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Recap - Final Post

This is my final post for the time2betransparent blog. There are many, many more experiences, emotions and lessons to share although I feel as though with the last 93 posts, many were able to see into some of the craziness that may be going on under the surface and behind a smile in someone else.

This blog acted as a great release and a great way to connect with people in a different way. People all have their struggles but many of them keep them bottled up inside.

During the course of the last three months, I shared 93(now 94) posts. Each day this blog fluctuated between 50 - 200 readers. About every other day, someone reached out to me with a direct message thanking me for sharing my story, telling me about a similar struggle that they were going through and that they wish they had the courage to do the same. Unfortunately our culture promotes vulnerability, mistakes, being different and being happy with who you are as being less than ok.

I now know that I can be me. No one is perfect even if they try to present themselves that way. Everyone makes mistakes, many of which no one ever finds out about. Everyone learns hard lessons. Everyone moves on.

Remember that on those bad days, you are not the only one that is struggling.

Recognize that everyone has a bad day. Your waitress or waiter may come across as unfriendly today although maybe they just found out that their grandparent was diagnosed with a rapid form of cancer and may only have one more year of life. They have been crying during their shift and are just trying to keep it together but they are hurting. That was me last week...

Do not fall into the trap that you need to look important, be “super busy” or work all the time. Life is too short to be fake. Be honest, work hard, be proud of the goals you set and accomplish and embrace life.

Remember to smile even if it hurts. Everyday is a great day in some fashion. Sometimes you just might have to look a little harder to find the little rays of awesome that shine on us each day.

Thank you for following along, reaching out, sharing, reblogging, liking, commenting and being awesome. Since March of 2015 things have changed radically and are actually quite nice.

I may not be blogging here anymore although I will continue to blog over at themikecashion.tumblr.com and hope you will check in from time to time.

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Words don’t hurt you. Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain.

Neal Shusterman (via quotemadness)

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I fall apart subtly. It’s not loud. It’s bags under my eyes, and meals skipped. It’s not laughing at my favorite shows, not singing along to my favorite songs. It’s subtle, but oh my god, it is real and right now I’m in a million pieces.

philosophically-poetic, will you hold me tight? (via wordsnquotes)

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I don’t know who I am. Or maybe I do know who I am and I just don’t want to be [that] anymore.

Gayle Forman (via quotemadness)

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Ninja Like... Easier Said Than Done

There was one issue that I did not realize going into my decision... The crazy decision to drastically change my way of life, sleep in my office, give up almost everything, cycle, life simply and get my shit together. That one thing was that there was a neighboring business that operated at all hours of the day. They were adjacent to my business. The business was a natural birthing center. As you know, newborns do not operate on a schedule. When they want out, they are coming out.

The business was sometimes open around the clock, late nights, early mornings, overnights and etc. Sometimes they were open for an hour long birthing class and other times they had births happening that took 12+ hours. I never knew what to expect.

It was always a flip of the coin as to whether I would wake up in the morning to see their lights on or I would cycle or walk around the corner to see a bunch of cars there at midnight on may way back to grab some sleep.

Technically I was able to use my commercial space at all hours of the day although it looked really shady for me to be there at such weird hours of the day and night. They could easily think I was doing something shady or connect the dots and realize I was living in my business.

Each time I saw them when I went to leave or come back, it was like mission impossible. My heart would sink and my anxiety would kick into hyper drive. If I was returning to sleep, I would keep the lights on for a bit and look busy. Then I would turn the lights off when they had left. Other times I would leave out the front door to look like I was leaving just to walk around and enter through the back door.

In the morning I would carry my bicycle over my shoulder through the building in the dark to sneak out the rear entrance of the building. This was tough especially in the winter. The rear entrace always had a ton of snow that would show my tracks. Many times there was so much snow that I would have to fight the door to open it and get out.

Always in a constant state of anxiety that I would get caught... 

I kept telling myself:

“Use this as motivation to make a decision or get your shit together.” 

“Work through it. Everything will work out in the end.”

“Everyday is a great day in some way, shape or form.”

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A Different Kind Of Appreciation.

