My story begins while looking back to the year of 1998 when I was 45 years old. During this time I was living in Baltimore, Maryland and working as a Real Estate agent with Long and Foster Realtor's, Inc. I was a Realtor and had been licensed approximately 20 years in the State of Maryland.
This had to be some of the best years of my life. These people have played such a wonderful role in my life. I will always be grateful for this. Also to witness and even to be a part of helping people with their real estate needs was such an honor for me. For me I find it very difficult to find all the best words that could describe the wonderful feeling and so much joy they gave me, the joy and excitement would pour from buyers and sellers after their housing needs were met, and this would really touch my heart. I reminded myself many times throughout my real estate career that when buying or selling a home it is probably one of the most important and emotional decisions people will ever make.
I met a Real Estate agent which was working part time in my office. Wow... she was beautiful and I felt like a lightning bolt hit me. We began dating and working together with a few transactions. After awhile she decided to do Real Estate full time and wanted to work with me.
At last the moment finally arrived and I ask her to marry me, she said YES. When our news leaked out some of the agents in our office planned a very nice wedding for us. So before very long we were married on November 18th, 2000; and The Elmore Team was formed.
My new bride Clare had a teenage son named Bryan from her previous marriage, Bryan was a really cool guy and seemed like he had all of his ducks in a row and we hit it off very well. Clare and I decided to buy a beautiful colonial home we found located in Harford County, Maryland.
Over the next few years life seemed really great for us, now we have a family and love each other very much, a beautiful home, a great career, and making pretty good money. We owned some nice cars, a very nice recreational vehicle. Clare came home one day and seemed excited, she began to tell me about these new homes that were to be built not very far from where we were now living. We completed our sales agreement with the builder, went home and put our house on the market for sale.
Our home was sold rather quickly, so we put most of our belongings into storage. At this point we moved into an apartment and waited anxiously for our home to be completed. Seemed like this process would take forever, but at last our new Carriage Home was completed and we were moved in and soon to be back to our normal routines.
Now this is when my good life as I knew it is about to take a turn for the worse, and our world begins to get scary and some major changes would soon be taking place. My visit to our family Doctor and receiving some disturbing news, my Doctor shared the results of my test which I had prior to this office visit with him. My Doctor believed I needed to stop working because my health problems would continue to get worse.
So I leaned back and took a breath and said to myself, now what am I going to do. I tried closing my eyes and thinking things would work out just fine, after all... I have always been strong minded and able to accept a challenge and be in control, take it one step at a time with the best results not allowing the challenge at hand to beat me.
At this point I headed home and she greeted me as I came through the door. We both got comfortable and began discussing my Doctor's visit, Clare seemed to be taking all of this better than I had expected. Together we decided that my being home more could be a good thing, our Boxer Dolly would have some company. So with that being said it was now declared I was officially disabled and she could handle the business.
Here we are now in the year of 2010 and the Holidays are quickly approaching and I was spending a great portion of my time home alone due to my health problems. Christmas had come now and we had a very nice dinner. It is now December 28, 2010 and I have a doctor's appointment, a pre-opt visit for a procedure in the hospital approaching.
So I went for my appointment and since we only had the one car Clare stayed to work at home. My Doctor visit went well and after a good portion of the day was over I was finally on my way home. I arrived home and went in and said hello to Clare and she said hello and with her coat already on she picked up a bag and said she would be right back, I said slow down Clare what is so urgent. Don't you want to know about my hospital arrangements? Clare told me she promised an agent she would take her something she really needed in a hurry. O k, I said be careful and I will fill you in when you get back.
I took my coat off and started into the kitchen and the phone rang, I answered and it was Clare calling, I ask her if she forgot something and she said I'm leaving you John and getting a divorce, I will call you later and hung up. Wow, I didn't have a clue I thought... what did I do to bring this on like this? What can I say, I was upset but what can I do. I didn't even have a car now. So I went upstairs to change and immediately noticed a lot of things were missing, all of our files and check books, cash, her clothes etc. Now it was very obvious that while I was at the Doctors office someone had to have come into our home; and helped to carry our possessions out, and I knew I had our only car so she didn't do this by herself.
