I just received a velocity stack form TJ Brutal Customs for my 2004 Honda VLX600. This is my last performance modification before I get into serious cosmetic work on the bike. This involves removing the airbox and air filter, and replacing them with a short funnel like tube to channel airflow into the carburetor. This should increase airflow open up a lot of space around the engine for a better visual appearance.
Making this change will require rejetting of the carb (the jet kit specific to this stack is also from TJ Brutal Customs.) During this process I'll also be removing a whole host of unnecessary hoses and emission control gadgets. These include the PAIR system, which is designed to inject air into the exhaust pipes to fool emissions tests and which also don't typically work after a year or two.
Not only will removing all this clean up the appearance of the bike, it will open up a lot of space under the fuel tank which I can later use for relocating some electronic components. I'm planning on rewiring the bike entirely with a minimal harness and using a Motogadget M-Unit, which will simplify wiring and add a lot of modern feature to the bike, including an alarm and removing the need for a fuse box. All of which will allow for further opening up space in the frame and giving the bike a lighter, more stripped down appearance.
That's the plan. Now, for the process.
Getting the airbox and various hoses out is one thing, rejetting the carb is another thing, so I'll document each separately in coming posts.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Anarchy in Relationships
About 7 years ago I began a relationship that, for the first time in my life, made me think "Happily ever after" could be a real option. What was different? Well, among other things, we decided to have an open or polyamorous relationship. A few years later that relationship ended, and I was devastated, but the path I had started down was one I could not go back on.
(To be honest, I've yet to see a couple who's first poly relationship survives more than a few years. I believe polyamory is the human default, but since our culture indoctrinates us to a different standard from birth, the transition back to poly is usually very difficult. Combined with that lack of support from most people, and the fact many poly people live closeted emotional lives as a result, it can be too traumatic a challenge for most relationships to deal with long term. That's my opinion.)
During that relationship we each had other partners, jealousy was sometimes an issue, and admittedly one I had more difficulty learning to deal with. She and I lived together and called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, but I never thought of any other partner as "secondary," the typical poly term for a less important partner. That kind of polyamory is called "hierarchical," which is basically a ranking system for partners. It never felt right to me. I find it degrading and humiliating.
Since that relationship, I've had several relationships of various kinds. On a couple occasions, I've been pressured to used the word girlfriend to describe a partner's status in my life, but for some reason I really disliked that. I honestly thought it was some inner voice telling me this relationship must not be as important as I think it is.
Over time, I began to develop a variety of intimate relationships that are healthy and mutually supportive. I dated one woman for a brief period and soon we realized we were incompatible as romantic and sexual partners, we both almost wrote the relationship off. But over time we have because intimate friends, she is now one of the closest friends I've ever had. We are not romantic or sexual, we are just us. But there is no doubt that our closeness is seen as a threat to most of the people either of us date now.
To someone with a monogamous agenda, who seeks to follow the "relationship escalator," a friendship as close as ours must seem to contain some type of intimacy that they think they should be entitled to because they are romantic and sexual with one of us. On the other hand, neither she nor I ever seem to feel threatened by any new romantic or sexual partners the other may have, we feel secure in our relationship with each other. Because we don't view relationships as competitive or hierarchical, there's no need for jealousy, we each get some needs fulfilled from each other, and other needs fulfilled by other people.
I have very close relationships now with a number of people that include a range of intimacy types -- emotional, romantic and sexual. None of them are the same, but each is in its own way mutually fulfilling. Though I have many intimate relationships, I still consider myself single, at least in terms of the accepted cultural norm.
I have all the things one would expect from a monogamous partner, romance, sex, emotional support, commitment, and, above all, love, in fact I have more of those things, because I get them from multiple people. Yet the term "polygamous" still didn't seem to accurately describe me, because I'm not seeking a girlfriend or wife, I'm simply open to new, fulfilling, intimate relationships, in whatever form they may take, whenever they come along.
Recently, my former girlfriend, the one I talked about in the beginning, introduced me to the term "Relationship Anarchy." Its a relatively new term in the social/romantic/sexual lexicon. It is a form of non-hierarchical polyamory, and it turns out, it much more accurately describes my relationship style.
