I was unable to maintain my diary and now 7 years are gone

First, I had no way of paying from China that I was able to figure out or learn while I was there, so after the 30 days, the only safe place to write about my experiences was gone.

Then in November 2019, I returned (earlier than I had planned due to health reasons). Foolishly got married and it was an epic abusive disaster. I was so desperate not to return after the financial and mental abuse when I left during a pandemic. I was renting a room at a friend’s place for about six months and then stayed in an unfinished basement (former drug den) in a place rife with shootings (I was regularly ripped from my sleep from the sounds of gunfire). I was there for another six months before my alcoholic housemate went off on me about things that made no sense at all. So then I was actually homeless until I got sheltered in a transitional housing program.

Now, I am finally in an apartment and starting to settle in with a modest (extremely. modest) income.

I decided to return to OD even though it was Free Open Diary when I joined and there were perks people paid for if they wanted them but it was otherwise free. They decided to honor (grandfather in) people who had paid a lifetime membership fee (which I couldn’t afford at the time but probably could now) but no longer offer it.

So, I sent off a message asking for a PDF backup sent to my email. If everything prior to December 2008 had not been deleted in 2018 when I was still in China, I wish I had backed it up then. There were some very important life events and whatnot that I had recorded here and nowhere else and it may be (and probably is) gone forever.