Day after day... Week after week.... Month after month went by. I was still sleeping on the floor of my office which had become my new home. Never had I been without a bed, furniture, shower and what many in the U.S. would consider to be basic needs that they take for granted. Prior to this experience I never really appreciated that I had a nice, comfortable and supportive bed to sleep in. Never had I ever appreciated having my own shower. Never had I ever appreciated having a car. The one thing that I learned to appreciate greatly was a nice bed to sleep in. My parents had always made sure I had a nice, clean, supportive and comfortable bed when I lived with them. In college I had a nice bed. When I moved into my first apartment I had a nice bed to sleep in. Now I was sleeping on the floor. There was not one day that I did not wake up without some kind of ache or pain from sleeping on the floor. Sometimes it was a knee, other times my back, certain days it was my neck and etc. If I worked out hard and I was sore, my body would hurt for longer than normal due to my uncomfortable sleeping conditions. The worst was when I would travel and sleep at a friends place, stay in a hostel, stay in a hotel or stay at a family members home. The reason it was the worst was because I would get a taste of what it was like to have a nice night of sleep knowing that I would be going back to the pain and discomfort of sleeping on a hard floor. Never again will I take for granted a nice bed to sleep in or any of the basic things that many forget are luxuries for many around the world. Remember everything in life is a luxury, not an entitlement. Life Lessons.

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Quote of the day!

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Spotted.

During the summer of 2014 I started to cycle 6 days a week. This included commuting back and forth between Concord and Hillsboro, NH three times a week. Each trip was a 50 mile journey in addition to the usual errands and gym visits.

Many times I would be beyond exhausted, sore or just plain uncomfortable with cycling back to Concord in the dark. So I would roll out a sleeping bag on the matted floor inside the dojo, behind the desk in the waiting area or in one of the changing rooms. It was far from comfortable. It did not really matter though when I was exhausted.

When I would camp out at our karate school in Hillsboro, the space was exposed to the public due to the large windows facing the main street in town. Normally it was not a big issue although one night I was sleeping behind the desk. What I did not realize was that there was a gap between the desk and the wall where someone walking by the window could see me sleeping on the floor.

Then came the day when one of my teen students asked me “what was up with sleeping on the floor at the dojo the other night?” I replied as honestly as possible that I was exhausted after working an early 5 AM shift at the conference center, followed by a workout at the gym before pushing hard to cycle 25 miles in time to teach karate for 6 hours. I didn’t feel as though I was awake enough or aware enough to cycle back that night so I slept on the floor. It made sense to him although he had no idea that all commercial leases outline that you are at no time allowed to sleep or live within a commercial space.

My anxiety spiked when he asked me what I was doing sleeping on the floor of the Hillsboro Dojo. Time to be a little more careful because people can not know that I am falling apart and technically homeless.

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Skipping The Party.

It is pretty common for friends to get married in droves during the mid to late 20′s/early 30′s. My friends seem to be getting hitched left and right.

One of my good friends had proposed to his long time girl friend and best friend. They were getting married and it was very exciting. I was fortunate enough to be included in the top secret plan for a crazy surprise bachelor party for our friend. The plan was for a group of about 8-10 of us to surprise our friend in April(with the help of his soon to wife) with a bachelor party in Las Vegas over a long weekend with people flying in from all over the U.S.

This was going to be an amazing time for all. I was very excited and had committed to going along for the weekend of debauchery with many long time friends and new friends.

Coordinating this awesome weekend took months and one of my fellow friends was doing all of the work behind the scenes including raising enough money from our collective group to pay for the soon to be married friend to fly and stay on us.

A few months after committing to attend I was continuing to struggle with getting my life together and on track. I stupidly decided I would take a month off in December to travel and try to find myself. It was a great time but what I should have been doing, was socking away money for the weekend in Vegas that was fast approaching in April. The weekend in Vegas would likely have cost me nearly as much as I spent during my whole month away but I was not thinking about that. My mind and emotions were all over the place.

After I went away for the month, I realized it was time for me to move away from my business. With that being the case, I would need to start paying things down and prepping to the next part of my life. I would have another large overdraft balance to pay down, many looming business expenses to deal with and much more. Plus it would be an intense time of hunting for another job, clearing out a 1500 square foot space that was full of stuff and figuring out my next move.

