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.”