New start, New Blog, & beginning a New adventure

October 13^th, 2013

            Many people over the last year asked (and wrote) me; “what happened to your blog?” and “Why aren’t you publishing any articles?”, additionally “Why has it appeared that your writing suddenly stopped after New Years day in January?”

There were many reasons for this, but most notably I began a new job that required a very involved government background check, so to avoid any additional pesky questions, I was told that it might be wise to take my work off the internet for a little while.  In the process of this, I deleted an email address tied to my blog, and little beknownst to me, (I thought I had all of my work backed up anyway), it deleted 10 years worth of my writing, and also my YouTube account.   Now, it can be said that it’s crippling enough when you lose subscribers, or the number of views your work receives has slowed down to a trickle, but inevitably I lost everything that I didn’t have saved in a MS Word or Pages (Mac) document.   

Losing nearly all of my work was utterly devastating to me.  Most of you know, that I have now built a new website, and a new YouTube channel, although the YouTube channel has mostly old or benign videos up just to keep it alive till I was in a position to begin writing again, and put my best public foot forward.  However, I could only find a handful of random articles I had written, and to post those wouldn’t have made much sense, as some of them were related to current events from several years ago.  So first, let me apologize to my avid readers.  I definitely miss your views, comments, letters, and kindness.  Some of you give me great strength to continue to do what I love, and I am tremendously sorry for my absence.  Additionally, at the end of last year I lost a personal relationship that alienated me from my significant other & child—which led me into a tragic bout of depression that took me about 6 months to overcome.  My physician had put me on an anti-depressant, which let me tell you, as a writer, totally sucked.  It stole all of my emotions, which made it nearly impossible for me to write.  I finally stopped taking the medication, took root in my new job, moved into a new home, started a new relationship, and sure enough, as soon as things became settled, a new drastic change comes sweeping toward my door.   This time, it wasn’t a giant kick in the stomach, actually this time it was something I had desperately wanted for years, but I realized that while not all of the circumstances could be considered “as good”, I had made a resolution at the beginning of the year & now the stars appeared to be aligning themselves in that exact pattern, and no I don’t believe in Astrology. 

At the beginning of the year, I was still residing in Baltimore, and previously had been commuting to Northern Virginia for work, which equated to an 87 mile 1 way round trip, but my company for the first 14 days of the year was based in Baltimore, and they decided to put me on to a new project.  Which did not last very long.  On January 14^th, a very rainy morning, I had a minor fender bender on my way to a meeting, and the owner of the company fired me 2 days later for “not documenting the accident properly”.   The truth of the matter was much more simple.  The 2 year contract in which I had been hired for ended on December 31^st, 2012, and the company owner simply didn’t think he’d need me anymore, and proceeded to stab me in the back a few times.  (The deeper irony is they asked me if I wanted my job back 7 times over the next 10 months, which I respectfully declined.) I was already in a fairly deep depression, now I was just wrongfully terminated from my job, but on the bright side of things, I had tickets to visit my family in Costa Rica toward the end of the month, and a job opportunity working for my previous competitor where I already had a few friends when I returned. 

I had a lovely time in Costa Rica with my family, and returning to rainy, cold, stressful, and lonely Baltimore was a bit hard to swallow.  Apparently, my body thought so as well.  I wasn’t even home a week before my body had a tremendous anxiety attack, at the hospital, they believed I had had a heart attack, so with only 3% juice in my phone & 0 bars of signal, I laid there on a gurney.  I began thinking – I was all alone.  I had no one local to call, and the only person within 50 miles of where I was wasn’t even returning my emails.  I don’t think there were many times in my life where I felt truly isolated, but this was it.  I looked at my iPhone 5 one more time before I shut it off and I noticed the hospital had free WiFi.  I made a quick post on Facebook—“I’m at _______ hospital.  They think I may have had a heart attack.  My phone has no battery life, and I am alone.”

I mentioned the fact I had an iPhone 5, because, I asked a few nurses if they had a charging cable.  The fact that the phone was a relatively new product, and Apple had changed their charging cable with this product meant I was basically screwed.  Anyway, it wasn’t 10 min after I had made that post on Facebook, my father, who was all the way in Costa Rica found me.  I have no idea who he spoke to, or how he got them to bring me a phone, as I was still in the ER, but he did.  I wept like a little boy.  We both did.  Only one other person found me and called me while I was in the hospital alone; This is just for you.  Thank you, you have no idea how much it meant to me just to hear your voice on the other end of that phone. 

After about 40hrs in the hospital I was released saying it was only a severe anxiety attack, and I went home to my empty house.  I had landed the new job, but now I had to resume the 87 mile one way commute, but that only lasted about a month and I successfully moved back to Virginia.  I absolutely adored my new company.  They were hands down the most caring company I had ever worked for, and the CEO himself, was a kind & brilliant man. 

In early March I met my girlfriend Barbara.  For the sake of privacy I will only use first names.  She is an amazing girl, a great friend, and has made a tremendous impact on my life since then, and in the myriad of ups and downs we all experience in life; big changes were incoming. 

In short my Step-mother became sick.  She and my father are quite dependent on each other, and I knew they could use my help. With my contract at work having ended in July, I soon was going to be placed in a cumbersome situation regardless to stay in DC for the time being, (not to mention the government shutdown fiasco).  For legal reasons, I am not going to post the specifics on my layoff, but I can say I am on good terms with everyone involved, and in a few short hours I leave to help my family in Costa Rica, and begin a new chapter of giving, writing, and starting a new. 

Wish me luck!

©2013 Christian’s Theory