What's Happened Over the Last 10 Years?

Inspired by Patrick Klepek's story on Waypoint and the subsequent thread on Twitter I thought I'd write this blog in hopes of getting some replies about what's happened in your life since Final Fantasy XV was announced ten years ago. 10 years is a long-ass time and so much has happened and I want to hear some of your stories.

I'm just going to list what's happened to me and you can feel free to do the same in your comments or however you wish to tell your story.

Here's some events that have happened in my life:

- Graduated High School

- Moved to a new city for college

- My step-dad passed away

- Both my Grandmothers passed

- Graduated college

- Met my girlfriend

- Moved into two apartments

- Girlfriend's mom diagnosed with Stage 4 cervical cancer (now 2 years in remission!)

- Bought a beautiful corgi

- My niece was born

- Proposed to my now fiance

What's your story? Let me know in the comments duders!

Everything went downhill

- Was partying my life away

- Two friends passed away within one month of each other.

- 2009 I decided to have a fresh start. moved to a new town, still partied my life away but with drugs as well as booze.

- Worked crappy jobs, saved, traveled.

- 2013 I decided it was time to start adulting.

- 2014 I went back to school.

- 2016 had a good friend pass away.

- Present day: I am half way through a computer engineering degree, while on a robotics work term. Life is good.

I can't. It's just too depressing.

Oh it was all really really awful. Giant Bomb and video games are about the only highlight.

A bunch of miserable shit, some Disgaea was played, I ate some potato chips here and there.

@matoya: this

10 years ago I was 13, so, just about everything that's happened to me has happened in the last ten years. I mean, discounting the 4-5 years in which I remember jack.

Still! Let's try to boil it all down into, picking arbitrarily, 4 bullet points.

* played videogames

* went to high school, played videogames, smoked pot

* dropped out of 3 community colleges, moved a bunch, played videogames, smoked pot

* started a vr porn company with my friend, 2 years too early, moved a bunch, played videogames, smoked pot

* Started watching giant bomb

Since that glorious day I settled down, stopped playing videogames, moving a bunch, and smoking pot. Now I'm watching giant bomb videos. and buying dumb domain names like boohbah.zone and virtualreality.pizza!

Thanks, Giant Bomb!

- Recently started college, was broke

- Got my first real girlfriend (by real I mean the first that lasted more than 3 months). Broke up after a year or so.

- Went to US for a work experience program for 3 months during the 2008 recession. Friend bought PS3 to play FFXV.

- Found a job in a small game studio. Still kinda broke.

- Got a new girlfriend

- Graduated.

- Went on a 40 day trip to Europe.

- Got sick of my job, started making my own games on spare time. Still broke.

- Moved in with my girlfriend.

- Got a new job. Not broke anymore =D

- Company recently invited me to move to Europe with my girlfriend (soon to be wife)

Don't know how to break this to you, but that's 5 bullet points....

@archer88: I don't know how to break this to you, but...I never really did stop smoking the pot :/

27 now, edging on 28.

- Dropped out of high school with very little to finish

- Worked part time for my grandpa's tailor shop

- Worked as an SMS tarot reader and love coach for two months

- Met a lot of people, smoked pot

- Got fired from the job

- Got into Linux, got a job as a trainee in a shitty consulting company

- Met a lot of boring people and 9-6 slowly took a toll on me and made stop seeing the new people I had met

- Moved out to a studio apartment, which triggered depression

- Visited Japan twice

- Moved to a much better place

- Met my current girlfriend while she was vacationing here and started a long distance relationship

- Changed jobs to a slightly less crappy one

- Started having more confidence in my programming skills

- Discovered that homesteading and gardening is my real passion

- Traveled to Canada to see my girlfriend

- Went back and finished high school (A couple months ago!)

- Grandpa passed away.

- Gonna go back and live with her in 7 months time.

That's about it. It's been a weird time, trying to turn into an adult. I did a lot of things too fast and didn't really savor it through. It's tough! Severe depression struck as soon as I moved out on my own while trying to hold a shitty 9-6 job. I guess it was to be expected.

- Went from 20 to 30.

- Began taking life advice from Nate Dogg.

- So many goddamn video games.

- ...

Hey, that was a fun trip down memory lane!

-Started middle school.

-played all kinds of sports.

