who am I?

Hi, I’m Terrance Moore! I love God, my family, my friends, music, football, lemon cake, and pecan pie.

After becoming a father at 18 years old, I joined the United States Air Force to both take care of my daughter and to give myself some time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I quickly realized the military wasn’t for me and, with the G.I. Bill in hand, separated to continue my pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. To say I wasn’t prepared for civilian life would be a huge understatement. Almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I had a difficult time finding a stable job, and this had a negative impact on my life in every way imaginable. My credit was ruined. Every other month I would come home to an eviction notice on my door due to being late with the rent. I ended up working two low paying fulltime jobs to make ends meet, which almost killed me after falling asleep at the wheel heading from my night job to my day job. Jesus literally took the wheel that morning because I’m pretty sure the car traveled at least 100 feet down the highway while I was sleeping. Then to add insult to injury, the lady in my life dumped me. I decided it was time to do a hard “reset” with my life. I decided to get back in school to finish my degree, but the G.I. Bill didn’t cover all my expenses, so I took out a student loan. I quit one of my fulltime jobs, joined the Air National Guard, and delivered pizzas part-time on the weekends so I could attend class. A few months after getting back into school, I was blessed with a job paying $30k annually. I was still broke due to being $45k in debt, but it felt like things were about to turn around. Six months later I received a Bachelor’s in Computer Information Systems, but life wasn’t done beating me down. Three weeks prior to receiving my degree I was laid off from my job, and a week later my car was repossessed. I was able to get it back with the money from my severance package, but it was repossessed for the second and final time a few months later. On the first day of my new job, I walked outside, and my car was gone. I lied to my employer saying it was stolen, and then risked even more trouble by using my military credit card to rent a car to get to work. Even though I paid the bill on time, I still had to explain the situation to my Squadron Commander when the violation appeared on his desk. He was understanding of my situation, so he let it slide. I bought an old car that ran on the “Grace of God” who I affectionately called “Bessie” and kept pushing forward. There were many more ups and downs during the 7 years following my separation from active duty, but I’ll spare you for now.

I worked my way out of the hole I was in, and now I’m living a blessed, prosperous life that looks nothing like where I came from. And the journey continues!