This is my entry for @anomadsoul 's writing prompt/contest found here

I love this prompt, because this year was quite the roller coaster for me, it has had low lows, and high highs. kinda like crypto haha. I was thinking of how I wanted to lay this out, and I feel like chronological order would be best to truly roll out my experience this year.

2017 began with the fresh gut wrenching pain of losing my father on Christmas eve. My January was filled with tears, and a type of depression that I have not felt for a long long time. I felt like I was stuck in a hole and just couldn't get out, and felt defeated.

With my wife and children's help, I started to climb out of my slump, and began to climb again. I rock climb in a gym, and have for several years now, it had been one of my favorite activities, regularly climbing 3-5x a week, and even winning a comp.

Enter Failure One

My third time back to my gym in months... I was climbing a normal average route... and POP I had a sharp pain in my ankle, and immediately felt sick. It had swollen up like crazy, but I could still put weight on it. I found out that I had subluxed my peroneal tendon.

This means the tissue that holds the tendon in place snapped, and the tendon that is supposed to be tucked behind my ankle, could now freely roll over the ankle whenever it decided to.... it hurt.

Also not getting this fixed posed a very real risk of rupturing that tendon as well. I went into surgery, and ended up in a wheelchair for 6 weeks. All the while my company was in a slump, and my work is very physical. They provided me with part time work, but it was barely enough to survive.

Luckily in May I healed just in time for my wife and I to go to...

CABO SAN LUCAS

This was my first time ever needing a passport, and was a great experience overall. My company paid for it, and I was blown away. I had earned this by meeting my goals the previous year, and it felt SO great to do something like this considering we had been so broke all year.

When returning from Cabo, I was left with a feeling of wanting more. I had been stuck on my butt for months between depression, hurting myself, and then more depression, and decided enough was enough and I started researching and LEARNING

In May I started two separate business ventures... I started looking into crypto (I'll touch on this later), but also a furniture refurbishing business with my best friend. With very little previous experience, I started to play around with painting and remaking furniture to be BETTER than it was previously, and I was GOOD at it. I asked my best friend to accompany me, and we were working HARD for a few months. We made decent returns for a few months, but in the end, the storefront we partnered with didn't work out well, and in fact to this day they still have about 6 of our pieces approx $1,000-1,500 (we haven't attempted to pick them up) Communication with them was a hassle and we decided it wasn't for us at this point in time.

At the same time I started my furniture business, I also started researching cryptocurrency again. It began with youtubers like ameer rosic @jerrybanfield @boxminer and @thedollarvigilante and expanded from there. I have to give huge credit to @boxminer for getting me on steemit because he was totally transparent with his initial earnings and set a realistic expectation for goals, and work needed to succeed. The first thing I invested in (even before steemit) was Ethereum, and I was fascinated with the blockchain, and its utility. I had heard about bitcoin early on (around $5) and had the opportunity to buy, but I was broke, and lacked knowledge so I sat on my hands and did nothing. Once I found out there were other cryptocurrencies I was determined NOT to be left behind.

My biggest achievement of the year by far has been my involvement in this steemit community.
In a wonderful 6 months I have:

Regained my passion for art

Started creative writing for the first time

Met tons of amazing friends on steemit.chat

Started the YUNK tag/trend/fad that blew up in June/July

Created fun characters with my steemit monsters

Became a curator for @OCD

I love this project, because we continually strive to be transparent, and unbiased while rewarding new authors with undervalued content. @ocd I believe is what GOOD curation looks like.

Overall after review, this year has been less of a roller coaster, as it has been an uphill battle with some amazing victory that has come from my struggle. If 2017 had a reward it would be "Most improved".