-Went to High School, also played sports.

-got into programming.

-went to a community college for 1 year and transferred, found that computer science isn't for me

-Got into Virginia Tech, in the Pamplin BIT program. Much happyness was had.

-Ran my first triathlon with VT club team, very fun. Still is fun.

-Video games happened throughout.

-dating still eludes me.

- Started my BSc in Engineering.
- Dyed myself purple
- Gained weight because I stopped playing football and rugby to focus on school (Bad idea)
- Asked my calculus professor if he was Jesus while drunk in class (he wasn't)
- Moved into my first place that wasn't on campus; it was a shit hole.
- Faceplanted while jumping on the football field during halftime of the homecoming game (was drunk)
- Moved into a different place near my university; wasn't a shit hole.
- Proposed to my long term girlfriend
- Completed my degree
- My older brother died in a plane crash. Gave a eulogy at his funeral.
- Major depression and weight gain
- Worked at a golf course for a summer basically wasting time with my eventual brother in law.
- Started working as an engineer for GE
- Depression continues
- Married my current wife
- Cut my aunt out of my life for being a custy bitch to my wife
- Wife kicked me out of my funk and got me talking to a counselor about my depression
- Eventually worked my shit out
- Got fired from my job (major salaried staff cuts)
- Unemployed for 6 months
- Landed a new job with better pay than the one I was fired from.
- Found out I was going to be a father
- My son was born; really scary life threatening birth. (Everyone is healthy and fine now)
- Completed my Professional Engineer certification
- Son celebrated his first birthday; is smart and cute and fucking amazing
- Bought my first house
- Found out I'm going to have another kid, couldn't be happier.

*Played video games throughout.

- Asked girl out

- College (North Carolina)

- Moved in with previously mentioned girl

- Seattle trip with best friends and girl, propose

- Surprise pregnancy

- Marriage

- Baby

- Graduate

- Move to Seattle, parents bummed as granddaughter flys away

- Work dream job... contract ends :(

- Become stay at home dad

- Wife gets crappy job...

- Wife gets great job!

- Watching Clifford the big red dog, checking Giant bomb forums.

Reading this thread has me thinking every person on this site dropped out of school and smoked weed for the better part of their lives.

Combo breaker: Never smoked weed. Graduated.

• Signed on the dole
• Lifted myself out of depression
• Signed off the dole
• Found a job
• Signed back on
• Found another job
• And another
• Quit the lesser job because managing two jobs was nuts.
• Got made redundant.
• Got asked to come back for six more weeks of work
• Signed back on
• Sis got married
• Signed back off
• Got another job
• Signed back on
• Got a job for 'keeps'
• Moved to a different job within the company because it was that or sign on.
• Started writing for peoww.co.uk
• Started wrtiting for playstationcountry.com
• Niece / Nephew due in six weeks

Retail Banking. It's not career, it's a summer commitment. For reference, I also dropped out of college.

@frodobaggins: Pretty much this D:

@bojackhorseman: Seems to be a bit of a pattern :P Did it in high school, haven't since

- Smoked pot

- Got my first part time job at the age of 16 (2008)

- Bunch of people including myself were let go from said job 2 years later

-Finished high school

- Continued to smoke pot after high school (including that since it seems to be a running theme on this thread)

- Uncle passed away suddenly aged 52

- Met a bunch of cool people of XBL who I still keep in touch with today

- Started studying psychology but dropped out after Christmas

- Twin sister moved abroad to become a flight stewart when we were 18

-Second childhood pet passed away

- Started studying software engineering, dropped out before Christmas

- Worked a month at a food stand, didn't work out

- Grandmother passed away after a long illness

- Started watching Giant Bomb

- Uncle passed away aged 70

- Traveled alone for the first time for a weekend in Spain

- Started part-time job

Got my first gaming PC for my 21st birthday

- Got fired a year later for showing up hungover too often (although I never got a warning about it)

- Started studying journalism

- Met one of my very best friends while in college

- Dad passed away after a short illness

- First childhood pet passed away

- Traveled to Australia to be the Best Man at my brothers wedding

- Graduated with my BA in Journalism after 3 years of "study"

- Spent 5 months on the dole while looking for journo jobs

- Adopted my sisters dog because she's moving to Australia at the end of the year, love him

- Step mother passed away suddenly

- Started my 3rd equally crappy and menial part-time job last week

- Still never had a boyfriend. Now nearly 25. Still smoke pot.