I realized that I would have to back out and mentally struggled with letting my friends know that I would not be meeting them in Vegas. It really sucked and I felt like a terrible human being.

I told them a few weeks prior to the adventure and told them I would still send my share of the money to cover the expenses of the bachelor. The day of the celebration I send the money to them via paypal and tried to keep my mind off of how much of a douchebag I felt like.

I kept a full schedule and worked out to try and keep my mind off of it. I kept circling back to how much I hated myself for putting myself in such a shitty situation.

Another life lesson. Figure your shit out and start looking ahead.

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Intense Crash.

As much as I love cycling everywhere, I have been pressed for time, pushed myself too hard, had some close calls. have crashed a few times and etc.

One particular day I was up early trying to push through a long to do list, hit the gym and make it to work before 10 AM. I had been up since 4:45 AM and my brain felt like it was moving 5,000,000 miles a second.

Some how I managed to work through a bunch of my to-do list and forced myself to go to the gym for a workout to get my head together before venturing to work. Many times if I skipped a workout with lots going on, my anxiety kicks into high gear, I have no focus and my productivity tanks.

Throwing a workout at the gym into the mix was cutting things close. I grabbed a shower changed, jumped on my bike and started to peddle hard and get to work as quickly as possible. I was just about there. It was not raining although the pavement was still wet from the rain the night before.

I was coming down the offramp from 393 to Constitution Ave. I was determined to get to work in a timely manner. I decided to blow the stop sign and take a hard left turn in order to save time. The bottom of the ramp is usually really low key. Unfortunately I did not realize how wet the ground was. I was flying down the ramp, tapped the breaks turned hard and lost all traction. 

I did not turn at all. My bike and I slid straight across the pavement. During the course of sliding across the pavement I grinded my left side into the pavement, ripped every piece of clothing I was wearing, got road rash all over, tore a whole in my shoes smashed into the side walk and ate it hard. 

Of course there was an audience of homeless people sitting outside of the friendly kitchen and an oncoming car that watched the whole thing happen. The worst of the crash was that I grinded my left ankle/foot into the pavement(hard).

As quickly as I possibly could, I jumped up(in a large amount of pain), picked up my bike, slammed it on the ground, hopped back on and hussled to work without saying a word.

When I got to work, I was late and my body was beat to shit. I was bleeding in many different places. My sock was full of blood where a crater had been dug by the pavement on my left ankle. I had to change into another set of clothes in my locker because all the clothes I had on were ruined. I grabbed a bunch of paper towels and used a rubber band to create a make shift band aid to cover the deep hole in my ankle and put a fresh sock over it. I was a mess but had to go to work anyways because I could not afford to skip a day of pay.

I played it up as funny to my boss and fellow employees but inside I was in a lot of pain and knew that I could not go to the doctors. I had no insurance and could not afford to go get checked out or get stitched up. My schedule for the day had no breaks factored in to aid the wounds. Right after I got out of work I had to go to the dojo immediately and get ready to teach classes for nearly 6 hours. At the end of the day, I looked everything over and was not overly impressed.

I toughed it out for a few weeks and much of the wounds healed just fine. Although my ankle was still hurting, was not healing well and it looked infected. I went to spend the weekend with my mom who has a history of experience in nursing. I mentioned the accident to her, she checked out the wound and was mortified that it still looked bad after three weeks of time after the accident. She had me spend hours soaking it in salt water and bandaged it up before sending me back to Concord.

It ended up healing but it remained very sensitive and would leave a permanent mark.

Rough day.

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Kindness of others during travel.

