I have traveled to all corners of my locale, met with and spoken to all sorts of new and interesting people, strengthened and formed new relationships with lots of characters and friends and feel as if I finally have some sense of place and worth in this world outside of just RacketBoy which until recently felt lacking or simply nonexistent.
I have been with you all for nearly four years now and yet in the last my presence and standing in the Racketboy community have all but eroded completely. I've lost your respect and my integrity here as a direct result of my ignorance and inaction and I've no one to blame but myself. In fact I'm guessing most of the newer regulars on here haven't even heard of me or like Mozgus have only little mentions here and there like the whispers of an old long gone legend on a school campus. Maybe that's how it was all destined to pan out; that as I evolved from my closed in shell-like teenage personality to that of a confident outgoing adult shaped by my experiences and mistakes here on Racketboy I would begin leaving or evolving (what have you) away from it. Or that I would begin spending more time outside of the site and in the open world than inside on the boards.
Chances are none of you will even read this far into my post and that's OK. If you have then thank you, and I very much appreciate your kindness in hearing me out and listening to my convoluted and sometimes emotional thoughts.
I came here a complete and broken down wreck. If any of you don't know the story (or can't remember it) I showed up here like a lost kid. Depressed, suicidal and getting ready to rant about some topic. I remember having printed out tons of the articles years ago, making an account and leaving behind two BS posts. Then, about ten months later through the magic of Google I bumped back into the site after having completely forgotten about it. I logged on, posted a few comments, and since I was bored and had some time stuck around and browsed the forums.
But something different happened I wouldn't have expected, I stuck around. Every thread, every forum-goer, every comment and post was unique and different. Nobody tries to be a snarky jerk or one up anyyone, and you are all the kindest people I had ever met before. In those few short days afterwards which turned into the years leading up to now you all saved and changed my life. I was so close to actually killing myself that if it hadn't been for RacketBoy and a friend I made in the subsequent course of my opening up as a person that I'm even here to talk with you today.
It is with the utmost honor to say that I have never met a finer group of people in my life than on here at RacketBoy and without any of you my life would be either a sham of what it is now or snuffed out long ago. All of the people from RacketBoy I have met in real life and had the pleasure of speaking with at great length online are the most genuine, honest and straight to the point people I have ever met. Not to mention you have all been so kind and nice to me over the time I've been here that it's tough to believe a gathering of individuals the likes of you all truly exists in this world to me. You guys have given me everything from friendly PMs; to rallying behind me early last January when I was selling most of my collection to purchase my first car, which in and of itself became the single largest factor in moving me out into the world since finding RacketBoy itself. I had never truly gained my first taste of freedom and adulthood outside of my phone bill and a crappy job and when I finally sat behind the wheel it felt so amazing to know I could go anywhere and do anything for once without having to wait on anyone or beg for a favor. (To this day I still keep a stack of RacketBoy business cards in the glovebox ready for giving out too.
)All my time on this earth I have been ridiculed, trodden upon, told my ideas and dreams were worthless but here on RacketBoy I learned that even if I wanted to do, find or achieve something nigh impossible I should just go for it with simple positive reinforcement in a caring and kind atmosphere with people that I now equate on the same level as the best of friends and family.
If this sounds stupid or crazy to anyone then I apologize, but to say I love you all in some way or sense of the word would be the best way to put it forth. You've all made me into a person which is far greater than the sum of what he was going to become given the wreck of a loser I was when I met you all. This week as I turned twenty and reflected back on the past two decades of my life I saw how I had grown and changed, when I moved across the country to where I am now, my first girlfriend, leaving my childhood behind as I entered high school and the workforce, proposing to my fiancée, my new job and more have all truly solidified my evolution out of my adolescence into the new and unknown world of adulthood.
I simply wanted to say thank you to all of you here on the RacketBoy community and Nick himself for the friendship, love and care you have all given me over the years and for the honor & privilege of helping moderate this community with the other excellent and incredibly nice members of the moderation and site staff over the years. I've been long gone as of late, but it's been too long and I miss my family of friends here on the site.
I'll be around a lot more often coming up. I know most of you probably won't believe me given my spotty track record this past year, but I just felt that I needed to focus on my life in the past few months to make sure I would be able to evolve as a person outside of the RacketBoy community as well. With all of the great and unsettling life changes that have been coming so quickly to me I've just been unable to cope with all the things on my plate. But, I can confidently say that there will always be room for this community and it's members.
Thank you to all who read this far and I hope you all take this with a smile on your face and a bounce in your step, because I will tomorrow knowing that I still feel so great about the place that has made me incredibly happy in many different ways over the last four years of my life.
I don't even know if I directly contributed to all the nice things you mention in your post but that is not important - the community as a whole did. And you are also part of it and who knows, your contribution here may have been similarly important for someone else as well.
