Hello to all my fellow Steemians.
My name is Brian Fox. I am 41 years old and i am a NYC Sanitation worker, I also work 3 part time jobs as A Chinese food deliveryman, a Breezy Point NY public safety guard and very part time i am a locations manager for TV/Film sets, mainly commercials. Why do I have 4 jobs you ask?
Well, this is where my story begins.
About 4 years ago, I lived in Broad Channel NY, Zone A of Hurricane Sandy's wrecking path. At the time of hurricane Sandy, i was engaged to be married with 2 children on the way, our house was completely destroyed, we lost both of our cars and basically everything ive ever worked for was completely destroyed and taken from me by mother nature.
Unfortunately the home that i was living in at the time was a rental, so insurance money covered very little of what i lost mainly covered the homeowner only.
At the time of Sandy, i sent my fiancee and 2 children to live 3 hours upstate NY with my family where it was safe and secure and i would spend the next 6 months of my life living in my car, my work locker room, a friends house from time to time and pretty much wherever i could lay my head at night.
In that time, i worked with the NYC Dept of Sanitation, we were deemed heroes of the community for our cleanup efforts and in my spare time, i spent it helping others rebuild and regain what they had lost in their lives also.
Yes, my family needed help also, but i made sure i worked everyday without taking any days off so my regular check was always coming in and i would send my money to my fiancee and children every week. I knew i could survive on the bare minimum, but my family could not.
After 6 months, finally i was able to bring my family back and try to resume a normal life, which as in many other families was not an easy task starting from scratch all over again. Unfortunately, my fiancee and I started to struggle and we did not support each other as much as you would think. We eventually agreed to split up and go our seperate ways.
I noticed she was changing, relying on pain pills to get through her days. We just did not see eye to eye anymore.
For the next few months, as we lived seperately. I did whatever i could still to make her life as easy as possible, being that she had custody of my children. I paid her rent, bought her a brand new car, paid all of her debt down to $0 and basically started her over with a clean slate.
Well, apparently that was not good enough for her and neither was the $300 a week in child support i was giving her, so she filed a petition in court for more money, more child support, more child care etc.
Well.....unfortunately, NYC has the most absolutely ridiculous family court system, where if you are a man, you stand no chance.
In court, no matter all of the things i did for her previously, none of it counted for anything and the judge ordered that i pay $450 a week going forward and that i owed an additional $25,000 in arrears, even though i paid child support the whole time and day care. So weekly, i was paying well over 800 a week all together. For the next 2 years, i would receive work checks weekly of $8, if i was lucky $36. How does one survive on that? How does someone not fall into a state of depression? I lived in my car again, peoples houses temporarily and again, wherevee i could lay my head at night.
The last 3 years since then have been HELLISH. Working 3-4 jobs, sometimes not sleeping for days on end just to survive and be able to pay my bills, all the while maintaining a 3 days a week visitation schedule with my children.
My ex has done a number on me heavily.
As i stated earlier, i got her a brand new car, co signed it and that has destroyed me, she missed payments and stayed behind 2 months the whole time destroying my credit until she could not make the payment anymore and the car was repossessed (of course under my name). While she had that car, she racked up thousands and thousamds of dollars in tickets, that she never paid until one day i walked out to get into my car, only to find a boot on my car for all of her unpaid parking violations, which somehow by the grace of god i was able to scrounge up the money to pay and get the boot released off of my car, only to have this happen 5 more times in the course of the next 2 years. I also found out, she committed credit card fraud under my name and i filed an investigation into it only to be told that they did not have evidemce that she got into my account, added herself as an authorized user and sent cards to herself to max out.
There have been so many things like this that have happened since we've split up that she did so carefully and planned out every aspect that i could not catch her doing until it was just too late.
So, NOW, she is still addicted to pills, she still has custody of my children, has been evicted from the house they were in, lost two cars, and was fored from her job, but somehow the courts see no problem with this, they actually see it as a reason for me to have to give her more money, even though this woman is an absolute derelict drug addict. Unfortunately, the only way for me to get ahead is to hire a lawyer, which to be honest is very unaffordable for me at this stage in my life, even with 4 jobs.
The NOW: I just recently got intrigued by cryptocurrency. Making my first purchase of Ethereum (only 3.02 shares) because basically that was all i could afford.
Ive also took small amounts of money and bought other coins like Steemit, Ardor, Mooncoin, Dogecoin, Monero and a few other smaller ones in hopes that they will blow up one day and maybe that break i have always hoped for would happen. Cross your fingers and pray to God for me that good happens.
I am just getting started with Steemit, id love to build it up as much as possible and am still learning how it works, so any and all help from whatever friends i have so far would be tremendously appreciated.
Well....thats my story, i hope you enjoyed it and maybe opened some of your eyes to how hard it can be for certain people out there that have had everything at one point, hit hard times and it all went downhill. Today i still struggle, but my drive and positivity is at an all time high.
I have beautiful children and somehow a beautiful girlfriend that stands by my side through all the CRAP even though she really doesnt need to be there.
Thank you everyone for reading and sharing. This was my venting space. Hopefully next time i vent, it will be positive and i will have a new story on how ive become rich, got my kids back and been placed on the right path.
Sincerely,
Brian Fox
Hardworking father of two in NYC
GOD BLESS