- FFXV came out. Don't care.

- The Last Guardian didn't come out yet. Care.

FIN

Not trying to be a jerk, friend, but we already have this thread (can't link cuz I'm on mobile tho):

http://www.giantbomb.com/final-fantasy-xv/3030-21006/forums/where-were-you-10-years-ago-1804594/

I guess that "Where were you 10 years ago?" is different than "What happened in your life this past decade?"

I've done a lot of reflecting on this over the past few days with FFXV coming out . Heres what I got.

• Graduated high school
• Met my now wife
• Bought a car
• Graduated college with a BS in Computer Science
• Played a lot of video games
• Started following Hockey (Go Devils!!!)
• Got heavily into craft beer.
• Became 100% financially independent after graduating college.
• got into cycling (Accomplished a 200 mile ride this past summer!)
• Started eating vegetables.
• Went on a plane for the first time (2012)
• left the country for the first time (Ireland)
• Had 4 Jobs, 5 if you count my high school/college job at best buy.
• Lost one of my closest friends to suicide.
• Moved to Hoboken NJ
• Moved to Seattle from NJ
• Got married
• Got a dog
• My nephew was born (3 weeks ago!)
• Final Fantasy XV was released.

November 2006: 20 years old.

• Failing out of my third semester of college, in part because I didn't care about doing well so I played too much of the recently released Final Fantasy XII. I would soon drop out completely.
• Working a part time job I kinda liked but knew I didn't want to stay at forever.
• Still in contact with a good number of my high school friends.
• No romantic relationships to speak of.
• But emotionally I was fairly content and hopeful that maybe I'd figure something out for my future.

November 2016: 30 years old. It's mostly quite pathetic so I'll spoiler block it, but I had to write it. Didn't have to post it, perhaps, but I had to write it.

• Again failing out of a semester of college (now after having returned 3 years prior and doing alright academically for most of that time, though not so well at dealing with stress) And no video game is even partly to blame this time.
• No longer working a job. Haven't been for way too long.
• Lost touch with most of my old friends and have not made many new ones in the interim, though the few I made are great. But I've lost touch with some of them too.
• Still no romantic relationships to speak of.
• Feeling quite empty and hopeless much of the time. Not suicidal, to be clear, just resigned to the idea that I will go through life never having the strong sort of connection I desperately want with someone because the odds of that sort of connection are small even if I weren't completely broken, which I certainly seem to be so the odds now feel astronomical.
• also resigned to the fact that I am incapable of functioning as a human being is expected to in society.
• Wishing I could be better. Trying to keep myself distracted enough each day from the fact that I am lost and don't know where to find help and not sure if I even can be helped. At least I have recently started the process to try to get counseling.

Otherwise not much has happened.

in the past 10 years i've...

• changed jobs 4 times
• changed careers
• sold 3 cars, bought and paid off 3 other cars
• refinanced our mortgage
• had 3 kids (2 girls, 1 boy)
• been diagnosed with sleep apnea
• ended my enlistment with the military
• euthanized and buried 2 beloved dogs who were terminally ill
• adopted a new dog just this year
• had 2 grandparents pass away
• had my dad pass away this year
• been the heaviest and least healthy i've ever been and may now be close to best shape i've ever been in.
• lost a significant portion of my hair
• lost a significant portion of my mind (kids + adulting)
• seen 3 presidents get elected (2 of them i didn't vote for)
• played way more call of duty than i ever thought possible
• rebuilt my pc several times
• bought 3 xbox 360's
• learned to work on cars
• grown closer to my wife than any person i've known. She is absolutely my best friend.
• ...and shit my pants exactly once. Thanks buffalo chicken sub from subway. never again.

Where do you get an SMS Tarot Deck from? Does it have any unique cards or suits? Can I get one without the psychic toll charges?

Not much honestly, I grew up, grew down, and now I'm just trying to find myself

Man a lot off things happened to me. The last ten years, but since life is full off pain and suffering :P i don't know if anyone can topple this. I got cancer in 2010 healed in 2012 my mom died of cancer a year ago plus i almost got bombed while i was waiting on somebody at the airport, good times ! Also lost my job cause my boss was a nazi. (but that's a minor detail )

Really need to give it a lot of thought. Could put it on the list. As really dealt with a lot of mental and emotional problems more than physical as well as with my family and little friends in the past ten years.