This may seem like a small thing to some people, but to me its not. For the first twenty-three years of my dating life, I struggled to find happiness with a partner. I would meet someone, fall in love, everything would seem great. But inside I thought there was something wrong with me. Despite being totally enamored with my partner, I would meet other people I was interested in romantically or sexually. I wouldn't act on those feelings, but it felt like I was cheating myself and them. In my heart and mind it seemed arbitrary that I was supposed to not feel these feelings for one person simply because I already had them for another. Why not?
For a long time, I thought I was broken. Then I began to recognize a pattern in my life. I would meet someone, date them monogamously, and over time I would slowly become less and less fulfilled. There would be nothing wrong with the relationship, only it wasn't fulfilling me anymore. We would break up and I would be happy again, I would begin dating different people, supposedly looking for the one person I would "commit to," and the cycle would begin again. I was only happiest when I was "single" but had intimate relationships without the normal restraints monogamy puts on outside relationships.
Understanding this about myself is what eventually lead me to agree to a poly relationship (she brought it up first.) I figured it would give me the ability to develop those other intimate relationships, as I found them, with freedom, and to some extent it did (being poly, despite what most people thing, actually limits dating options dramatically, as most people are only interested in eventually having a monogamous relationship.)
Functionally, the outside world saw me as a normal guy with a girlfriend. A few people knew I had a second partner "on the side," and they assumed that my girlfriend was more important to me than my secondary partner. But they were wrong. When the second relationship ended, I was was devastated. In fact, the way in ended still bothers me now, years later. I have regrets as much about that relationship as I do with my former girlfriend.
Since then, I enter any potentially intimate relationship with a declaration that I am not monogamous, and that if the potential new partner seeks that from me, we had best remain only "friends." For a monogamous person, the status of "friend," usually has specific limitations, primarily sex, but not always, or only under specific circumstances. This is just fine for me, because I can respect other peoples boundaries, and still allow a relationship to develop organically.
By no longer identifying as poly, I also remove the idea of the potential for someone to gain the status as my "primary." That isn't how I work. All my relationships are important to me for different reasons, and none supersedes the others in all instances. Of course, since this "new" term requires some explaining to virtually everyone, it also means I have to do so with anyone who seeks to get involved with me, but in a way, I've been having that conversation for years.
All that aside, it feels pretty refreshing to know I'm not alone in my relationship style, I'm not broken or whatever. I'm just being my authentic self, finally, after many years of trying to force myself into a mold that didn't fit. Happily ever after is a reality now for me, not because I found "the one," but because I am the one, I am able to be truly myself now, and that is what makes me happy.
(To be honest, I've yet to see a couple who's first poly relationship survives more than a few years. I believe polyamory is the human default, but since our culture indoctrinates us to a different standard from birth, the transition back to poly is usually very difficult. Combined with that lack of support from most people, and the fact many poly people live closeted emotional lives as a result, it can be too traumatic a challenge for most relationships to deal with long term. That's my opinion.)
During that relationship we each had other partners, jealousy was sometimes an issue, and admittedly one I had more difficulty learning to deal with. She and I lived together and called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, but I never thought of any other partner as "secondary," the typical poly term for a less important partner. That kind of polyamory is called "hierarchical," which is basically a ranking system for partners. It never felt right to me. I find it degrading and humiliating.
Since that relationship, I've had several relationships of various kinds. On a couple occasions, I've been pressured to used the word girlfriend to describe a partner's status in my life, but for some reason I really disliked that. I honestly thought it was some inner voice telling me this relationship must not be as important as I think it is.
Over time, I began to develop a variety of intimate relationships that are healthy and mutually supportive. I dated one woman for a brief period and soon we realized we were incompatible as romantic and sexual partners, we both almost wrote the relationship off. But over time we have because intimate friends, she is now one of the closest friends I've ever had. We are not romantic or sexual, we are just us. But there is no doubt that our closeness is seen as a threat to most of the people either of us date now.
