding. I want to write again, because it is in writing that I find joy and release, and the depression lifts from me while I am doing it. So, I will do my damnedest to update this blog on a regular basis, which may be hard since I have crusty internet service at the moment, and I hope that it will be as enjoyable for you to read as it is for me to write.
I hate to end this on a down note, so I won't. My buddy Paul from Toybender (who sent me a Snarfariffic gift not-so-long-ago) posted pics from SDCC of the Battle Cat from the MOTU line that Mattel has out now. In case you haven't seen it, here's a pic:
That, my friends, is a thing of beauty. I hear a rumor that they will re-release He-Man so he can ride Battle Cat into battle and if that's the case, Mattel has become my favorite toy company. I bathe in the sweat of the creators of this line.
Well, I've become longwinded, so it's off to do something constructive...which will most likely turn into something counter-productive.
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