Introduce Yourself - Hello Hivers!

Hello hello hello! After just short of a week poking around on here I have finally decided to write my #introduceyourself post!

My name is Erik, I am a 27(I think? I'm lost) year old person from Vermont, USA. In ambitious periods of time during my past, I had really hoped to become an author. I wanted to write under a pen name; and developed Herbert Holmes. The name itself was a combination of stolen names from popular culture(well, the "popular culture" in my circles). Herbert was drawn from Re-Animator, and Holmes was taken from H.H. Holmes.

I wrote on Steemit for a short period of time. I attempted to be as involved in the community as possible and made a few friends along the way. Unfortunately, most of said friends kind of evaporated off the blockchain, and some went to other projects that I was never competent enough to understand. All of this, although I have a very basic understanding of it, is still difficult for me. Therefore, I think at the time I was too intimidated to start trying to figure out a new platform- as I had just conquered my understanding of Steem after quite a bit of struggle.

My Steemit presence ended abruptly and for a litany of reasons that could be an entire book on my life and the way shit happens sometimes. I lost my apartment due to a combination of a broken ankle, an ex-partner who wouldn't help with rent, and a completely insane landlord. Said landlord took all of my belongings including my computer, passcodes, and my safe containing my physical money. The computer was never returned.

Shortly after all of that, I ended up in a new stage of my life; back to living with a whole bunch of my friends in an over-crowded snowboard house. I managed to get my hands on a cheap computer during that time, but it stopped working one day. I was still heavily dealing with the repercussions of the prior event and I was also dealing with serious mental health issues stemming from the prior 5 years of my life specifically.

During this time I was working at my local ski resort. I worked as a snowmaker primarily, but also worked at the terrain park(my favorite job I've ever had, aside from the pay), at lifts(my least favorite), and on the golf course. While I was working in the Park, I met my fiancee.

Many ski resorts do an international college student program(J1 Visa Program), in which college students may travel to work during their summer break(I believe also during semesters but I am not sure). The morning routine with Parks is, you get ready at 6:45 am, prepare the entire park for opening before the lifts start running, and then by that point the cafeteria is open so we head over for breakfast.

I quickly fell in love with the Chilean woman who was mainly doing prep or working the grill; but never at the window to take orders or giving me an opportunity to speak with her. Throughout the season, I started going into the cafeteria more and more frequently, hoping that I would find the right opportunity to speak with her.

Apparently, I wasn't alone in sharing this feeling. From my knowledge she had never even looked at me; had absolutely no idea who I was. In fact, the one time she did come to take my breakfast order I couldn't be more excited. I said something to her, and she stared at me in utter confusion, and then just turned around and yelled "Will!" and walked away. I later came to found out she just couldn't understand what I said and was embarrassed. Then, one day, I got a random follow on Instagram(I have only about 800 followers, so it's not common), and I realized it was her.

That struck me. There was no way she could have found me easily whatsoever; we had no mutual friends, other than the afore-mentioned Will, my extremely flamboyant Costa Rican friend. It turns out, she had been talking to Will about me.

From there, I tried to figure out a way to initiate a conversation with her. It eventually happened, and shortly after that we hung out for the first time. I went to her place, and the next day I brought my dog there and ended up being there for over a week.

That time ended, and she had to go back to Chile. We both had strong feelings that we weren't fully expecting to have. I told her that I would come visit her, but I'm not sure if she believed me at the time. However, she did shortly after, and we were in this weird kind of cyber-relationship that neither of us was 100% sure about but we both felt unusually attached to each other. I had NO money at the time, and was in no place to travel to another country. This was a whole new thing for me; I'm used to bottle returns, couches, and eating rice for a week straight.

I worked 3 jobs for the rest of the spring/early summer. In late June 2019, I went to Chile for three months. I had just enough money to survive, no amazing work perspectives, a last-minute rush to leave my things here taken care of; it was a really risky send for me. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to get myself into. Additionally, her and I could not be more of opposite people; so although I was set on my feelings, I wasn't sure how should would really feel about me after 3 months.

But, honestly, it was one of the best times of my life. It wasn't always comfortable, nor easy, but it was amazing. Things quickly became very serious. At the end of my Visa, I had to go back to the USA, but we were already planning everything out.