That's a weird question. Sometimes I think "not much". Other times, I feel like a lot has happened. Since we're doing this all in bullet points

...and that's where I am right now. I spoiler block'd the whole thing because that's a ton of text.

Oh, and one more thing - I don't have anything against pot, but I've never had any. I've been around people who are smoking it and drinking alcohol, but never really wanted to do it myself.

- Got married

- Have two kids (two sons)

- Moved up quite a bit to a position in work at a prestigious employer. This is my 4th employer in the 10 years (not counting some side work/employers)

- Bought a house

- Selling that house, buying a different house

- Completed a Uni degree, then completed a Masters

- Travelled to Europe (twice) and Japan (twice)

- Mum passed away

- Stepfather passed away

- Grandparents all have passed, pretty much none of my own family left except my sister.

- Younger sister moved in with us

- Lost a lot of weight (20kg - 44lbs for you imperialists)

- Gained some of that weight back (half pretty much - 10kg or 22lbs), need to lose it again (goal from this point on - getting back into eating better and Couch to 5k and some light weight training)

- Started playing Basketball pretty regularly

- Won my first cricket premiership last year

- Have lost contact with people I went to Uni with, have limited contact with my school friends

- Still playing video games but not as much

- Really, really gotten heavily into boardgames

- Become a godfather

Ups and downs for me. The ups have outweighed the downs. Some years better/worse than others. 2015 was a real rollercoaster of a year. My first son was born, I was at a new employer but then mum passed away (after a few year battle with cancer) and my sister moved in. 2012 was a similar year where my stepfather passed away suddenly and then 3 weeks later my mother was diagnosed with her cancer which they found far too late (it had spread far and wide by that point). I feel pretty good overall - started in a working class/lower middle class family. My work situation is a result of some hard work, some talent and some luck. Had a lot of knock backs along the way too - plenty of rejection letters, failed interviews etc. I'm lucky to live in a country where I've had support along the way financially with my university degree, with healthcare etc. No way I'd be in the position I'm in now if I didn't have that at my disposal - I count myself lucky for that.

A lot of what led me down the path I am now is predicated on events I'd really rather forget. Other than that, some general stuff.

• My mom found her real family (she was adopted) and now we're all on good terms :)
• My social anxiety got a lot worse
• Graduated high school
• Lost contact with all my high school friends
• I turned 18 and was able to vote in the 2012 election.
• Gained a little weight
• Did some online college courses and graduated from them
• Started to help my parents with my dad's company. Mainly office work.
• Started woodworking as a hobby
• Built a Pc for the first time
• Had to put my 9 year old dog to sleep
• Got hospitalized with pneumonia and found out I had asthma and bronchitis
• Social anxiety got better with meds (at least enough to moderately function)
• Became old enough to start drinking
• Gained more weight
• Got a hypoallergenic dog (because I also became allergic to dogs) The dog is a mini schnauzer and she is the best.
• I started reading a lot, played video games, watched tv and movies a bit less
• Can see my hair is thinning
• Grew a large beard to compensate for it
• My grandpa passed away
• My dad's health regressed in several ways (He's okay right now, but down the road he definitely won't be)
• Have managed to never have a (romantic) relationship this entire time. I got close a few times, but nope.

• Smoked and sold pot
• Modded 360s and sold prelease games
• Smoked more pot and sold movies
• Decided to go to College for I.T.
• Worked 40+hours work week while continuing studies
• Got a night job
• Got a Girlfirend
• FBI sent my best friend to prison
• Moved in together
• Got a promotion
• Enjoyed life
• Worked my ass off
• Advanced my career
• Fell in Love
• 3 years of amazing love
• made accommodating decisions
• Sold fast car
• Crashed new car into random animal
• broke up with long time GF
• drank myself into oblivion
• almost died
• some asshole poisoned my dog and he almost died
• severe depression
• getting clean
• finally finding good in the universe again
• Getting back into music and being sober
• Healing myself and leaning to love again,

• Demon's Souls
• Dark Souls
• Dark Souls 2
• Bloodborne
• Dark Souls 3

Oh and I got married and have stayed super happy in a relationship that's lasted since 2008.