To someone with a monogamous agenda, who seeks to follow the "relationship escalator," a friendship as close as ours must seem to contain some type of intimacy that they think they should be entitled to because they are romantic and sexual with one of us. On the other hand, neither she nor I ever seem to feel threatened by any new romantic or sexual partners the other may have, we feel secure in our relationship with each other. Because we don't view relationships as competitive or hierarchical, there's no need for jealousy, we each get some needs fulfilled from each other, and other needs fulfilled by other people.
I have very close relationships now with a number of people that include a range of intimacy types -- emotional, romantic and sexual. None of them are the same, but each is in its own way mutually fulfilling. Though I have many intimate relationships, I still consider myself single, at least in terms of the accepted cultural norm.
I have all the things one would expect from a monogamous partner, romance, sex, emotional support, commitment, and, above all, love, in fact I have more of those things, because I get them from multiple people. Yet the term "polygamous" still didn't seem to accurately describe me, because I'm not seeking a girlfriend or wife, I'm simply open to new, fulfilling, intimate relationships, in whatever form they may take, whenever they come along.
Recently, my former girlfriend, the one I talked about in the beginning, introduced me to the term "Relationship Anarchy." Its a relatively new term in the social/romantic/sexual lexicon. It is a form of non-hierarchical polyamory, and it turns out, it much more accurately describes my relationship style.
This may seem like a small thing to some people, but to me its not. For the first twenty-three years of my dating life, I struggled to find happiness with a partner. I would meet someone, fall in love, everything would seem great. But inside I thought there was something wrong with me. Despite being totally enamored with my partner, I would meet other people I was interested in romantically or sexually. I wouldn't act on those feelings, but it felt like I was cheating myself and them. In my heart and mind it seemed arbitrary that I was supposed to not feel these feelings for one person simply because I already had them for another. Why not?
For a long time, I thought I was broken. Then I began to recognize a pattern in my life. I would meet someone, date them monogamously, and over time I would slowly become less and less fulfilled. There would be nothing wrong with the relationship, only it wasn't fulfilling me anymore. We would break up and I would be happy again, I would begin dating different people, supposedly looking for the one person I would "commit to," and the cycle would begin again. I was only happiest when I was "single" but had intimate relationships without the normal restraints monogamy puts on outside relationships.
Understanding this about myself is what eventually lead me to agree to a poly relationship (she brought it up first.) I figured it would give me the ability to develop those other intimate relationships, as I found them, with freedom, and to some extent it did (being poly, despite what most people thing, actually limits dating options dramatically, as most people are only interested in eventually having a monogamous relationship.)
Functionally, the outside world saw me as a normal guy with a girlfriend. A few people knew I had a second partner "on the side," and they assumed that my girlfriend was more important to me than my secondary partner. But they were wrong. When the second relationship ended, I was was devastated. In fact, the way in ended still bothers me now, years later. I have regrets as much about that relationship as I do with my former girlfriend.
Since then, I enter any potentially intimate relationship with a declaration that I am not monogamous, and that if the potential new partner seeks that from me, we had best remain only "friends." For a monogamous person, the status of "friend," usually has specific limitations, primarily sex, but not always, or only under specific circumstances. This is just fine for me, because I can respect other peoples boundaries, and still allow a relationship to develop organically.
By no longer identifying as poly, I also remove the idea of the potential for someone to gain the status as my "primary." That isn't how I work. All my relationships are important to me for different reasons, and none supersedes the others in all instances. Of course, since this "new" term requires some explaining to virtually everyone, it also means I have to do so with anyone who seeks to get involved with me, but in a way, I've been having that conversation for years.
All that aside, it feels pretty refreshing to know I'm not alone in my relationship style, I'm not broken or whatever. I'm just being my authentic self, finally, after many years of trying to force myself into a mold that didn't fit. Happily ever after is a reality now for me, not because I found "the one," but because I am the one, I am able to be truly myself now, and that is what makes me happy.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
The Daily Scare - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Fear
"Do something every day that scares you."
