Stay at it!

I first started playing online poker in 2004 on Party Poker. I remember starting at SNGs and running up my account a few times but never getting anywhere. I only played occasionally and in spurts because I was a pool player and made my money gambling at pool. Poker was more for fun although I would be trying to win money and had always had marginal success when playing in home games. I even ran a poker game from my apt. for about a year around 2003. In 2005 poker was legalized in OK and several of us pool players got a job at the casino thanks to one of our pool playing friends getting in as a shift manager of the poker room and giving his friends with poker experience a call to come apply. Once I started at the casino poker became a bigger part of my life and pool faded out. Five months into my new career I was in a motorcycle wreck and was in the hospital for four months. About two months in to that four as I was getting better I started playing some online and it helped so much to pass the time. I just wish I had a clue about improving at poker at this time, I sure had some time on my hands.
Well, I get out of the hospital and I was living at a friends house I haven't known that long due to my girlfriend of over four years dying while I was in the hospital. Kristie was a great person and I miss her but she had cancer and got a blood clot and had complications. The house we were renting had been getting packed up for me and my family lived in another state but I was keeping my job at the casino so staying with a friend it was. Well, due to these new circumstances I consumed myself with work and poker. We could play at the casino when we were off work so I would work eight hours then play 1/2 or 2/5 no limit for hours everyday. I would also play in any tournaments that I could when I could.
I thought I played well. I won more than I lost and always felt like I had an edge at the table. I kept playing online in spurts too. It was always spurts though because I didn't understand bankroll management. I had made my money gambling for about ten years before working at the casino and never had a clue about bankroll management, so amazing.
June 2008 I lose my job and start playing live poker in hopes I can make it. I was doing okay but my lack of bankroll control gave me false feelings of comfort when I was actually always risking most of my roll. I would usually make it a while before a mistake cost me and then would take a breather and sometimes switch to online for a while. After a few years of never getting anywhere online I had started to think I couldn't beat it, then in late 2009 with some help from a friend I started to understand BRM and finished the year a small winner.
In 2010 after a good live series I bought a new laptop and chose to devote myself to online poker and try to get winner. I am exactly one year into that journey and am winner and have improved a ton. It took strict BRM, lots of volume, a poker chat group, P5s, PxF, TPE, and I took some lessons. I had a great January but a less than stellar February and a rough start to March. I just took a five day break for the first time in a year, I had only took a couple one day breaks and not very often. After my five day break I played for two and half days and was not in a good spot. I took two more days off and during those two days has two great conversations with a couple close poker friends. Now I am a few days back from that break and I feel so good. I have been motivated and taking all the beats well. I have also been getting back to actively reaching final tables. I haven't shipped one but feel like my game is charging forward. I really want to be more active in review but tend to spend most of my time playing.
The moral of the story is work hard and stay with it. I will get everything I want by putting in the hard work it requires, you can too.