So here it is on December 28, 2010 and my wife has a banned me and my life as I knew it was over. After a couple of weeks Clare called and said she was coming to the house to bring me some food and talk to me about our future. Clare had made up her mind, let me rephrase this, I believed Clare's mind was made up with the help of someone else. Clare informed me she had hired an attorney and they would be contacting me with the details.
My Boxer Dolly and I remained here in the house through most of winter. It was a very lonely and cold winter, seemed as though spring was never coming. After some time had slowly passed by I called and talked with my Nephew Tim Elmore in West Virginia. Tim and his wife lived not very far from where I was born. They both said I could live on their property if could find myself a camper. I said OK and thanked them very much and said I would fill them in once I had the details worked out.
I began packing my things and was planning to move out of the house in the spring when the weather had cleared up some. So now the big day has arrived, March 14, 2011 and I am moving out. I have my things loaded up in a U haul truck with my faithful companion on the passenger side and I am on the road going home, back to my roots where I was born in 1953, wild and wonderful, almost Heaven West Virginia. I arrived later that day and would soon buy a camper to live in on my Nephew's property.
Feeling as down as I could feel one day I began thinking about God. I thought maybe I was being punished, I knew I was far from perfect and nobody special. I thought over and over why God would let me suffer like this, why me, I tried to understand or find the answer but I couldn't. There were these over whelming thoughts that came over me that is hard to explain but I knew at this point in my life with no uncertainty I needed to know God, I mean not to just know of God but to Know God. My mind was made up, come Sunday morning I was going to church.
Sunday morning arrived and I was up real early and was going to church. I drove into Elkins and passed a few churches on the way and soon found myself walking into a very nice church called Otterbein United Methodist Church. I'm not going to lie to you, I was so nervous but maybe even afraid too. Quickly I found a seat and noticed this church had so many people there, at least a hundred I thought. The service began and I was moved somehow by seeing all these people, there were many families with children and everyone just seemed so happy. Even though this really touched my heart I was feeling so sad because of my own situation. The service was very nice and I was sorry to see it ending now. As the people were leaving the church the Pastor came back and introduced himself to me; his name is Pastor James Murphy. He asks me if he could follow me back to where I live and we could share some conversation. I said sure, that would be o k. I found myself explaining now that he might not be very comfortable because I didn't have the best situation right now. Pastor Murphy said that was fine and he would follow me back to where I lived.
In a few minutes we arrived where I was living and I introduced him to my boxer Dolly, it was love from the start. We both put a chair to sit in near this holly tree by the creek and my camper. It was a beautiful day, very peaceful and I felt something special that day. We talked awhile and seemed to really hit it off.
As time went on Pastor Jim and I have become very good friends. Pastor Jim is truly a wonderful man and I am sure God must be proud of him. He has such a good heart, down to earth, always helping people and you can tell he always goes the extra mile to help. I feel so honored to have Pastor Jim as a part of my life and a friend of mine. As time would go on Pastor Jim and I would go to many places and he was introducing me to many people. I was learning a great deal about things I had always been kind of troubled with or maybe I could say some things weren't as clear to me as I would have liked.
Now being out around people more often made me realize how lonely I was. Feeling sad and lonely continued to be my daily way of living, from time to time I would think about people that commit suicide and tell myself I believe if they are living the way I am it's no wonder they don't want to live any more. If we try and put our self in their state of mind we can realize a little of what they must be dealing with. Just try and imagine for a moment if you would, you have worked your whole life and in a heartbeat you lose everything.
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A miracle is what I think is needed in my life, I need some hope that my life will improve soon but how I wondered. Finding myself alone and troubled many times I would think about my past life I shared with my first and second wife; married twice for about 34 years all together. I shared about 22 years with my first wife Evalyn (this is how her name is spelled) and she left me. Then I shared about 12 years of my life with Clare and she left me.
I'm not sure if I will ever understand how this can happen to anyone. I have come to an understanding I believe at this point in my life. I believe when you share your life for years with someone and even if there were no love in the picture you still develop a lot of habits with that person, and these habits being interrupted so abruptly gives us a lot of pain and is very hard to adjust to.
Earlier when I mentioned a miracle is what I think is needed in my life, I believe this is exactly what happened to me now. I met this beautiful woman named Diana and she was different from any woman I had ever met. Wow, she could play the piano and sing. She has this beautiful voice which she can pitch out like she has built in amplifiers. We dated for awhile and I believe we love each other in a very special way so we decided to keep our relationship on friendship basics for the time being.