-- Mary Schmich
When I first heard this years ago, I thought it meant doing something NEW that scared me everyday. The problem with that, is that I tended to look for big, new things I hadn't done before and that becomes difficult to keep up. Often time, big things, like skydiving for example, take a lot of time and effort to set up and follow through on. Its impossible to do something like that every day.
This spring, I decided it was time I learned to ride a motorcycle, which is a big thing, not an every day level activity. It was something I'd long wanted to do, and had made various excuses to put it off for years. That time was over, the time to do it had come. So I signed up for an MSF class. I bought a riding jacket, complete with armor pads to protect myself, and ridding gloves. I had ankle height hiking boots, to protect my feet, so I was good to go. The class provided the helmets and motorcycles.
The day of the class I was a little nervous, but mostly excited, and I expected to do well. I'd studied all my materials, read the course book cover to cover. I'm in good shape, generally athletic, and I got a good night's sleep. I was ready.
The class consisted of classroom and practical riding on a closed parking lot. The classroom work was easy for me, I'd read the whole book, I knew the materials. The riding seemed easy at first, too. We started with starting the bike.
That sounds simple, but its a little more complicated than starting a car. Everything on a motorcycle comes with a higher price of failure. You're not protected by a metal cocoon with airbags and safety belts. You DO have several hundred pounds of metal and plastic between your legs capable of moving very quickly. Pop the clutch in a car and the car jumps and lurches and stalls and its embarrassing. Pop the clutch on a motorcycle and it could go rocketing off, possibly with you on it, out of control until it falls over, possible with you still on it. You could not only break the bike, bending the handle bars, scratching the paint, etc., you could hurt yourself or someone else very seriously. So you take extra steps with everything.
By the time we broke for lunch we were cruising around the lot in first gear, everything was fine.
After lunch, things were getting more and more complicated, each skill building on the last. As we started up the bikes and moved out to line up for the next skill, I accidentally throttled the bike hard. I began to panic, but followed my instructor's first lesson, "The clutch is your friend." So I pulled the clutch. With the throttle open, the engine revved up high, screaming loudly and terrified me. The bike was still rolling, and I was panicked. I didn't think the clutch was working, so I let it out to try it again.
Letting the clutch out with the engine racing on a 300cc sport bike is the perfect recipe for a wheelie, which is exactly what the bike did. The front wheel popped up, straight up into the air, throwing me off like a bucking bronco, and sending the bike careening forward into a fence. Fortunately, no one else was hurt.
The incident scared the living shit out of me. My instructors nearly bounced me from the class, rightfully so. I was boarder-line, I was becoming a danger to myself and others. Nervously, I finished the day, having lost confidence in myself, I was re-thinking the entire motorcycle idea. Maybe this wasn't for me? Maybe I should stick to cars?
I showed up the next day and finished the class. Still anxious about the power of the bike, I was cautious about everything I did. I passed the written exam with a perfect score and got the lowest possible score on the practical riding exam to pass. Literally, one point lower and I would have failed.
Humbled, I headed home. I stopped on the way home and bought a helmet. Leaving the class I wasn't sure I was going to continue riding, but spending a couple hundred dollars on a good helmet would force me to keep going. I made the decision that when I learned to ride safely and confidently, then I could quit. Buying the helmet was a commitment to that. I would prove I COULD do it, then not doing it would be a choice rather than a default.
A week or so later, new license in hand, I went to buy my first motorcycle, a used cruiser. Less powerful than the sport bike I'd learned on, but bigger. When I took it for a test ride around the owner's neighborhood, I did a similar thing to the accident in class. I lost control and ditched it in someone's front yard. No one saw me, the bike was fine, so I rode it back and bought it.
I had a buddy drive it home a few days later. I was not ready for the 45 minutes on the highway. I'd never been out of 2nd gear before.
Now I had a motorcycle. I'd been reading books about riding skills and safety for two weeks. I'd been listening to pod casts on the same subjects, and watching videos online.Now I had to put it into practice.
My first day out, I carefully rode it to a near by parking lot and began drilling the basic skills. Breaking, low speed cornering, clutching... Over and over and over.
