I still can't believe how everything just fell apart. And so quickly too. Everything just turned to utter crap in the span of a few months. My life seemed to be going perfectly and then bam, fifty curve balls thrown at my head so fast that not even my fighting moves can dodge them. Yep, Atomnaya Bomba finally met his match.
Let's start with my marriage failing. The way it happened was actually pretty short and simple. I just happened to get home one day and Anna walked up to me and told me that she would be leaving me to be with her new boyfriend that she had been secretly dating for over six months. Sound completely out of nowhere? Because it was. Not only did I know absolutely nothing about this other guy, but I didn't even suspect that she was cheating on me. Not once during the past several months did I suspect that she was unhappy with me or didn't love me. Our weekly dates, evenings together, and happy conversations right before bed had been the same as they had been in the past seven years. Did she completely forget about the beautiful necklace that I had bought her for her birthday a few months earlier? Did we not have a wonderful dance together during our Christmas party last month? To say I was shocked would've been the biggest understatement in the world.
And why did she no longer want to be with me? Because she wanted someone "taller." Yep, we had been together for seven years and she just then started having problems with my height. Even today, I'm still just completely astonished about what had happened. I didn't mention this before, but Anna was actually much taller than me. Standing at 5'11 compared to my tiny 5'2 body. Yeah, I consider nine inches a large height difference. Definitely not enough to just flat out leave someone though.
And what do you know, Anna's new tattoo artist boyfriend stood at 6'4. At least according to her. I never met the guy. And quite frankly, I never want to. Oh, and apparently this guy was some sort of hottie. I don't know and I don't care. Go enjoy your hot tall guy, Anna. I never wanted to be with a shallow moron anyway.
My wife leaving me would've been enough to completely wreck my whole year, but everything just got even worse a mere two months later. It turns out that Anna cheating on me wasn't the only shady thing going on that I knew absolutely nothing about. One of my most successful clients, Lyov Ilyushkin, was revealed to have been using steroids. And he wasn't the only one who received major consequences. I had zero knowledge about Lyov's steroid use, yet I was the one who received the most negative press. I lost all my credibility as a trainer and people no longer wanted to hire me. All my accomplishments immediately went down the toilet. From that day forth, the only thing I was ever associated with was Lyov Ilyushkin's scummy behavior. Right then and there, my boxing career was officially over.
So there I was, pretty much out of a job and raising a five-year-old and a three-year-old by myself. And to top it all off, I began to lose support from all my once good friends. Many of them began to lose trust in me due to the steroid scandal and we just stopped talking. Others I just began to lose contact with after I ended my career as a trainer. As of today, I think I'm only still in contact with about eight or nine of my past friends. And they mainly fall into the "message on Facebook once every blue moon" category.
With two kids to take care of, I obviously needed to find a job very fast. I eventually found myself in one of the most painful times of my life (other than the bullying of course). Having to work two jobs at a Billa (a Russian version of Walmart) and some car company. And boy oh boy, did I hate both these jobs. The car company required me to be out in the sun all day and Billa was so fast-paced and busy that it created huge levels of stress. And I just didn't care for these jobs at all. I could've been training people in their fighting skills, but instead I'm having to bag groceries and help people find cars to buy. Although I really needed to pay bills and put food on the table, I just felt like I was wasting my time.
One year earlier, I was happily married, had an awesome career, and had more friends than I could keep track of. Now I was a stressed out single parent working two jobs that I hated with little to no support. It was as if somebody had grabbed my perfect life and turned it upside down on it's head.
Needless to say, my happy life in Russia was no longer happy. It was now just a plethora of stress and unhappiness. Sure, I got happiness from the few moments that I had with my daughters. Playing dolls, watching movies, having tea parties, or just dancing around the house with them would always be the highlight of my week. But with two jobs to work, these moments very rarely came. Ninety percent of my day was just stressing out and wishing I had my old life back.
I could only take all this for so long. After putting up with all this stress for over two years (honestly a lot longer than I should have), I finally had enough. It was time to restart my life. Back in the US.
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