Happy Birthday to me

Hi all, hope everyone's weekend is working out the way they envisioned it :)

As indicated in my test blog below, I'm going to copy and paste a story I wrote on November 8th, 2011. The post was initially posted on OCAU and was quickly moved to "The Pool Room" where only the best threads end up, in over 10 years only 89 threads have ever been moved to this forum. The post itself has been viewed 8386 times and the amount of feedback I received was quite amazing. So, without further ado:




Hi Everyone,

Today is my 27th birthday, i'm alone in my room no one else here, I have no plans to go out tonight or have anyone special over. Even if I wanted to - there is nobody to invite.

Sounds pretty depressing right? If there's anyone else out there that loves scrolling through forums and just likes to read random stories, let me explain to you why i'm all alone on my 27th birthday...

I've led a very good life so far, I always had lots of friends in school, brothers to fight with and my mum never said no to us, she sent us all to private school and always pushed for us to have the best education possible. Life never really got any harder, I went to uni just "because" studying multimedia studies. Half way through my degree I got a job in web design at the age of 19 which paid an absurd amount of money at the time considering my qualifications.


Man I hated it, absolutely hated that job, I lasted 2 months and left the industry completely, I deferred from uni and never went back. It was during my uni years though that I lived at what was nicknamed "The Ghetto". I think at 1 point in time we had 11 people living there, all computer nerds all just gaming all day every day (and night). This went on for about 3 years, party,LAN,party,LAN rinse repeat. Life was good (ha). I eventually decided enough was enough and I moved to Brisbane in 2005, I decided it was time to get a job, start getting a life.

So I got a girlfriend, I got a job doing Data Entry and interacting with new people, once again life was good, I had money! I completely stopped gaming, to a point where I lived in a house that only had dialup for internet so that I wasn't able to game. That didn't last long as I quickly got involved with the Counter-Strike LAN scene in Brisbane, joining and participating in tournaments. I would work come home, prac, girlfriend, sleep, Repeat.

Eventually the girlfriend broke up with me and not to long I started going out with another girl, whom I would eventually be with for 3 years and bought a house with.

Big mistake.

Within 1 year of owning the house together we broke up. I had been in my job for now 5 years, this mediocre shit office job that I didn't even like. It was time to evaluate my life. What was I doing, where had the years gone and what do I REALLY want to do? I stopped playing CS immediately and started partying, I got wasted pretty much every night with my friend and go to work the next day hungover as heck, only to do it again and again, we found out the best way to do this was to buy $5 bottles of red wine. But this couldn't possibly last forever. What did I want to do?!?!

I finally figured it out, I wanted to be a Police officer. in 2009 I decided I wanted to be a cop, and I didn't just want to be a police officer, I wanted to make a difference and I really wanted to do this. This would be a job that is exciting, that i'm passionate about and that I would want to do.
I started to find out what I needed to do to apply, and I started getting ready.

Fast forward to Christmas Day, I had lost a little weight getting my fitness ready (years and years of gaming makes you a fat fu*k) I was so proud of my weight loss I challenged my dad to an arm wrestle, my dad is 60 years old but was a professional fisherman his entire life. It was on - I had to win this the whole family was watching! All my strength I put into it, and I could tell he was really going for it to, our veins started to appear, It felt like minutes had passed... yes minutes had definetly passed, my brother yells out "comeon bro you got him!!" and at that moment, It felt like someone had come up right behind me and kicked my arm right out of its socket, my arm exploded onto the table, hyper extending out, flopping around like I had a 2nd elbow, I see my Dad go as white as a ghost. What the F*CK just happaned?!?! My brain couldn't figure it out.

Turns out through the pressure of the arm wrestle, my upper humerous bone had twisted and snapped completely in half inside my arm. I can't describe the pain, it was Christmas Day and we were 40 minutes out of town in the bush, It was hours before the ambulance were able to find us and when they did - they treated my dad for shock first. I got loaded into the ambulance and off to the hospital we went. The next few days are a blur in my head full of painful hours. In for surgery I went, nervous, scared. I awoke and I instantly knew something was wrong, I couldn't feel or move my arm. A day passed before I was able to talk to anyone about it as the Doctor did the rounds in the morning. He explained that during the surgery my radial nerve had to be moved, causing it to shut down and hence I can't feel or move my arm and the physio started. 6 months later I was able to move my thumb. Those few months sucked, I couldn't do anything by myself, whenever I see people missing limbs now I genuinely get so sad for them, I wouldn't be strong enough to lose a limb forever. This was all time spent wasted - all I was thinking about was that I wanted to be a police officer.
I still owned the house with my ex, I couldn't get it ready for sale in my condition and I was still working this shit office job I hated. Life sucked, life sucked real bad.

We put the house on the market - it took over 6 months to sell, it was now November 2010 and I still hadn't applied for the police force, it was all I wanted to do. All I cared about. The house sold and I moved into a rental with some friends, and in doing so changed Gym - this changed my life. A starting package offered at the time had 3 free sessions with a PT, for once in my life I agreed to something like this. It changed my whole life, before the end of my first session I knew this guy would get my arm back to normal (still very very weak, I couldn't lift a 2L carton of milk) I explained to him my goals and we started working towards it. I finally apply in January 2011, it was finally happening.

It took 2 months for the police to contact me. I went and did my defensive driving course, my first aid, a full medical, I did there beep test and a range of other things, everything came back perfectly and passed everything with flying "colours" except for one thing - my colour vision. It was not so flash, and I went to see a colour vision specalist at a university for further testing, the specalist said that whilst I am colour blind it was nothing that should stop me from joining the Queensland Police, he wrote me a referral letter and I was happy! I got another call from the police to come in for there own practical colour vision test, extremely confident I went in. It took 1 week for the police to ring me again and tell me that unfortunately I was unsuccessful and that due to my colour vision I would be unable to join. I politely said "That's ok, thank you anyway" and hung up the phone.

I had pulled over to answer the call at the time. I started driving... I remember the first tear strolling down my face, quickly followed by another, the 2nd eye starts up, I remember feeling this extreme rage overwhelm my body, I slam my fist so hard into the steering wheel and scream "WHY!" "WHY FU&^KING WHY!!!!!!!!!" I felt defeated. You have to understand this is all I thought about for nearly 2 years, and it was over. No amount of training, or any surgery or anything will fix this for me, it was beyond my control. I had invested so much time in this, I had dropped over 20kg and had never felt healthier, which is at least 1 thing I could take away from it.

I was devastated and told everyone it was over. I was lost for a week, unmotivated to train, unmotivated to do anything. That was when I found out that in Western Australia - they had removed the requirement. I was overjoyed instantly. Ringing them to confirm it wouldn't be a problem I had a decision to make.

Should I leave all my friends, all my family, my new girlfriend, my secure job, my life behind and start again in Perth? I knew nobody over there. I decided to go for it, when my lease ends in October I will move to Perth.

I resigned from my job, I told my girlfriend and my housemates. It was time to go. Those months passed very quickly, I trained insanely hard (the physical requirements are tougher in WA) and I was dedicated to make this happen. I had a wild goodbye party that was off the rails with just shy of 100 friends seeing me off. I sold everything I had packed my essentials into a suitcase and a backpack and off I went.

I've been here just shy of a month, my application is submitted and I wait for the Police to contact me. I know nobody. I don't regret my choice, I'm glad i'm following my dream and i'm glad i've been brave enough to go with this and give it a go. I can't forget why I want to be here and how much I want this. Never settle.

Thank you for reading my story.