The next day, I woke up, had breakfast and headed out to do the same thing. The only road time the bike saw that first week was the mile and a half to the parking lot and back, at no more than 25 miles an hour. Then I began riding it to work and back, 2 miles each way. Then touring around town, even getting up into third gear. Every day I pushed a little harder. Every couple days I was back in a parking lot drilling skills.
40 mph was the the next big scare. There seemed to be a big change in the amount of wind between 35 and 40. It was pushing me harder, buffeting me and bike, trying to turn me and push me off the bike. It was loud and scary. But I got used to it.
Then I took it out on a little stretch of highway, up to 65 miles an hour! What was slow driving speed for me in my car, was terrifying on a motorcycle. I made it to my exit 3 miles down, turned off, and limped home on surface roads, too scared to go back the way I came.
But the next day I did it again. Then again. Then again. Reaching out further and further every time, 5 miles then 10. Then came the day I was comfortable at 65, so I took it out for day trip. 220 miles round trip on highways and state roads. By the end of the day I was exhausted from tension, but I'd also had those moments of bliss just cruising with my machine, the moments every biker rides for.
Over the course of the summer I made a point to ride every single day. My bike is 2004 model, and had 24,600 miles on it when I bought. The previous owners had put about 2000 miles a year on it. By the time I left for my end of August vacation, I had ridden all but two day since buying it and logged over 3,500 miles. More miles in a three months than that bike usually saw a year, and more than many riders ride in a year.
I made a point to push myself every day. Not to the point of utter terror. I learned to sense my own tension, and to just touch on it a bit every ride. Maybe go a little faster, or further, maybe find a curvy road and practice riding curves. I learned to recognize when a specific skill made me nervous and increased my tension level, like entering a tight turn, the I'd head to a parking lot drill that skill over and over.
I learned to see situations that made me uncomfortable, like fast traffic, and spend a part of each ride in that situation until I got more comfortable. I learned to look for trouble, and spot potential problems and look for escape routes just in case, and practice specific skills that would help in those situations, like swerving and emergency stopping.
Then the day came when I was riding to a friend's house. I headed up the on-ramp to the highway, twisted the throttle open, shifted up through the gears, merged into traffic, slide over a lane, then another, then another, until I was in the HOV lane, sliding past cars. Only then did I look down and see I was up to 80 mph, buffeted by wind, cruising in heavy traffic, around bends in the highway, and feeling fine. I was alert, aware, but not worried, not tense.
I had done something every day that scared me. It was the same thing, riding a motorcycle, but it was also always a different thing, a new challenge, a little faster, a little further, ride the highway, ride the curves, brake harder, turn tighter. I learned to sense my fear, and to use it as a guide. I learned to read it, to know when it was telling me "this is what you need to practice," and when it was saying, "back off, take a break."
Looking back, I've applied this approach to a lot of things in my life, but I didn't realize it. Now that I do, I can continue to apply it, in a conscious way, from now on -- Doing something every day that scares me. But I learned something else when I learned to acknowledge my fears and to be guided by them.
I learned that the feeling I got that guided me to work on my turning skills, is the same feeling I get in other situations in life, like when I need to apologize to someone when I'm mad. Well, not exactly the same, but similar. That's a fear, too, fear of being vulnerable, of admitting wrong, of setting myself up to be yelled at and shamed. Doing those things also falls under the category of "things that scare me."
Doing something that scares me everyday turns out to be easier than I thought, because every day I find things that scare me, maybe even the same thing that scared me yesterday. It doesn't have to be a big thing, or something I planned. I just need to acknowledge that I am feeling fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and then understand that feeling and figure out if its telling me to move forward and grow, or to slow down and not push too hard.
Everyone can see the use of using fear to learn a new skill. Now I can ride a motorcycle with confidence, and I have the sense to know when I should take it easy, and when I need to practice, but the end result is easy for everyone to see. Its measurable, demonstrable.
The other kinds of things, the little daily fears that I use to guide me now, are not so easy for others to see, but the changes following them has made in me are no less an improvement in my life and in my character. I'm more open, more forgiving, more loving, I'm friendlier.
