The end Of The Beginning Of The Möebius Strip

Fear exists solely in being forgotten. If my loved ones remember me for only an extra generation, and the lessons I have given positively influence their future families…

Your opinions and moods can swing rapidly to the other end of the spectrum. You can be hyper moody when you feel that weight lifted.

That’s called “pink cloud syndrome”. Lifting off the one onus may feel liberating, but you’ll have to deal with the consequences for all your past actions.

Find a support system that is ideal for you. I found mine in my loving wife (without whom I wouldn’t be here) and she encouraged me to start lifting again.

I’m not the best man but if it weren’t for her help, it’d be a lot worse.

So I was at work, normal day as usual. Things have been a little more intense as we’ve brought in another shop to perform some work we aren’t licensed for, but they aren’t prepped to do our work either. Basic gist is that them being here means I have to work 5x harder to teach them how to move 3 units an hour instead of 2 units per shift, while still doing my own work.

And it hits me. I’m turning 39 in a little over a month. And I think I peaked at my HS graduation, because the wunderkind who amazed everyone at 15 can’t remember anything noteable over the last 24 years. I’m a burnout. A has-been.

I mean, I did some things like starting my own consultancy and establishing certain standards niche to my intended industry, but at the end of the day, even with my name attached, doesn’t mean shit.

I helped a friend turned his family’s business out of the red and barely black, but as a manager with no say in controlling the supply chain from its owners, I left that to go on sabbatical (and they failed with a year after I’d kept it running for over five). They overrode me eventually when I told them not to spread the brand identity too thin and to simplify to what works. And more QC on the things that did work.

During that time, I met an amazing woman who had her own struggles to overcome, but her family accepted the fact that I gambled against the house and lost. Entrepreneurs work a lot of hours but I’ve always felt when I was at least welcomed and accepted for being myself.

I quit the mgmt job. I spent a few months unemployed, got a forklift job throwing orders for a Big Orange box store... and now I work a mindless job in car production/retrofitting for a Big 3 assembler. I don’t gotta think, I make more money than as a typical entrepreneur, and I’m slowly recertifying for coding (network/DBA later).

Then mi suegra passed. The matriarch has gone and no one is the same. The family has been devastated since December, and this October will be the first where 3/4 people will be able to come to be celebrated (me and cuñado #2 share a birthday; Ma and cuñado #1 share one two days after).

And that’s the past 24 years. And it hit me today that I don’t remember a goddamn important thing I’ve done that’s really made an impact. I haven’t truly helped my family; I haven’t become a father; my in-laws who used to at least tolerate me only want to talk to me if I can help them with resumes or if they ever should need a guard dog; my own blood family is several states away (or will be soon) because their ambitions succeeded where I spent 17 years and failing on the bleeding edge.

I love my nieces, and I so want to encourage them to be happy and smart and witty and awesome. But at the same time, I know I blew the last 24 years and I didn’t mean a damn thing except to my wife, but she’s so beholden by her grief that I don’t most days know how to ask her how she’s doing. She forgets basic stuff because she’s in pain, but at the same time, I wonder if she knows that I hurt too.

And so I wonder, at this age where I’m completing the first half of my life: as my body gets weaker, can I be a good father if my wife and I decide to have children? At the very least, can I be a good tio? Can I make a difference in anyone’s life?

I think this is my mid-life crisis. As we lost Ama at too early an age, there was an outpouring of love from so many people whose lives she’d embettered. Can a burnout like me say the same in another 24 years?

I won’t lie that I’ve indulged in many vices that have culminated in this outcome, but now I need to make a lot of hard decisions. Diet change, smoking cessation, aerobic exercise.

When you work 70-80 hours a week and your heart rate returns to a resting 67bpm half an hour after a 12-hour shift... it’s easy to be fooled into thinking your heart is healthy. Your Fitbit tracks 12-18k steps during that shift, you’ve been lifting moderate weight (50-70lb panels) to delicately install and building upper core?

And then you come home, rest for an hour or two, and take your reading. 181/116mmHg. And an hour later, 165/90mmHg. And you might be as shocked as I was, being in my late 30’s, 5’11” and 160lb. 6% body fat, I’m lean yeah?

But I’m closer to CHF than my wife, who is shorter than me and whose weight I won’t disclose because you don’t put your partner’s business out there. She has PVC’s and upper-cross syndrome. I look and work like I could win a 4-on-1 street fight.

But they won’t. They can’t show you how they care, but they do. Don’t let one traumatic event utilize your depression to be selfish. You’ve been strong this long; hold the course.

I’d say it was therapeutic but... they were back in town again. Stone soldier. I told my wife what happened but if I can’t be her foundation, it’s all gonna crumble.

But as my candle, lit at both ends, is waning

I see that I’ve gone too far down the path

I tried to illuminate for the those I loved

And leaving them behind, I’ve cheated them.

When the ember of my soul blinks out:

I’m sorry that blowing on it only gave more flickering.

You had your own grief and I burned

The second wick to keep the light on for you.

I’m spent. I can’t breathe anymore.

My lungs fill with smoke and I see:

I am totally burnt. Some will see the ashes