I have been putting this
thread off for days because honestly I do not want to write it. But as tough as it is, it answers one of the very hardest questions there is: WHY. In fact why questions often do not have answers. Mine does and it is not pretty, yet I have noticed a few people lately have posted questions regarding relationships, and I want to
answer this question:
Why would I (Travis Johnson) care?
I was always a deep conservative, born of the type that always felt a person
should sleep in the bed they made for themselves. Then I worked for 9 months at ground-zero and was rather traumatized by what I saw, during that time my 19 year old sister was killed in an automobile accident, then my parents house burned to the ground. Because I had to fly home from that from my rather lucrative railroad job, and my wife of 9 years would see she was half-moved out of the house, she had to tell me she was leaving me for someone she met on the internet. It was a lot to take in a few months time; a lot of death, my boyhood home destroyed, my wife leaving me, a job I could not return too. In the written word it does not seem like much, but at the time my ability was cope was compremoized. So much that things looked pretty bleak.
So I took a rope, fastened it to the rafters of my home, cinched it around my neck (and yes it was a perfect hangman's noose) and jumped...
But a curious thing happened. I loved my parents so much that I did not want them to find my body so I called 911 and told the dispatcher where the police could find my body. Just as I called a sheriff deputy was going by, rushed in and saved my life.
After that I was taken to the emergency room where a Dr asked me how much I drank, smoked and did drugs. When I told him I never did any of those things...ever...he said, "You poor thing, you have nothing to fall back on, but because of that, you will heal faster too."
After that I spent a week at a lock down facility that id not do me much good. Partly because it was over a weekend and they had no real help during those times, and partly because people abused the system to get off the streets for awhile. And even when I did tell them what I wanted to hear and got out, my divorce, loss of a job, and no transportation was staring me in the face (the railroad provided me with a car).
But I was determined. When life gets you down, you make the best of it, so I went out, found a lady that was the exact opposite of my first wife, and got married. I mean that is what a person does right? You fall off a horse, you get right back on and do things a bit different so you do not fall off again.
It was bad from the start and never got better. After 6 years that marriage ended and I was a complete wreck. 2 failed marriages by age 37, a farm that was struggling, a lot of shame; but the worst of it was no hope. NONE! AGAIN!
In the end I realized that my way was not working and looked at my parents, married 49 years and in a lot better shape in all aspects. They had always gone to church, and while rules are stringent here on that, and I won't get into that too much, church was the direction I went.
Now...there is hope. I have a wonderful wife, a relationship I CHERISH, not to mention 4 daughters. I mean I was going to take my own life and yet I had not even created any life of my own! And of
course there is the farm, doing quite well really. Now is life always ideal? Hardly, but I have a zest for life because I almost left it all behind, and so when I see people on here that I think MIGHT even be close to doing some drastic, I try and interject, I try and let them know there is always hope.
Yes I care about people. Maybe I read too much between the lines, but that is okay. I would rather read too much, step in the gap and say "no, the lack of hope is not taking this person down, they will know someone cares". Will they all take me up on it? No, but at least I stepped in.
So now everyone on Permies know why I care.
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