I was 15 at the time 25 now.

• Finished My GCSE's.
• Began drinking regularly.
• Got My first girlfriend.
• Changed my friend group.
• Went on my first lads holiday.
• Finished A-Levels.
• Went to University - This is when it started to go downhill.
• Started smoking, didn't take long until I was 20 a day.
• Gained 3 stone in weight.
• Broke up with first proper girlfriend.
• Became basically nocturnal working bar jobs.
• Started drinking all the time out of boredom and depression.
• Eventually had a mini breakdown during my final year of uni. Managed to graduate and did ok, not good but ok.
• Decided i'd work in Australia for a year, this didn't work out I had visa issues and my dad got very sick, I ended up getting a cash in hand job behind the bar at a really seedy brothel. I left to return home after only 2 months in Australia.
• Returned home a broken shell of a person, dad recovered after a heart operation, I got work in a terrible call center.
• Stuck the call center out for 6 months and hated every last minute of it.
• Managed to get a job in a small Independent education provider and have been here for nearly 3 years.
• Got my confidence back at said job, lost all the weight i put on at Uni, quit smoking and cleaned up the drinking. I now only drink and smoke on nights out on the weekend.
• Found a new girlfriend and got a mortgage a year ago this month.
• Got dumped 2 months ago, spiraled back in to depression drinking, smoking and worse.
• Finally in the last couple of weeks I've brought myself back out of that negative mindset and ready to be normal again.
• May pick up FFXV after Christmas.

These last ten years have been up and down, with the downs being particularly bad. One thing that has kept me together is the support from my family and friends I really wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. As bad as my life has been lately i'm confident for the future. I've seen myself at my worst a few times now and it always seems to get better in the end, the thing i've learnt about my depression and addictions is that as long as i try to fight them eventually i can outlast them and become better.

So 10 years ago I was 16. That's weird to think about. In those 10 years I...

• Made a great group of friends in high school
• Started watching Giant Bomb at its inception and never stopped
• Met and started dating my girlfriend
• Attended Hofstra University and got my switched to Public Relations after being scared out of a journalism degree by professors
• Went to my first PAX East
• Made countless trips to visit my girlfriend in Washington DC and kept a long-distance relationship going despite people saying it doesn't work
• Started writing game reviews for fun (and realized how hard it is)
• Graduated with my bachelor's and moved to San Jose, California with my girlfriend
• Got a job in San Jose despite feeling like that would never happen and that moving from NY to California was a bad idea
• Had an amazing three years in California where I went to baseball games, hockey games, WrestleMania, concerts, and bars (ya know, just early 20s stuff)
• Traveled to Hawaii, Mexico, Seattle, Los Angeles, and made a lot of trips back to NY for the holidays
• Got homesick, as did my girlfriend, and decided to road trip it back to NY after she got a job in NYC
• Went across the country with all of our stuff, feeling like we'd get our car broken into and loose everything but that didn't happen
• Realized how great parts of this country are that people never talk about
• Proposed to my girlfriend
• Started living in NYC with my fiance and absolutely loving it

Yeah, the past 10 years were pretty incredible when you pull out the good stuff.

• Bought my first car (second, third, fourth, and fifth as well - I should really buy nicer cars)
• Graduated High School
• Moved away to go to University
• Did some of those unattended-eighteen-year-old-antics you're want to do in Freshman Year of College
• Dated for the first time
• Moved to an apartment
• Got a job on my Uni's Campus in IT
• Broke up with SO, fell into a bought of self distruction
• Made solid friends in my Major, helping to at least be around other people while drinking to excess
• Started going out on the weekends, became far more personable
• Started dating someone whom I'm actually happy with (live and learn on this one)
• Got a second job at a bar, made more friends
• Graduated with my BA
• Packed up and traveled Asia for 6 months (China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong)
• Moved back in with my parents, cause of how traveling for 6 months makes you completely broke

Been back 3 months, and in that time... I've done nothing. I'm having a terribly hard time landing a job in anything at all, and it's been throwing me back into a sort of crippled cycle of not so greatness.

2017, lets get my ass in gear.

@archer88: Just sneaking in a thing about dying yourself purple all nonchalant? I don't think so. What the hell happened there?