During my month long trip I was really stretching my resources thin. I had worked to pay things down and save some money to make the trip work. If it was not for the kindness of others, it would not have worked and I would have had to call it quits after a week. As with every trip, you try and plan everything out. We all try to bring all of what we need as to avoid spending money on a toothbrush versus an experience. Well I tried to think of every possible thing I could need and tried to think of every possible thing that was not necessary. The trip started with me staying in hostels that were priced too high for me to afford for a month. They were burning through my budget quickly as I was a little scared to couch surf or ask friends of friends for help. When a good chunk of my money for the trip was gone I finally broke down and reached out to kind people on couchsurfing.org and to my friends. When I asked for help, my request was always answered by a number of people with a number of options. I basically had a few options in each city to stay with friends of friends and no added cost. If I had asked for help in the first place I could have avoided some heavy stress during beginning of that second week. The experiences with great people are what I will remember for a long time. Many of those experiences would not have been possible if not for the kindness of others. There were multiple people that roomed with me in hostels that gave me free passes to city attractions/events, transit passes with left over cash on them and gifts from the area. When I went out with new friends in new cities they would pay for my food, drinks, uber, taxi's and etc. They would nearly have a tantrum if I tried to pay for myself. It was beyond kind of them. It really saved me a ton and enriched the trip. The trip was transformational for me. It is when this blog began and when I figured out that it was time to learn from my mistakes and start working toward the life that I really wanted to live. As much as the trip was a poor choice, I would do it again in a heart beat.

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Where do you put it all?...

One of the best things about my part time job as a banquet server from September 2013 until March 2015 was that they fed us really well when we worked. I am not a huge individual but it appeared as though I was constantly eating and eating mass amounts of food when I was at work.

It was not uncommon for the chefs, my fellow servers or staff at the facility to say “where do you put it all?” or “how are you so small with all that you eat?”

My response was that I work out everyday and that my other job teaching karate was like exercise by osmosis. This was not a lie but it was only partly true. Since I was tanking really hard, I would try to forgo eating whenever possible. I worked out most everyday. It was an interesting balance to try and maintain. If I did not eat for too long, my body would freak out because I was burning many calories each day. With cycling everywhere, I was regularly averaging 25 miles without a gym visit.

Anyways, there were many days where my source of food was from my 15 or 30 minute break at work plus snacking throughout my shift when possible. I would skip meals and rely on loading up a massive plate of food at work. Overall it worked out well and I saved boatloads of money in grocery costs and was able to keep my lifestyle alive a little longer.

Instead of buying groceries, I could have another couple meetings over coffee, lunch, dinner, drinks. I might be able to pay to attend another event or fundraiser if groceries were not a part of the equation. It worked. Sometimes I was really hungry. Sometimes my workout was lame because I had nothing in my stomach. Sometimes my 50 mile cycling commute to Hillsboro was hellacious because I had not eaten and wanted to pass out.

Suck it up. Keep moving. The story continues. Rock a smile. No pain, no gain.

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It’s my turn to pay...

Fortunately for me, many of the times that I am invited to breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee or for adult beverages my friends find a way to be ninja like and buy for me. It is annoying when you go a full week of meetings and events without paying for a single thing and it made me feel dirty...

Those that are considered of the “haves” and those of the “have nots” handle situations like this differently. 

Those that come from a background of having many resources know that in order to be successful, they will need to rely on others to get there and it is ok to accept kindness and gifts. It has little to no impact on their pride. This does not mean that they never offer to pay but they do not let pride get in the way of others doing nice things for them.

Those that come from a background of having few resources feel differently. They strive to be able to take care of themselves. They let pride get in the way because they no longer want to always be the person that needs to take help. Instead of being the person needing a hand up they would like to be the person offering a hand to someone else.

When offering to help or offering to pay for them, they can become offended because of their past experiences.

After a while my pride gets in the way and I feel the need to pay. Many of those times in the last three years resorted in me overdrawing my account and taking an overdraft fee in addition to the overall bill. That could make for a couple really pricey lattes. What was even worse was when I felt it was my turn to pay and my card was declined. I had gotten used to it happening and was quick to make an excuse about that particular card and swap it out for another one or cash.

If you can not pay for you and your friends glass of wine, you probably should not be going out for wine.

Pride can be a really bad thing. Be honest with yourself. Do not be afraid to take help. Do not put yourself in the situation.

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Do you live here?

One day after dismissing the students from karate class, a student around the age of 10 randomly asked me, "Do you live here?" This was not a question that I had never heard before.... Although all of the other times a student had asked the question I had a place to live and was "comfortable." Meaning I had next to no problems other than "1st world problems". This time, it hurt when this student asked if I lived at the dojo. At that point I had been sleeping in my office for four months or so. It was really wearing me down... I jokingly replied, "No buddy I do not live here but, I do spend a large amount of time here. It is like my second home." He did not mean any harm by the comment. It was the only place he had ever seen me. It did not seem like a far fetched idea to him. We joked and went about our days. Did something give him the idea that I was staying here?... This completely sucks... What am I doing?.... Just another few months and everything will be good.... Just stay focused and keep your cool.... You will figure it all out....