So I have learned to embrace my fears, to feel them, to question them, and to follow them. Every day I do something that scares me, and that is changing who I am for the better.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
My Ride - Midlife Sans Crisis.
When I was 19 I had my whole life to look forward to. I was studying photography, I was going to travel the world taking pictures. The world was mine to explore and that was the purpose of life, to explore.
On my 20th birthday I found out I was going to be a father, my ex-girlfriend was pregnant. I remember sitting alone watching all my dreams and hopes come crashing down. No more traveling the world, no more adventures. Now I had a child to care for. It suddenly become very, very real to me that I had no real marketable skills, no experience, and no prospects.
What I did have was years of needing a lot more money than I needed just to feed and house myself in whatever shitty apartment was good enough for me. My standard of living wasn't good enough for a child. I was stuck.
Things didn't work out with my ex, and not long after that she decided being a single mother was too hard, so she bailed. I was 23, broke, alone and stuck with a toddler. Just when I was beginning to see a life for myself after becoming a parent, it all crashed down again.
I left the only place that ever felt like home to me. I left a job where I was making progress toward a career. I left behind my friends. I moved to the Midwest, to move in with my parents and start over again, with their help raising my child.
I built a life. Started a new job, which slowly grew into a career, and then into my own business. I moved out of my parent's house for the second time, into a one bedroom apartment where I slept on the couch. Then into a bigger apartment a few years later where I had my own bedroom. Then I bought a house and expanded my business.
I had a life. A good life many people would envy. A house, growing, healthy child, a business, friends, a string of beautiful and talented girl friends. I told myself I was happy, I was living the American Dream. I had no real right to complain and I didn't.
Inside, deep down, I wasn't happy, because this was not the life I wanted. I was doing the right thing, taking care of my son, making sure he had a good home, that he felt loved, and safe. People told me they admired me, that I was an example to others. But I wasn't happy, not on that deepest level where no one else can see.
When my son was 16, all that I'd build began to come apart. The Great Recession began, and my business, custom woodworking and cabinetry, was an early casualty. I struggled. I lost my girl friend, the house went into foreclosure, I had to borrow money from my family to pay bills.
After two years of fighting off the bank, my son graduate high school and left for college. My sentence was done. I had no business any more. I had no home anymore. I had sold off most of my possession. A week after my son lift, a month before my house was auctioned off, I packed up what I had left and headed off into the unknown.
I went back to the only place I'd ever felt at home, with no job, and only the cash I'd raised by selling everything at my yard sale.
Broke, jobless, homeless, with 15 years of experience in an industry that would not be hiring for years, I was in as good a position as I had been 19 years earlier, the day before I found out I was going to be a parent. I had come full circle. I was 38.
In the 80's the term "mid-life crisis" was used to describe people, mostly men, who suddenly began behaving like younger men, dating younger women, buying sports cars, wearing more stylish clothes, etc. It was term meant to describe a problem, to imply these men were broken in some way.
I think that idea was wrong. We live in a culture where we are indoctrinated from birth that there is a specific path we should take, and that that is the only acceptable way to happiness. The path is to make money at a "respectable" job, get married, have a family. That path was very rigid decades ago, but is becoming less so, which is a good thing.
That path is not the path to fulfillment for everyone. We all have our own dreams and goals and desires, and that path and its various subtle incarnations, is not ideal for everyone. It wasn't for me.
So when someone who has lived that life suddenly stops and decides they want to do things the things they did, or wanted to do, years ago, its not a crisis. Its an awakening. They have been unfulfilled and they are looking for a way to fulfill themselves. They have chosen to stop beating their head against the wall and try something different.
I knew I was not happy. I knew I was not fulfilled. The whole time, I knew the life I was living was not for me, and I took the first opportunity to leave it behind. I didn't have luxury of cashing out with a ton of money like some we read about. I started over at zero. But it didn't matter, all that mattered was that for the first time in nearly two decades, I was able to put my happiness, my dreams, my desires first, and I had the freedom to figure out what those were.