Wall of bulleted text in non-chronological order incoming:

• Went to college in Indiana, got a BA in PoliSci.
• After not caring about anime for years, got dragged back into it when an "internet friend" showed me Code Geass. Now I seem to have become the de-facto Anime Guy around these forums. Thanks a lot Andy, you asshole.
• Signed up for Anime Vice, watched it suddenly get gutted after a year or two when Gia and John left for greener pastures. Ran a community podcast that had 30 or so active listeners for just over a year before getting bored and leaving. Site and unofficial podcast both died later.
• Worked as a fry cook and also wrote a few columns for an ill-fated news website while at above school.
• Worked on a local politician's campaign, helped him win, but then left out of a paying job despite his assurances.
• Briefly worked as a tournament organizer for local videogame tourneys of all kinds (CoD, Madden, MvC3, you name it) that fell apart after a business partner made some questionable marketing decisions and even cancelled a whole tourney about 24 hours before it was supposed to start with no backup plan in place.
• Went to a more local college, tutored some kids in game design and programming, and non-kids in English Composition for a little money. Eventually added an AA in Computer Science to my resume.
• Actually met one of the guys behind Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden (and the sequel, eventually...) and worked with him on a student project.
• Became a regular at local IGDA meetings, made new friends after a very cold couple of nights at a Global Game Jam site.
• Decided to throw myself into getting a Master's in Cybersecurity during periods of "funemployment." Currently half done with that.
• Threw myself into a few standup comedy open mics, gotten half-decent, half "everyone's left and I forgot to write down a set." Though I have made a few friends doing it, somehow.
• Got involved with an online fictional short story magazine with people I knew, that lasted a few issues before everyone drifted off.
• Somehow got paid to write music reviews online for small amount of money, then the EIC disappeared and left me hanging with a couple of indie artists who were hoping for publicity and interviews I could no longer sell. Website disappeared soon after. At least I got a few albums/LPs out of it.
• Somehow got paid to write webcomic reviews online for even less money (but still a paid gig), similar thing as above happened. Kinda got sick of doing the "angry reviewer" persona, not sure how the youtubers keep that up these days.
• Got depressed as fuck, then while I was slowly climbing out, had to talk down someone from a ledge who was in an even worse position. Twice.
• Churned through a series of short-term jobs involving tech and/or writing, currently in one that will be longer-term (*knock on wood*).
• Took a taekwando class, accidentally injured my eyelid (thankfully not the eye itself) after a dumb decision to practice while wearing glasses.
• Signed up for thai boxing class, much better value for about the same price, even got some actual sparring in!
• Injured my right knee, finally got surgery on the thing after months of seeking non-surgery options.
• Buried one of my two cats.
• Attended a couple Bar Mitzvahs of younger family members, as a reminder that I'm getting older.

@iamjohn: Aw jeez, I looked and didn't see it but I should have looked harder. My bad :S

Uh, it's kind of a tradition at the university I went to. The dye doesn't come out easily. We also (as a group) climb a greased pole to retrieve a hat that's nailed to the top. Fun Times!

I was 11 so quite a lot.

-finished elementary school
-had a tough time making friends in middle high, started having self-image problems due to being a scrawny kid among a number of athletically built colleagues, started working out
-had a crush, got rejected, realized that other people don't owe you emotional investment just because you like them a lot, and also that you should always be cautious of projecting your inner desires onto another person and thinking your fondness of them means they are what you feel they are
-started questioning my faith, decided that from now on I'll no longer have questions that I bar myself from answering, followed Descartes' footsteps and abandoned all of my preconceptions about the world and started from scratch, became an atheist, became an anarchist
-started enjoying working out for its own sake instead of trying to look how I thought other people wanted me to look, got some self-confidence, accepted my body-image and stopped working out
made some friends in high school, got decent grades, got into university (mechanical engineering)
-lost touch with most of my high school friends, thought my university is filled with imbeciles, didn't enjoy learning, wasn't sure what I want in my life
-simultaneously: met my girlfriend and proceeded to learn a lot about love
-landed an internship at an engineering firm, for the first time in my life felt satisfied with the fruits of my labor, became fond of and interested in engineering as more than just a well-paying career, figured out more or less what qualities I want to have by the time I die and accepted it's not too late to strive for them
-que now, I'm 21, I like life.