Hey, everyone.
This isn't a typical announcement - this isn't about some new piece of content or some new feature we're working on, but instead, it's about some realities of my personal life that have finally caught up to me - and the impacts it will have on the short-term future of Chaotic United. Before you get too stressed or anxious - no, we aren't closing down the server, and also no, this isn't a permanent change. The specific impacts are sort of up in the air right now, as that won't be fully clear until a couple months or so from now.
So, without any further delay - let's talk about my current life situation and where things are at.
The Situation
A few days ago (this past Friday), I ended up running into a pretty serious issue with my primary vehicle (a 2001 Ford Focus, for those curious). It began seemingly misfiring and then, when waiting for a train to cross a road, the engine stalled out entirely and would not re-start. I had my mom and a friend of hers come and figure out what was going on, and the guy was able to perform some sort of throttle reset and get the car running again, though it quickly began misfiring again.
We did get it home successfully, though it did stall out one more time on the way. From that point onwards, it would not start any more. Eventually, after replacing some spark plugs and trying a couple things, the conclusion was that it needed to see a repair shop. I had it towed to one on Monday, and learned that the issue was actually due to the timing belt breaking entirely - I had the belt and the other timing components replaced on Tuesday, in the hopes that maybe the engine itself would be intact - but unfortunately, this was not the case. The engine still failed to start, likely due to one of the cylinder heads being damaged at the point the timing belt failed.
As such, I'm now scrambling to get a replacement vehicle sorted out - borrowing funds from both my grandma and my own boss - in order to keep getting to and from work. Additionally, in order to pay these things back in a reasonable amount of time and build up a proper financial cushion, I'm going to have to take on a second job to supplement my income.
The Financial Backstory
Some of you who have been around a bit longer may recall that several years back, I came into a fair chunk of money from selling a second property - which belonged to my grandma and grandpa, and later my dad before he passed. You might be wondering, what happened to that money? This unfortunately is the other part of the problem - absolutely none of that money still exists, and hasn't since late 2023. I have kept this under wraps, telling only a select few close friends, but given the severity of my situation now, it's not something that makes sense to hide anymore.
I've been effectively broke and hanging on by a thread for the past 2 years. Every time I have managed to start to get ahead, something else comes up and sets me all the way back to the starting line. Vet bills, missed work, car repairs, more vet bills, massively increasing electricity costs (with multiple summer bills being as high as 600 dollars for one month), being scammed out of 500 dollars, and now this catastrophic car situation. I've been unable to afford to do much in terms of home repairs or maintenance, I've had to keep my file server shut off to reduce my electric bills, and I've had to scale my own monthly costs back dramatically compared to early 2023.
I've had to cut out my cloud backup of all my data, both of the OVH dedicated servers that used to host the Minecraft server are gone - with Michael having to step in yet again to keep things running for the past while. I've not even been able to take a long hot shower as my 40 gallon water heater started leaking, and I've had to make do with a 2.5 gallon unit instead - which in order to last for a shower means having to use minimal water pressure, and even then it means taking fairly quick showers - no lingering under the warm water. And with the potential upcoming healthcare premium expiration, there's a good chance that having any form of health insurance will also be entirely beyond my reach.
The one hope that I've had is that maybe, just maybe, I can find some form of actual IT or career-focused position, instead of relatively menial jobs, to turn all this around. The reassuring and frustrating part is that it truly wouldn't take much - 40k/yr would be a solid step up, and 50k/yr is almost impossible to imagine at this point. But, despite my best efforts, I have been utterly unable to find any sort of career opening in any field that I'd even be somewhat interested in doing long-term. Remote jobs are much more competitive, and in my local area, there really just isn't a large amount of opportunities in this regard.
Digging out of the Hole
Earlier this summer, in late July, I attempted to work a second job at Walmart, doing cart pushing yet again - and while this time around the work itself was manageable, I was unable to mentally cope with effectively doing nothing but working and sleeping. Unfortunately, due to the dire nature of this situation, working some kind of second job is no longer optional, but is now an absolute requirement for me to make ends meet.
