Bidoof FTW
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- 3,547
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- Age 24
- the States
- Seen Apr 5, 2024
The main purpose of this blog is for the For Glory event in the GT this week. :) However, I'm also using it as a form of reflection. Just a warning, this is a loooooong read. There will be music throughout the blog that I find appropriate. You may listen to it while you read, or listen then read, or even just listen after reading the entire thing, whatever you think will grant you the greatest experience :)
Throughout my life I have been surrounded by two types of people: The Successful, and The Unsuccessful. Even throughout my somewhat small family and group of friends these two types of people exist.
My grandparents were both quite successful. My grandfather worked at General Electric during the glory days of the company, and got great benefits when he retired. My grandmother was CEO of a company that she cared deeply about and had a great passion for what the company did. They had 4 children of which they love deeply and raised well based on Southern values: being polite, loving family, and using butter in every dish :P I was also raised on these values as a child and try to do my best to make them proud.
One thing that no one ever told me, not even once, but I feel is the most important thing of all in life is that a person's wealth should not determine the amount of respect and love that you give them. To me it's important because I've had to deal and live with each extreme in wealth.
I'm an only child, and growing up I lived with my mother and my father. My dad owned a toy/comic book shop, which would sell anything from Star Wars figures to DragonBall Z cards. The store started out extremely successful as my father was one of the few people selling anything pokemon. This was back before any supermarket or chain toy store was selling pokemon (since no American company had the rights to manufacture and sell pokemon products at the time) so he would fly to Japan, go to a toy store, buy anything and everything pokemon, and come back and sell it for an extremely high profit. I guess I have him to thank for my exposure to pokemon, and for being able to meet all of the people here on PC :)
Flash forward a couple of years, and my dad is selling the store. It just wasn't succeeding enough and making enough profit to continue supporting it... Flash forward a year or two later and I'm called into the living room of my house to see my parents sitting on opposite ends of the sofa, each with a small note card in hand and a somber look on their face. I remember my mom starting to cry as she read the notecard, it talked about how my parents didn't get along as well as they used to, and that they thought that they should get divorced. My dad would be leaving for Austin, Texas a couple months later, in September. We lived in Southern Ohio.
Some of my greatest memories as a kid were the months before my dad left. Not because I was happy to see him go, but instead it was the opposite. He wanted to have the greatest of times together before he left and we went somewhere fun almost everyday. I remember having late night sessions of Gauntlet and I loved every minute of it.
After September came he moved to Austin. I remember us not talking very much after he moved, since there were problems at home with my mom working two jobs and me spending half of my life living with my grandparents. Luckily they lived close enough that they could take me to school and pick me up from it.
I don't quite remember when, but my dad moved back to an area nearby, Indianapolis. I remember being so happy that I was able to visit my dad again, and that I did. I was to visit and stay with him every other weekend. Slowly through the years my dad's financial situation got worse and worse and I remember him almost constantly living in a new apartment or hotel. He lost his car and license because he couldn't pay child support and at one point I remember him moving back nearby. - An old employee and good friend of my dad bought the old store from the person my dad sold it to - So there was a point where my dad lived in the back of his old store. The store was mainly for card games now.. YGO, MTG, etc. I didn't think about how bad his situation had to be in order to live in the back of a store, and I didn't care, I remember simply being happy to see him. So what if there wasn't a shower or washer and dryer? So what if the back of the store wasn't pristine and well kept? I got to see my dad and that's all that mattered to me. I didn't care about his financial situation or how I didn't get to see him or do fun things with him because my mom was in a bad spot, living off of family giving us financial aid, and my dad couldn't pay for me to come visit. I cared about him. I remember him always telling me during this time how ashamed he was that he couldn't be the old father that I knew, the one that would take me places and play Gauntlet with me, he still tells me these things to this day, even though he has an apartment, a steady job, and I still get to visit him 4 times a year now that I've moved away. He shouldn't be ashamed, because he is still the best dad a guy could ask for.
Money doesn't determine success. To me, success is being happy, success is impacting others in a positive way and making them remember you, just like how my dad has made me the young man that I am and how he will always be in my thoughts. After witnessing my dad bounce back from tough times, and have my mom and I do the same, I know now that the hard parts will always end at some point, to just keep trying until you reach your goals and make your life better. To me, success is overcoming hardships that seem impossible, even when few other people believe you can do it. I wasn't ever affected negatively from those hardships, they only helped chisel the personality of the guy I am today. I'm good.