Diana knew how my life was going now and how unhappy I was. We knew each other for awhile and she ask me one day if I would like to take a look at this land she owns near Buckhannon, West Virginia. She said if I liked the property she would sell it to me, so we went to have a look and I thought the land was perfect for me and was also located in a great place. Well we met and signed our sales agreement with the notary; I made the first payment in December of 2011. This act of kindness Diana gave me is something so special that really touched my heart in such a way that words can't describe and I will be grateful to her forever.
Now I continued living on my Nephews property until about mid March 2012 as I knew moving when the weather improved would be better. My moving day has finally arrived and I was so glad to be moving to my own property, the first place I could call home since March 14th, 2011. I know that I was only living on my Nephews property a year but to me it seemed like forever. Wow, the move took place and I was finally here in Buckhannon, West Virginia, I must have looked like a kid on Christmas morning. At least this is how I was feeling.
My property consists of approximately 1 and 1/3 acres with some of the land wooded and some cleared. This winter has been worse than the first two it seems, extreme cold and a lot of snow storms. One fear I have during the winter is the power outages. I mostly heat my camper with an electric heater, it also has a propane heat furnace but the two tanks are too small to last very long. If I am snowed in and these little tanks run out of propane gas I am in serious trouble. I should have a nice generator for emergencies but they are very expensive so this will have to wait awhile. Also because of the cold winters my water line from the well freezes from time to time and when this happens I have no water until I can get it thawed and or replace broken fittings.
This winter has also taught me a little bit about how people lived in the old days. The past two winters I managed to keep my hot water heater from freezing and bursting. This winter I wasn't so lucky, the continued extreme cold finally beat me. My water heater froze and ruptured, which destroys the heater and a replacement is my only option. However even though I have installed water heaters in campers in the past and believe I can install a new one in this camper; the cost for the replacement heater is ranging from $600 to $700.00.
Most of this winter; I heated my water with the stove to wash. This is not fun when the area you're washing in is so cold (BURR), you know like how the chill hits you when you get out of the shower. While I am belly aching I should mention this is the first time in my life with no clothes washer and dryer as well.
Concerning my diet I will say this, I believe some improving is very much desired! Receiving my Social Security Disability check on or about the third of every month is helping me stay alive. Every month when I receive my check I make a trip to the Wal-Mart to do my food shopping. Knowing that I have to be very careful not to spend too much or I may not have enough money left for paying the electric bill as well as my other utilities. Staying focused on the spending because I know it adds up very quickly and almost every time when I see the total at the check-out register I am sick in my stomach and I get kind of nervous. I wonder at times how a married couple with one or two children can survive at all. Compared to the money people are earning I believe the cost of food is too high.
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There is no way I can afford the food I would like to have or maybe even deserve. I won't buy any meat, cheese, most can goods, cereal, snacks or bakery items, most frozen food, ice cream, potato chips, pretzels, pickles, vegetables, fruit, frozen pizza, can soups, and too many other items to mention.
Mostly I buy the same items every month. I will buy some oatmeal, milk, dozen eggs, Bisquick, 2 loafs of bread, spaghetti noodles and sauce to cook with no meat, 12 pack of Ramen noodle soup. Yes, I am sick of this but it goes a long way. I do have one item maybe I should eliminate but I really enjoy my soda.
Hard to believe for some maybe but even with my discipline when it comes to spending I am over $ 50,000.00 in debt now, and my credit was destroyed after my last divorce.
At the moment I believe continuing forward would be a good thing. Feeling so embarrassed and ashamed of myself while sharing my personal situation with you like this is growing rapidly in an attempt to consume my heart and thought process. I continue to remind myself to stay focused and share the truth with the world and ignore my personal feelings if I am to help anyone. You see I am sharing some of my story with you because my struggling has to end now to be within my predetermined plan. And in sharing this part of my story with you my desire is to inspire someone reading this; maybe even you.
Most of this story you have read has been about my life and struggles, you know what, that's life, right... or is it really. Moving forward now is the moment where I get back on my journey; to a much deserved and prosperous life. Now this is the part of my story I can tell without the overwhelming feeling of shame and embarrassment.
