Man your post makes me feel so good to read, I hope that doesn't mean I'm a bad person haha. While not actively using bitcoins that early, I had dabbled into mining a couple of times around 1.5 years ago and thought about seriously investing around a year ago, then had major life situations come up and distract me and put it on the back burner to be forgotten about.
I hope you're right about if you're seriously investing now you'll still be considered an early adopter, I agree with you on this and hope we're right so I can get that feeling out of the pit of my stomach if nothing else. Like how could I not have invested last year, I knew about this and was a believer and KNEW it was very time sensitive. I wish so much I would have desposited enough BTC on sealswithclubs to play some low stakes holdem, which I almost did but didn't. That situation really makes me laugh/vomit, the total hilarity of putting like 1K to play some low/mid stakes poker for fun, only to have that money sitting in that form in my poker account not only make me so much more then anyone could feasibly ever make at those stakes but enough to make me comfortable financially for life.
I feel like for every bitcoin horror story there's a bitcoin miracle story though. I decided a few days ago that I am investing every spare cent I have in bitcoin, possibly going to a few extremes to be able to invest more I'm not sure yet. I honestly thought about selling my car, taking out large loans, etc. Those seem like bad ideas but only kind of. Either way I feel your pain man, best of luck to you!
Hey it took this far to get you interested and you're still early. Things are looking good to be extreme but always be prepared to lose it all.
Ps the goal was to make you feel good. Otherwise people look at all the early members and assume thousands btc which I wish was true
![Roll Eyes](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif)