Can't share in real life, so I'll share with my peeps here.
WARNING: self-serving
As of today, my stash hit the two comma club. I know it'll likely dip back under in no time, but it's still pretty wild for me. It made me do a little retrospection (as I'm up late, listening to Chris Stapleton ballads).
13 years ago, two and a half years before I started my MMM journey, not only did I barely have a penny to my name, but I couldn't even get myself out of bed. A series of events had beaten me. In a span of five weeks time, I had been in a traumatic rollover accident in a rainstorm at 70+ mph, my relationship of five years ended terribly (in a way that took away the place I lived, my girlfriend, AND the person I considered my best friend), and I lost my job.
It broke me.
I couldn't sleep. I stopped eating (and didn't even realize I had). I just laid there all day, day after day. One day my parents got ahold of me and convinced me to see them because I hadn't stopped by in a few months. When I got there, dad told me I looked like I was starving myself. I was baffled. I simply didn't know what he was talking about. That afternoon, when I stood on their scale and saw that I weighed 144 pounds (25 pounds lighter than I had been three months before), I just stood there and cried. It was a physical manifestation of my spirit, and a stark realization that my depression was unsustainable. I had to do something.
I reached out to everyone I felt loved me. I leaned on them. I asked for advice. I asked for support. I set alarms to remind myself to eat even if my body wasn't telling me it wanted it. I had starts and stops, but I slowly started being able to get out of bed on my own. I decided at that time, that if I could lose myself in something hard for me, if I had to be constantly fighting through unrelated battles, I could survive long enough to be okay again -- time would be given a chance to do what it does. So that's what I set out to do.
Over the next two years, I started and finished a four-year degree (20+ credit hours per semester), worked 30 hours every weekend, exercised as hard as I could for two hours a day five days per week, and played as many shows in a shitty bar band that we could book. During my last semester, I decided I needed yet more goals to focus myself on. I decided as soon as I could land my first post-college job, I was going to live off of my weekend job, and save every penny from my "real" job, with the goal of being able to choose how I spent my time by 45. So I did that too (starting on August 12th 2013, the date I consider my FIRE journey starting), saving my entire paycheck at my primary job for the following three years. During this time of go-go-go chaos, I met DW, who somehow put up with my ridiculousness, constantly having to justify it to her parents when they questioned my tunnel-visioned intensity and stubbornness.
The years between then and now saw plenty of their own adventures -- I went to graduate school, purchased (and paid off) a house, worked more interesting and complicated jobs, and told cancer to fuck off when it tried to get in the way.
It's surreal to me, when I think of myself lying there day after day, questioning whether or not I had it in me to get up at all, to feel the way I feel today. What an unbelievably fortunate thing to feel so healthy, so free, and to be surrounded by people I love who love me.
To those who have won the game: remember to always try to be grateful, gracious, and to give back when you can. To those still climbing: you got this -- you're an inspiration to those around you. To those who feel like they don't have it in them: don't give up -- you have no idea what you're capable of, and future you will be so grateful to the you now for continuing to fight.
