Not sleeping very much, my drug use, and work were starting to take their toll on me. No matter how much I did or wanted to achieve, I seemed to never be able to get there. I started having mental breaks-these delusions-I’m guessing it was burnout on steroids. I was always so confident in what I did throughout my life and now I couldn’t control what my mind was doing. I wasn’t always confident in the sense that I was sure what I was doing was right, but I was confident in doing and trying new things whether I failed or not. I didn’t mind failing or being rejected because this always just seemed a part of life. I was taught that if you fell off the horse, you got right back on. As I said, my mental state started going down hill and so did my confidence. I eventually hit a wall and had a panic attack. I was cleaning out my work van one day, and my mind just started turning. I found myself in my room screaming that something was happening, that people weren’t what they seemed to be. I was losing it. After this I found myself sitting in parking lots for hours, crying for no reason. I was overthinking everything. I cried over the littlest things-or nothing all-all the time. One of my friends asked me one day what I was going to do. I told him I didn’t understand the question. He said, “I’ve known you for 20 years and I have never seen you panic, now, it’s all I ever see written on your face.”
I didn’t know what I was going to do. I felt something was wrong-with me, with the town, with people I knew. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was going wrong. I was doing everything I was supposed to. I was grinding, I was living life to the fullest, I was making my own way-and what I ultimately didn’t realize is that I was in my own way. I was blinded by this drug that promised to make my American dreams come true. I was blinded by the promise of happiness, and I was falling apart little by little. I was burning the candle at both ends at work. That year, I worked 67 days straight with no time off whatsoever.
There came a time a few months later that I started getting tired of trying. I felt like I just couldn’t get ahead. I wasn’t suicidal, but I also knew what it felt like for the first time in my life not to care whether I lived or died. The realization came to me one day when I was cleaning the gutters on a house. I started paying attention to people playing golf off in the distance while walking towards the edge of the roof. I happened to look down at the very last moment, foot in the air; had I stepped down I would have walked off the roof. I remember looking down at my foot in the air and thought, “huh.” That’s it. No fear, no learning moment about safety, no relief that I didn’t fall, just shrugged my shoulders and thought, “Huh.” I started to ponder on this lack of reaction. I realized that I didn’t want to die, but also, it just “was what it was.” If no one was going to recognize me for being the “best” me I could be, then what was the point?
I started feeling lower and lower and no matter what drug I did or how much of it, seemed to be helping. I was nearing the end. My father was getting more and more annoyed with me, as I was with him. We weren’t getting along and we were constantly at each other’s throat. He was fighting his own demons, but like I have said before, this is not to blame or pass judgment on anyone else this is about me.
After a few more weeks, my father said that he was tired of working with me, that I didn’t work as hard as I had once, and that he was tired of the business. He told me that he was giving me the business and I could do with it what I wanted. That was what I had always wanted to hear: that he trusted me to take over and run the business that I had put so much into. Over the years we had gone from eight employees, to four, then two, and finally, for the last two years, just me. I told him that I was exhausted and that I would let him know. I said I would probably take it over, but that I needed a little time to figure out if that was what I really wanted to do. I had seen how he struggled and tried so hard doing so many things, only to be overextended, overworked, and miserable. I didn’t want to end up like that. He said that I would have until the end of the year, about two months-to decide. I would have to switch the business name, get insurance, redo the work van, and transfer the work phone to my house. I had never done any of this, and I didn’t know what to do, really. I didn’t know how to go about any of this with zero dollars. The work season had ended, and there was no more money to be made until the spring.
I decided right after Christmas that I wasn’t going to lie down and accept my fate. I decided that I was going to make money through the winter, get things changed over, and that I was going to be successful. I had a van and very little money, but I heard about DoorDash and decided that I would do that until spring and all would be amazing. I was going to show him that I could do this. Little did I know that this wasn’t in God’s plan at all. Two weeks into doing DoorDash, disaster struck.
I was on my way from Kingsport to Bristol when my van made a loud “pop” sound followed by a “slapping” sound, and then it started to overheat very quickly. I pulled over to the side of the road. Weeks before, I had gotten a Good Sam membership so I called them and waited. I remember it took them two or three hours to get there, and it was cold out. The policy was that when they got there, they would tow it to the nearest mechanic shop if there was one open. As luck would have it there wasn’t one open, so they agreed to tow it to my house. I figured they would have, because it had broken down about six months before and it was after hours then, too. They towed it back to my place that night as well. Once I got home, I did some more meth and decided to worry about it the next day.
About a week went by, and I still had no idea what to do about the van. I had no money, my rent was coming due, and I had no job or way to get to one. I got together with a guy that I had cleaned windows with before, and he was nice enough to take me to a new construction job that I had been called to a few days before. I explained my situation to the contractor there, and after I completed some of the work, he cut me a check early so that I could pay my rent, get insurance, and get my van fixed. I paid my rent, and bought meth and cigarettes with the rest. I again was broke. A day or two later my power got cut off. I didn’t know what to do. I broke down and started crying. I turned on my phone camera out of desperation, filmed my bill, and begged someone to help me. I posted that video to Facebook and fell asleep crying. I awoke several hours later because all the lights came on in my house. An amazing guy that I hadn’t seen in years saw the video and paid my electric bill for me. God puts amazing people in our lives from time to time.
The contractor at work told me to get my van to a mechanic so I could figure out what was wrong with it and work on getting it fixed. I used the same towing service and, for the third time that year had the van towed to a shop. God works in the craziest of ways and I’ve learned never to doubt God’s wisdom. There was a mechanic’s shop across the street from where I lived. It was so close I could have put the van in neutral and let it coast over. The mechanic there had known my dad for years, and I know he would have fixed it and probably let me pay when I could. As fate would have it, he didn’t answer the phone, so the towing company took it to the next closest shop to my house, which was about a mile away. I was okay with this and made sure I called that shop every day to stay on top of them and to show the contractor that I was making an effort. We finished the work, and I was still waiting to see what the mechanic said. I called, and they would tell me it would be a few more days every time I called them.
A month went by and I finally called them for the last time and they said they would be closed Friday and that I could make arrangements to pick it up. I was overjoyed and asked them what was wrong with it and how much it would cost. I was really surprised that they were going to just let me pick it up and pay whenever. I thought that was really kind of them. He then said, “I mean the shop is closing for good on Friday.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless, except to say to leave the keys in it. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I pulled myself together and made it through the rest of the workday. By this time the contractor and I were barley speaking. He was angry that I wasn’t being more assertive and proactive about getting the van fixed and wouldn’t give me any more money. The rent came due again. The power and water got cut off, and I was stuck at home.
I decided to have the van towed back to my house on that Friday since I would be home, and I would figure out my next step then. I picked up the phone and called the towing company and they said it would be $160. I then reminded them that I was a member and that I wanted to use the towing service like I had done the month before. They then told me that I had used my three tows for the year and that it would be $160. I laughed and asked the lady if I was being punked. I said, “You have to be kidding, is this a joke?” She assured me that I wasn’t being punked and then repeated the price. I hung up the phone and began to sob.