That's what this blog is about. Perhaps it will entertain, maybe it will instruct, who knows, it might even amuse. Its my story, my thoughts, my dreams and desires. Its my journey -- My ride.
On my 20th birthday I found out I was going to be a father, my ex-girlfriend was pregnant. I remember sitting alone watching all my dreams and hopes come crashing down. No more traveling the world, no more adventures. Now I had a child to care for. It suddenly become very, very real to me that I had no real marketable skills, no experience, and no prospects.
What I did have was years of needing a lot more money than I needed just to feed and house myself in whatever shitty apartment was good enough for me. My standard of living wasn't good enough for a child. I was stuck.
Things didn't work out with my ex, and not long after that she decided being a single mother was too hard, so she bailed. I was 23, broke, alone and stuck with a toddler. Just when I was beginning to see a life for myself after becoming a parent, it all crashed down again.
I left the only place that ever felt like home to me. I left a job where I was making progress toward a career. I left behind my friends. I moved to the Midwest, to move in with my parents and start over again, with their help raising my child.
I built a life. Started a new job, which slowly grew into a career, and then into my own business. I moved out of my parent's house for the second time, into a one bedroom apartment where I slept on the couch. Then into a bigger apartment a few years later where I had my own bedroom. Then I bought a house and expanded my business.
I had a life. A good life many people would envy. A house, growing, healthy child, a business, friends, a string of beautiful and talented girl friends. I told myself I was happy, I was living the American Dream. I had no real right to complain and I didn't.
Inside, deep down, I wasn't happy, because this was not the life I wanted. I was doing the right thing, taking care of my son, making sure he had a good home, that he felt loved, and safe. People told me they admired me, that I was an example to others. But I wasn't happy, not on that deepest level where no one else can see.
When my son was 16, all that I'd build began to come apart. The Great Recession began, and my business, custom woodworking and cabinetry, was an early casualty. I struggled. I lost my girl friend, the house went into foreclosure, I had to borrow money from my family to pay bills.
After two years of fighting off the bank, my son graduate high school and left for college. My sentence was done. I had no business any more. I had no home anymore. I had sold off most of my possession. A week after my son lift, a month before my house was auctioned off, I packed up what I had left and headed off into the unknown.
I went back to the only place I'd ever felt at home, with no job, and only the cash I'd raised by selling everything at my yard sale.
Broke, jobless, homeless, with 15 years of experience in an industry that would not be hiring for years, I was in as good a position as I had been 19 years earlier, the day before I found out I was going to be a parent. I had come full circle. I was 38.
In the 80's the term "mid-life crisis" was used to describe people, mostly men, who suddenly began behaving like younger men, dating younger women, buying sports cars, wearing more stylish clothes, etc. It was term meant to describe a problem, to imply these men were broken in some way.
I think that idea was wrong. We live in a culture where we are indoctrinated from birth that there is a specific path we should take, and that that is the only acceptable way to happiness. The path is to make money at a "respectable" job, get married, have a family. That path was very rigid decades ago, but is becoming less so, which is a good thing.
That path is not the path to fulfillment for everyone. We all have our own dreams and goals and desires, and that path and its various subtle incarnations, is not ideal for everyone. It wasn't for me.
So when someone who has lived that life suddenly stops and decides they want to do things the things they did, or wanted to do, years ago, its not a crisis. Its an awakening. They have been unfulfilled and they are looking for a way to fulfill themselves. They have chosen to stop beating their head against the wall and try something different.
I knew I was not happy. I knew I was not fulfilled. The whole time, I knew the life I was living was not for me, and I took the first opportunity to leave it behind. I didn't have luxury of cashing out with a ton of money like some we read about. I started over at zero. But it didn't matter, all that mattered was that for the first time in nearly two decades, I was able to put my happiness, my dreams, my desires first, and I had the freedom to figure out what those were.
That's what this blog is about. Perhaps it will entertain, maybe it will instruct, who knows, it might even amuse. Its my story, my thoughts, my dreams and desires. Its my journey -- My ride.
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