The holidays are so very different from year to year, as a child it was magical every year as I grew up it was predictable at best, then I had my own kids and it was magical again. I enjoyed being a dad, both of my sons were everything to me. Our marriage began to disintegrate not long after our second son was born, my ex- wife got post partem so severe she could barely get out of bed. We went to doctors, psychologists, even priests to get help and we did but she was really never the same after that. It was nine years until I fell off the rails and began a two year battle with drugs and alcohol. I worked for my dad with one of my brothers and I was fucking that up almost every day, I was a model employee up until that point, always on time and ready to work. At first it was just a couple of late mornings and I would blame my ex for me being late, but after a few months it was a lot. I was living on cocaine and booze with little to no sleep all of my decisions were bad, one summer I got arrested three times and baker acted twice. Thru all that we got divorced and I lost everything we had to her. The court gave me one Saturday a month for three hours of supervised visitation with my two sons. I destroyed not only my life but everyone I loved. How does a person bounce back from that??? Every day I went to work I felt nothing but anger and hatred, I no longer had any friends or money I was at rock bottom. One day I said enough is enough and I must turn my life around, but I had nothing left to live for there was no reason for me to be there. My kids hated me and told me they didn’t love me anymore. That was a kick in the nuts that nearly cost me my life. That night was the last night I would get wasted, after an eight ball of coke and a bottle of booze I found myself in my garage with a gun barrel in my mouth struggling to pull the trigger. My mind was running out of control, the craziest thoughts I ever had in my life happened that night. I woke up on the floor in my garage completely broken. I knew there was no way I will be able to change my life while living there I had to go away, far away. After twenty six years as I am writing this those emotions are flooding in, I can taste the gun metal in my mouth tears running down my face so much they’re soaking my shirt. Since that night and many before and a few after I wonder why I was spared, how did I lack the courage to pull the trigger, but have the courage face the never ending obstacles that life has thrown at me. I do believe in GOD and I have always had angels around me. I know it sounds crazy that’s a topic for another day, I ended up moving to Florida, a mere fifteen hundred miles away, I had a friend that had moved there to live with their father they said they could put me up so I moved just like that.