Finding Purpose
Going All In
In the fall of 2021, I decided to go all in. That year, I had been taking time to adjust—to being a frozen foods clerk in Stockton and living off that income. I did what I thought was best: I committed. I went all in.
I remember Thanksgiving 2021. Things weren’t great between my wife and me. We had just celebrated her birthday at Captain Crab, and I had only just started to get myself into a good headspace. That night, though, my world came crashing down.
I had a conversation with my partner and professed my desire to go all in—do whatever it would take to make amends for my perceived misdeeds and be the partner I knew I could be. Unfortunately, that sentiment wasn’t reciprocated. I was essentially told my efforts were too little, and I was too late.
Too little, too late.
Those words burned into my brain. My interdimensionals feasted on them. They took that phrase and swirled it through my mind, and in that moment, I felt the season shift. I could tell my wife of nearly a decade was ready to move on.
And how could I blame her? I was a shell of my former self. For so long, I didn’t even know who I truly was.
How could I ask her to love me if I didn’t even love myself?
I stayed over that night. As is tradition in the Jackson household, I put up the Christmas tree while playing holiday music, getting the house ready and the Christmas spirit started. But after bawling in front of her and crying myself to sleep in the early morning hours, I drove home.
It was one of the worst nights—and days—of my life. I was distraught, melancholic, and defeated.
I showered and got ready for her to bring the kids over and help set up the house. She arrived that morning, but something felt different this year. After years of doing this tradition, the coldness of the previous conversation made it clear—nothing would be the same.
There was massive tension in the air. I’m sure the kids picked up on it—from Mom’s eyebrows to Dad’s sulking shoulders and face. Both of us were more distant than we had ever been.
We got the tree up quicker than ever, and the whole experience felt… cold. The air outside was warmer than inside the house. When we finished, she said, “Okay boys, tell your dad goodbye.”
I got my holiday photo of the boys. We hugged, and I told them I loved them.
As soon as the door closed behind them, I felt it.
The gut punch of a lifetime.
My family wasn’t a family anymore.
They were heading back up north, and I was alone.
I lost it.
I started bawling. Every emotion imaginable hit me like a ton of bricks. Guilt. Anger. Frustration. Sadness. Disappointment. All of it left me reeling, writhing in agony. I felt hopeless.
My identity was rooted in being a dad and a family man. And I felt like I had lost the one thing I believed no one could take from me: my family.
And I had no one to blame but myself.
I had nothing left. I felt a deep sadness inside. I had lost my will to carry on.
I had purchased a gun for my birthday—as a celebratory gift and for personal safety. But now, I sobbed as I wrote a note. My interdimensionals had won. They got the best of me. I just wanted the pain to stop.
My only fear wasn’t stepping into the darkness. It was the thought of my kids finding me—gone, lying on the kitchen floor.
My biggest fear was that they’d stop playing sports.
And I didn’t want that.
Watching them play brought me more joy than anything else in this world. Seeing them play and have fun was the happiest I’d ever felt.
I wept as those thoughts filled my head.
Pushing it all aside was my “deep breath” moment.
I paused. I slowed everything down. I focused on the task.
In that moment, I raised the barrel to my temple and was ready—to return to my home star and begin my afterlife.
Then my phone rang.
A second before it would’ve all been over.
It was the boys’ mom’s number. I somehow knew it wasn’t her calling—it was the boys. I quickly answered, wiped my tears, cleared my throat, and tried to put some bass in my voice to hide the fact I’d been weeping and was at my wit’s end.
Then I heard it.
Little him. Baby Trey’s voice on the other end:
“Hey Dad, we’re coming back. Mom’s gonna drop us off. We’re on our way back right now. We wanna spend the day with you.”
Tears streamed down my swollen eyes.
I cleared my throat and responded,
“Okay buddy. I love you guys. I’ll see you soon.”
My voice cracked on the word “soon.”
Trey Willy was my Guardian Angel that day.
I cleaned myself up. I pulled myself together. I put the journal away. I returned the gun to the safe.