The silver lining is that, once I'm stabilized after this initial bump, almost any second job will pay enough to not only make these ends meet, but I will at long last be able to start saving a meaningful amount of money again, though I've got a considerable hole to dig out of. It's going to take time, and I have a great deal of money to pay off, and I have no idea how I will possibly be able to mentally cope with this kind of workload. But the reality is that, at this point, it simply is not optional anymore - I have to bring in more income.
If you're wondering why I don't quit my current job and just work some other higher-paying warehouse job or something - at the end of the day, there's a lot I appreciate and like about my current job. It isn't my first choice and isn't a long-term career - but it's low-stress, I don't have to worry about missing work too much, and the work is at least primarily at a desk, which means I don't have to be in physical pain and agony all day, every day. And considering that this is going to be a temporary change of pace, I'd rather go back to the schedule I have now, with a fairly low-stakes and low-stress job as my main source of income.
The Future of Chaotic United
So - with all of that out there, let's talk about what this means for Chaotic United.
As mentioned at the start, the servers, website, Discord, and so on aren't going anywhere. They will remain online as they have been. Beyond that, it really just depends on whether or not I am able to find any semblance of balance with these two jobs.
The best-case scenario: I find a sort of balance, and things continue to happen, but at a much slower pace. Less hours means less time inherently for me to work on stuff - and so things taking longer is just going to be unavoidable.
The worst-case scenario: I'm unable to find any real sense of balance, I struggle to cope with the sheer amount of work I'm doing, and everything grinds to a total halt. In this case, there would likely be nothing in terms of updates, bugfixes, new content, and so on, until this is all over.
Most likely, in either case, I will not be in voice chats very much at all while this is going on - because I just won't have the time to do so. If I'm able to then I will try to, but it's possible that I will largely disappear from voice chats for a while.
The Road Ahead
All of which brings us into the last question - how long is this going to be the case? What's the time-frame for all of this look like?
At an absolute minimum, I will need to pay off the people who I borrowed money from in order to afford the attempted repairs on my original vehicle, as well as whatever funds I've borrowed from others for its replacement. I'll also want to get at least a small reserve of cash - probably at least a few thousand, if not more - so that in the event of another event like this, I'm not completely destroyed financially. It's hard to say how long this would take, but most likely this could be at least 5 months for the debt alone. If I want to also build a financial cushion, then the total would be closer to 10-12 months, and that's assuming no other catastrophes in between - which, considering how things have gone as of late, is not out of the question.
So, to put it simply, whatever things end up looking like, this will be the new state of things for anywhere from 5-12 months. Considering how long I've been around and doing things, it really isn't that long - but I won't lie, the thought of doing genuinely nothing except work and sleep and survive for even 5 months is a terrifying prospect, let alone 12.
I have no idea how I will cope with this.
Historically, I've found even 40 hours to be on the upper end of tolerable for me, with every attempt of doing more always feeling downright exhausting and miserable. And here I am, now in a situation where I am going to have to work, every single day, without a single day off, for 5-12 months.
Wrapping Up
As I said earlier, I'm not sure how active I will be able to be during this time. If I actually have to just drop off the face of the earth for the most part, I hope you folks can keep things going and keep things active. I want there to be a community to come back to when this is all over.
Additionally, while I won't beg or plead for money or anything - as I arguably have zero right to - I also won't stop anyone who wants to do so, as it might help speed this process up and shorten the amount of time I have to go through this. If you're able to do so, and you're feeling particularly generous, then feel free to head to the store. If not, or if you yourself aren't in a good financial place, then please do not feel any obligation to do so. At the end of the day, this is my mess that I made, and it's nobody's responsibility but my own to clean it up.
The reality is that, no matter how well or not-well I am able to cope, it doesn't matter - I do not have a choice in the matter anymore.
Wish me luck, folks - I think that I'm gonna really need it this time around.