She is currently finishing up school. She had to remain in Chile until her semester finished, and then she flew back to Vermont to live with me and work at the ski resort on the program again. She was here from the beginning of December through the very end of March. On that day that she left, I was supposed to go with her, and successfully bring Raiden(my dog) this time(he contracted Lyme disease last year so I had to leave him with a friend). However, COVID blocked me from being allowed to travel, so we were separated once again.

In February I had asked her to marry me. I hadn't even been planning it. I was working in the park one day and found a plastic child's dinosaur ring in the snow. Later that evening, I used it to propose to her. She enthusiastically said yes! Once it started becoming apparent that I was not going to be able to go back to Chile with her, due to border restrictions, we considered doing the marriage right here and then to help our international situation- but ultimately decided that it wasn't the way we wanted to get married.

So, all of that brings me to now I suppose. Being unexpectedly separated from her has caused some odd hiccups in my life. I had a job lined up there, a place to live, etc., so I had to do some scrambling to get things together for myself. I was fortunate to find quite a bit of isolated work to distract me from being away from Isidora, and I ended up buying a refurbished computer.

I had bought the computer originally to write research-based books serving to help convince some of the ignorant people here about the reality of which we live in; police state, systemic racism, general discrimination, the judicial system, etc. My goal is just to reach some people; even my family needs some help to educate themselves more on these issues. Additionally, I have been trying to get some local awareness and fundraising projects happening around here, and the computer became necessary even just with trying to keep up with correspondence and making pamphlets, signs, etc. I've forgotten how incredible having a computer is.

I am still dealing with the repercussions of the landlord incident of 2018. Part of that is a current at-loss as to the location of my key book. I do believe it exists, but it might not be until after COVID that I will be able to access it. I immediately signed up for a new Steem account.

INSTANTLY, I could tell something was off. I was looking through all my friends and comments and trying to find out where everyone was. The "last seen" date for almost every single person was within the same few, recent months, so I knew something big had happened.

I don't know how it took me so long afterwards to discover hive blog. I had learned about HIVE through my research, and had looked at a few platforms but somehow missed that exactly what I was looking for what right there under "Hive blog".

I hopped on just shy of a week ago. I have been pretty silent as I've been trying to catch up with some of the things I might have missed. The only thing I've really personally done so far is play around with Actifit, as I was curious.

I think it's time for me to introduce myself to the community and start getting back into it! I have missed this experience quite a bit. If anyone remembers @herbertholmes from Steemit, I would love to reconnect! I guess during all this rant I have failed to mention more about who I am;

I am too tall for society. I have serious mental health problems(that I finally have "under control"). I have the cutest dog in the world. His name is Raiden, he's almost 5 and is a rescue mix that looks a lot like a Rottweiler. I am obsessed with horror. I am interested in witchcraft- of an innocent interest(mainly self-defined witchcraft such as Chaos Magick). I love hiking and biking as much as possible. I also like walking around cities aimlessly for hours with headphones in. I am obsessed with music; really every genre, but mostly I'd guess I listen to punk and reggae. I like spending money I don't have to support people I like. My biggest passion is snowboarding- as a teenager I wanted to figure out a way to make it a job. I guess I kind of did. It is my therapy. I love to skateboard- but I have what a friend of mine once called "dumb feet"- so the progression curve flattened quickly with that. I like to try to DIY things. I don't like capitalism. I really love people. And plants. I read once in a book by Nick Blinko(frontman of Rudimentary Peni) that there is a well established psychological link between an internal obsession with death leading to an unusual interest in preserving external life. I think that applies to me tenfold. I like to create art but I am not an artist. I like to make clothes but I am no designer. I like to grow plants but I am no where close to a botanist. I guess I just like to experiment with things.

I don't know what else to say for now! That was a long rant that I hadn't really planned when I sat down. I hope it is somewhat readable. I really hope to find the community here that I did previously on Steemit; it seems like it exists, but even better! I would love to connect with anyone!

Also, I am having a shitload of trouble editing my profile. I am wondering if anyone has ran into this issue(it just never submits).

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