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Constant Anxiety.

Each day I was worrying about getting caught living a life different from what I was telling people. I was worrying I would slip and say something that would lead people to believe that I was not who they thought I was. I was worrying that if I stopped participating that I would be forgotten. I was worried that the kids I had worked with would look at me as a total loser. I was afraid that my friends would no longer want to associate with me. I was afraid in many ways.

The only thing in life that really matters are the people that you surround yourself with. I was constantly worrying that all of my friends would leave me behind. I did not want to be left behind.

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Professional Temper Tantrum x2

During one particular Leadership Program in 2012 I had a very difficult time. One week prior to our kickoff retreat, my best friend suddenly died and I was an emotional wreck inside. I forced myself through the program even though I should have stepped away and reapplied again in the future.

I lost my cool on at least two different instances. One was in person with my class of 30+ fairly well established professionals in NH and five admissions directors from area colleges and universities. The other was in a digital environment where I replied all to my whole class.

At our education session day I became really worked up about the information that the panel of education professionals was giving to our class. I was so upset that I was pacing in the back of the room. I asked a few questions but I could not handle asking anymore because their answers were complete and total bullshit. Traditional education is dying because it is not adapting to the world we currently live in and the world ahead. It also is clearly not a priority, the level of learning is sub par, the value is very low and the cost is beyond extreme. I asked a number of very pointed questions that were borderline insulting to those in education. Everyone was giving me looks because I was loosing it… At one point I had to step out of the room because it was just too much and I was going to freak out.

One of my friends coordinated the session day and was highlighted by one of the panelists as being one of their wonderful, driven and successful graduates. In reality she never finished because it was a waste of time and money. The education was actually holding her back from advancing professionally and growing her business. After the panel discussion he walked up to her and while in conversation she mentioned that she never graduated and decided to leave school. The gentleman then walked away. 

While in the program one of our classmates was very well versed in emotional intelligence and motivation. He offered to give us a free opportunity to take the DISC personality assessment and then review the results with him in a group setting. This was a wonderful offer although he had a tough time rallying the class around a particular day to get together. He sent out multiple polls to find the day that works best for our class as a whole. He had sent out three polls at this point and when that email came through I snapped and hit reply all. My anger was not meant to be directed at him. My life was falling apart around me; I was bleeding money profusely, I was trying to do everything without letting go of some responsibility, my email and work was out of control and I took it out on him. I hit reply all and was a complete asshole and basically said that if you can not decide on a date after this poll, please remove me from the email list because my work schedule is primarily in the evening when most everyone else is free. I responded like a complete douchebag and was having a terrible day.

He responded back to me directly the following day and called me out a little but in a respectful manner. I felt terrible but it was too late I looked like an ass and also hurt a relationship with a really great person that was trying to do something nice for our whole class.

Breath…. think…. pause…. whatever you do, do hit press send when you are upset….

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In no position to help.

Random acts of kindness can always be done.

One particular day I was working an event. It was a large annual celebration. One of my tables drank all of their red wine and requested another bottle. The wine sponsor had only sponsored one bottle of red and one bottle of white wine per table. If they wanted another bottle, they had to purchase it. That was fine and one man wanted to pay with his credit card. Well my employer is stuck in the stone age and can only accept cash. No one at the table had cash. It was not cool…

I went to my boss and asked him if it was cool for me to buy the table another bottle, he was fine with it. So I purchased another bottle for them and brought it over. The idea was very kind and my justification was that many of those people at the celebration had purchased my lunch, dinner, coffee and/or drinks many times. I can justify paying it forward.

After the event I was going through messages and had received one from a friend I had not talked with in a couple years. They had gotten into some trouble by making a few bad choices and needed help getting on track. I felt ill. Earlier that evening I justified buying some inexpensive wine for a table of people that forgot me two seconds after they left the event. Yet there was no way that I could come up with a few hundred dollars to give a friend in need. I really wanted to throw up. I am not a kid, this is completely unacceptable that I am floundering so badly.

What is wrong with me…