And I waited for my boys to come home.
The universe showed me that miracles do happen.
Even after that night… I’m still here.
Trying to Win Back What Was Lost
Even after that night, I still felt compelled to win my family back. I poured energy into the house—installed new flooring, upgraded the bathroom, refreshed the space. I wanted it to feel like a new beginning, a reason for her to come “home.”
We co-hosted a birthday party for the boys. For me, it wasn’t just a party—it was also a housewarming, a symbol of change. I put everything into it. Time. Money. Emotion. Effort. I had to try. I had to be able to look myself in the mirror and say I did everything I could. I had to look into my kids’ faces and know I gave it my all.
This was my family.
In the spring of 2022, I did something I rarely do: I prayed for a sign. I told God I was tired of being stuck in the middle. I didn’t want to live in that gray area anymore. I needed clarity—something real, something I couldn’t ignore.
And wouldn’t you know it? The very next day, the universe delivered.
She left some seeds in her newly purchased car. I offered to grab them—trying to be helpful, trying to be kind. That’s when I found it. The evidence. The smoking gun that confirmed every suspicion I had kept buried.
That moment changed everything.
I realized the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. And I nearly went no-contact with my kids’ mother. Unfortunately, that meant I put too much pressure on my boys—expecting them to be messengers between us. They had to carry the emotional weight that wasn’t theirs to bear.
A few weeks later, I received a photo that sealed it. Confirmation. Finality.
The universe had spoken again: I was doing the right thing.
So, a little after Easter—after a flood of hostile texts—I asked for a divorce.
A few months after I asked for the divorce, I received the dissolution packet—irreconcilable differences. It was official. The financial strain hit fast and hard. When I stepped down from my ASTL role into a frozen foods clerk position, I also lost a significant chunk of income.
I had been responsible. I sent my bonus money straight to the mortgage account—eight months of payments prepaid. I thought I had given myself a cushion. But when those payments were due again, I was juggling a primary mortgage, a second mortgage, and a job that no longer supported the life I had built.
And worst of all, I had no one to blame but myself.
The naysayers were right. I was falling deeper into debt. I was on the verge of losing everything I had worked so hard to build. My house. My identity. My pride.
By fall, things took a dramatic turn for the worse. The stock market plummeted. The Fed—who hadn’t even been thinking about raising interest rates—went on to enact one of the most aggressive rate hikes in history. Everything deteriorated.
Family relationships started unraveling. Professionally, I was struggling. I was working the worst department, with minimal hours and even less support from the night crew. On top of that, I was going back and forth through tense, cold divorce negotiations.
I was barely hanging on.
They told me I was getting help from a step-up night crew lead. I was trying to manage the new auto-ordering systems, and I needed him to help cycle count and true up inventory numbers. He refused. Said he wasn’t getting step-up pay, so he wasn’t doing it.
I explained: I’m not getting step-up pay either, and I still do it. Cycle counts aren’t just for leads—they’re for anyone on CAO. It’s best practice. I even trained on the system because my old store was a pilot location. I made it a priority to understand it, so I didn’t look incompetent when people asked about it.
But that conversation broke me.
I yelled in the aisle. Loud. For my lead. For anyone. But no one heard me. Or maybe they just didn’t care. I felt invisible—unappreciated, unheard, unsupported. This was the “help” I was promised.
I went upstairs to document the exchange, but I couldn’t breathe. I had a full-blown anxiety attack. My chest was tight. My head was spinning. I couldn’t do it anymore.
Everything had come to a head.
I opened up to my store team lead (STL), Laurie M. I was an emotional wreck. I had lost control—again. And this time, it happened at work. In public.
It was official: the low was in.
Even lower than when I nearly took my life the year before.
But my STL listened. Laurie got me the help I needed. I was referred to our employee assistance program and taken off the schedule to seek professional treatment. I had to be let out of the side door, because I couldn’t even walk through the store in that condition.
It happened the day before my 21st anniversary with the company.
I didn’t know whether to cry from the pain or the irony.