Everything changes ...

Here it is, more than two years since I last posted here or my other blog, Jay: Inside-Out, and so much has changed.

In July 2007, I was newly-married for the second time and off to New Orleans to run a new cable contractor owned by someone I thought was a friend. Instead I found him to be a crook who was stealing from his employees. I wanted nothing to do with it and moved on to be an assistant manager at another contractor for much more money. That owner blew his money gambling and couldn't pay anyone several weeks later, so I was able to move back to a tech position at yet another company. Talk about frustration ...

All the stress didn't help matters at home, which just never seemed to settle into the solid, rock-steady marriage Jenn and I had envisioned. Finances were looking rough, our relationship was pretty rocky and neither of us felt we had a reason to look up. Friends of hers back in Delaware asked us to rent their house and promised we'd find jobs easy. We talked about it, figured maybe things would be better with family around and I was already buddies with the husband of one of her friends, so maybe I could make some friends to go spend time with in a healthy way.

We sold a bunch of stuff, packed up and moved. We found jobs, we fought, we argued, we settled down, we fought more and then it just fell apart. Oddly things broke at about the same time we were to celebrate our second anniversary. Renee and I separated around our anniversary, too. Jenn went to stay at her parents and I scrambled to find someplace to stay.

Enter Nancy, a new friend from work who was from the same part of PA as me. She offered me her couch and whatever space I could carve out between a half dozen cats, two big dogs, her and her daughter. It was cramped, it was sometimes too hot and sometimes too cold and it was home. Nancy and Sara were, and are, like family, and I will never be able to repay them for their kindness.

During my stay there I started to write a little more, get back into photography and even play Final Fantasy XI again.

Things were getting tense at my work and they were running up on their time to move. I applied for a position with the company a friend in Florida works for and was hired. Said friend invited me to move in and now here I am.

The Phillies are playing game 2 tonight of their second World Series in a row, looking to (believe it or not) defend their championship from last year.

I have great friends and make new ones all the time. I may not be rich in money, but my life is rich. The love of my sons and my friends makes it so. Everything changes; that doesn't mean it goes away, just that ... it changes.