I remember that I joined Steemit last October and so wanted to check and logged into steemd.com and saw that today my account is officially 365 days old.
It has been a blur with over 384 posts created which means that there have been some days where I was able to post twice.
Over 9927 comments made and currently sitting on about 1600 SP which some are delegated.
It has been a roller coaster ride of emotions remembering that when I started I was at my lowest point and was considering killing myself at that time. I had lost a lot of money, a side business failing, stuck in a loveless relationship and career- wise was in a job that I no longer loved doing.
I remember going through the motions of life. Waking up, walking my dog, having breakfast, taking a shower, dressing up and going to the office and smile.
Smile an empty smile while I go through my tasks with joyless emotion, a silent scream in my head while talking to someone about their problem with their supervisor.
I remember talking to my shrink who wanted to do a writing exercise by sending her long emails because she knew I could express myself better in writing stuff rather than talking.
So I was part of a Cryptocurrency group at that time which was looking for different ways to be able to earn through Cryptocurrency and someone suggested to create an account in Steemitand since we already had a group it would help us in supporting each other.
This was also a good way for me to be able to write my feelings while getting to earn something. It would go to my cremation fund. Looking back it was a weird plan.
First step was choosing a username. It should be something unique and at that point I was not comfortable in sharing who I am so hiding behind a pseudonym I entered the name Maverickinvictus.
Maverick because of a number of things because the idea of being a nonconformist appealed to me.
Invictus because of that piece of literature written by William E. Henley and was a favorite of Nelson Mandela. Of a person bloodied but unbowed.
To quote from a post I made explaining the origin of my name it was an attempt to be that persona of who I wanted to be.
In a way, I was wrapping my myself in a persona of a person who I wanted to be. A person who is a free spirit and will write things that I like. A person who at his darkest time is bloodied and fallen so low but wants to remain unbowed to the circumstances.
I remember writing dark poems and stories. Posts that mirrored the bleakness of my life. I remember writing a piece about a semi-colon and what it meant for me that day. Of not ending it that day, of choosing to live another day.
I poured all my feelings into writing. Somehow someone cared enough. Some people reached out and say that you are important enough. That you should not give up.
So I saw myself writing about other things and not just about my depression or wanting to die.
I started writing things that I enjoyed and this was further helped when I found a family in Steemit.
Steemitfamilyph was one such community that made me feel welcome. It made me feel that I was not alone.
These were a group of people that I would call my Ohana.
They were a large part of what healed me as I saw a purpose of wanting to connect and engage with them. to be able to help them grow and see them improve.
I saw myself as a fatherly figure who looked after them.
I made a lot of newbie guides that had them as the target audience. I was very proud when I saw them succeed, get praised by other people. Get Curies and win contests.
Their success brought me so much joy.
There were also certain individuals who I confided and helped release the darkness in me and so when the day that I was supposed to die I lit a match and celebrated my birthday. In a way, it was a rebirth because it was the day that I choose life instead of death.
I was still pretty much active with Steemitfamilyph but also found myself with Crypto Empire , the promo-mentors and 
This was not being disloyal to my Ohana but a way for me to spread my wings further so that in turn I could help my family better.
This was when I made my target of reaching 1K Steem Power. It was part of vision board for 2018.
There were a lot of things that I wrote down. It was also my first contest and one that received the highest earning I have every in Steemit since it received a curie vote.
I wrote how that curie vote saved a life, my life. It was as if the universe told me to continue on and create a future.
I have mostly checked majority of the things I have written there like reaching a Steemit reputation of 60, helping more minnows, help more children with GIKF and general feel that I matter.
This is an organization that for over a decade I have volunteered and gave my time, effort and money in order to make a difference to indigenous Aeta children so that they can go to school.
It is a passion project for us that when we started we were ill equipped to do charity work and we didn't even have any funding just money out of our salary and some donations from family and friends.
Yet 12 years after we are still here and trying to share something with these children.
I even started a Steem account that I wanted to help augmentel the donations that we receive for them and the idea of eventually turning it over to the first graduates of the program.
I had lots of videos, pictures and stories I wanted to share to the world so that they can also see what made us love these kids and return each year.
Alas but that dream has been shattered.
Talking about broken dreams about seven months ago I joined the Sndbox Summer camp that anomadsoul and guyfawkes4-20 initiated.
I remember being so excited about it and also nervous because I wanted it so much. it would be life changing for me but I knew there were people out there who was far better than I am so I wanted to stack things to my favor and even though I was going for a vacation I managed to join the first quest which was to analyze a Sndbox member under the travel, food and homesteading genres, make a post about one of those three topics and lastly to shoot a video on why I wanted to be in Sndbox.
This was my compilation post
I remember wanting to back out because of the video but for such an opportunity I was willing to go out of my comfort zone and so I was able to submit all three tasks and lo and behold I got in to the summer camp!
I could not believe it! Out of all the more talented people out there I got picked! I was beyond happy!
I had to wait for the other quests to finish and all final participants to be identified.
Then the long wait was over and the summer camp officially began on the last week of May. I remember this because it coincided with the final preparations we have for the outreach program for Gift In Kind so everytime the Sndbox quest started I was always due to go out of town.
I remember picking Mystery Quest 2 and it was later revealed that it was a Sndbox project on how to promote Steem. Project giving which is a charity project by one of the participants was more inline with my what I like but I wanted to do something different and so going for the mystery project seemed to be a good idea.
There we were about 10 different people assigned to make a proposal on how to promote Steem. We were given two weeks but because of my outreach program I had only 10 days that I could be active in it.
So we pushed to get people to work fast and some people could not be seen nor cooperate, then something in the team dynamics happened and we lost all of the things done and had to start from scratch again but somehow we threw a Hail Mary pass and did not fumble.
We were able to complete the task and submit it. To be honest I did not think that we did so well because of the time constraint and redoing everything. yet somehow even with the issues majority of the team got accepted and went to the final elimination.
We were asked to choose one from the three projects and have it implemented and this time I picked the Charity project, Project Giving.
I was sure that I will be an asset to this team and I knew several of the people there and was comfortable.
It started out well enough and then the darkness appeared again.
Life dealt me a blow that would make me lose all desire to do anything. I sank further and further down that I was hardly there.
Promises were broken and I stopped showing up in the Discord. Abruptly I disappeared from the project.
At this point I was hardly doing anything in Steem and my engagement and activity in the platform were at an all-time low.
So stopped posting and commenting, just hiding away in my room playing video games and reading books.
I went full circle and was depressed again. it further made me sad when the results came in on who got into Sndbox but then again I expected it because I did not do anything. I blew my chance. the dream was over..
This is the first time I am writing about it. My regret on letting my depression made me stop from pursuing something that I wanted. It stopped me from being able to work towards that dream of joining sndbox.
I am so disappointed with myself.
I still write from time to time here in Steemit. Once a week I write a fiction post for Steem Monsters and I finally won in one of the contests and my story was for the Kobold Miner
This win means that my story for that creature will be added to the official lore of Steem Monsters.
Finish the Story is another thing that I still do on a weekly basis and one that I still enjoy and occasionally comment on. It is a wonderful competion where we get to enjoy different authors give their take on how they would end a story that someone else started and to manage that in 500 words or less.
Beyond winning it is the fact that I am writing a story and putting my own spin on it makes it enjoyable.
So that is my origin. The past that led me here. I also showed my Steemit life in its current iteration. As for the future I still do not know yet what I do hope is that I eventually get better.
For me to be able to pick life again instead of death. May I find purpose and set out a goal instead of just existing at this moment.