Now maybe my hitting bottom as I like to think of it has a bright side for our future. Throughout my life I have always believed maybe there is a plan in place throughout the whole duration of whatever we are caught up in; and we may not see or be aware of it. Now before I go any farther there is this little tidbit I want to share with you. As far back in my life as I can remember many people thought I was weird or strange because of my thought process or my actions witnessed; my family, friends, wives, doctors, teachers, preachers, Lawyers, well just about everyone that knew me I guess. Personally, I have always thought I'm not strange or weird; not even that different. Well for now let's just say I'm exactly the same only different; is that fair.
If we think back to when the internet came about I'm sure there were many people that thought the person or persons involved with this idea was strange or weird.
What about the crazy concept of email, those developers must have appeared to many folks as being really weird or strange; they must have had their elevator stuck between floors for sure.
Now if we give the internet some thought we might see a new way of understanding those people that were involved with the idea; do you see it... www = the WORLD WIDE WEB. Maybe you have noticed there is a lot of business taking place on the internet. Take notice of all the stores for instance Walmart, Target, Amazon, eBay, JC Penny, Costco, Sam's Club, Home Depot, Lowes, Starbucks, and I could go on until I keel over probably.
But it gets even better, Automobile Mfg., Utility Company' s, Hospitals, State, Local State and Government, and once again I could go on for a long time. There is a lot of spending and sharing taking place on the internet. I believe we should join in this sharing process ourselves. After all, there is plenty to share with the Billions of people on the internet everyday 24/7. OK, hold onto these thoughts for now and I will come back to this in a little while. Let's move forward, back to my story.
After what appears to me as my life being destroyed and moving to West Virginia I'll be the first to admit my life seemed to be worthless, and a consistent uphill struggle for me. This has led me to put things in perspective and I'll explain this.
You may recall earlier I spoke about my always believing there is a plan in place but maybe we don't see it. Now with that being said if we take a closer look at my story I believe there are clues to the plan!
I became disabled.
My wife left me.
I moved to West Virginia.
I am homeless.
Over $ 50,000.00 in debt.
I am struggling month to month.
Learning what it is like to go to bed hungry.
I could list more but I'm sure you have the idea.
The first step is to look at some of what I have done in the first 1 and ½ years since I arrived here in West Virginia.
I know what it is to struggle...
I turned to God and went to Church...
I became very close to my friend Pastor James Murphy...
I spent roughly 1 and ½ years with Pastor Jim being introduced to many of God's Children... the rich, the poor, handicapped, homeless, inmates and ex-inmates, care providers, Doctors, Federal and State Agencies, Homeless Shelters, etc.
The second step is to look at what I have done in the second 1 and ½ years since I arrived here in West Virginia.
Stayed confined in my camper praying and researching for a way to earn extra money with the internet which could help so many people and myself that are struggling...
Discovered like any other way to make money, there is always someone out there who just wants to make money...
Spent a lot of time and money chasing every shiny get rich scheme to earn money...
Now if we combine or add up the first and second 1 and ½ years the answer is Three Years; which is now the total of how long I have been here in West Virginia. So now I believe we can see the clues for my plan!
Seek God First.
Know that everything of good is only because of God.
Know that I am determined to improve the way I am living.
Know that I must help all those that also desire to improve the way they are living.
Know the internet is a way to offer value to people around the World.
Know that there are Billions of People on the internet, which are also Consumers.
Share the value of the internet with everyone by sharing my journey to ending our struggles.
After spending a lot of money on shiny objects and false promises that never had a chance of making a dime, making many mistakes, and one and a half years of learning about marketing online; I believe finally I am now going in the right direction to begin making money and my life will change for the better.
As I mentioned earlier, I am determined to make money on the internet like so many are doing now to improve their life. If you Google some you will discover a lot of people are making millions of dollars, as for myself right now my goal is to just make my first dollar. I will continue to share with you my progress I'm making while going forward on this journey. My hope is that I will be able to save a lot people from making the same mistakes I made.
I would appreciate it, and be very grateful if you would please let me know what your thoughts are on this, maybe you can also relate and have a story of your own.
Thank you for giving me your time to share some of my life story with you. I really appreciate this very much. This writing business is brand new to me and I sure hope you were not disappointed.
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