There is the man I used to be and the man I am now. With that said, there are good things and bad things about that. Either way, when I first started this blog I posted a couple personal entries and various business entries but it's been some time since I've written anything personal and so I've decided to change that.
I started up Uncaged Motorsports with the help of a friend back in September 2008 and went from a life of living as someone doing what was needed to survive to a man with a passion focused on the passion regardless of the cost. I lost a lot since then and may continue to lose more in the pursuit of doing what I want and enjoy doing. For the most part, people around me have no idea of my challenges due to the fact that I smile and am happy and today I thought about that a bit.
It came across my mind that I don't spend much time with friends and how much I don't like that. Curious why my brain focused on that fact at the million miles a second it normally runs and it spotted that my stresses and maintenance of a positive attitude causes my "free" time to be consumed trying to escape my world and very little gets done. I really really want Uncaged Motorsports to succeed and that focus has essentially put me in divorce (obviously, under the circumstances, she didn't "Love" me because Love does not fail) breaking up my family (3 amazing children), lost me my awesome truck (2005 Ford F150 Lariat Crew Cab), my house and much of my sanity.
After less than a year of opening the wife left due to stress because finances were extremely tight due to spending all money on the shop to get it going and grow it. I lost everything else not because she took it but because my source of income was my own business and I was now spending so much of my time trying to save my marriage including flying to Alaska (where she ran off to and hooked up with an old friend) to get her to come back. Roughly a year after that all started, I had to give up on the business just to keep my head above water (plus I didn't have a place to run the business anymore since I lost the house to the bank).
I went to work as a Waiter at Wingers restaurant and lived off the tips primarily, because child support took 50% of my paycheck. Then a man, whom I feel I now owe way more than I could ever pay back, contacted me about working on his Benelli motorcycle because of several people recommending me and made me an offer of working to get the business going out of his shop free of rent. This was an opportunity I could not pass up because getting the shop going is definitely something I wanted and even though I felt I wasn't financially ready, a free shop was offered and so it started. The downfall is that I really wasn't ready financially and still had too many debts that I accrued through the past and now I'm back to running the shop which some months cost me to do even with free rent. Now I'm working nights at Roosters Steak and Chop house (Wingers fired me due to complications in scheduling and Roosters is only open at nights) and some of that money earned goes towards growing Uncaged, the kids spending time with me, paying debts and current bills.
Now, the time has come that I have to find a shop of my own and I'm having a hard time finding the financial means to make that happen but I also do not want to give up on Uncaged. I truly feel I can make this work and that it would already be doing fairly well if I had the funds to have a sign made, do a little local advertising and so forth. So I am at a crossroads of decisions and I feel like I'm falling apart due to the type of stress it is causing me. I am currently homeless and have been since a great guy was helping me out by allowing me to live with him until he found a special someone and is now married to that person. So I've been sleeping in my car, the shop, and with my cousin. And I feel like I could possibly, with lots of hard work and little to no play, afford to pay rent but I cannot come up with deposit and such in the time frame that I have.
Homeless and a bit battered up I still manage to keep my self positive but at the cost of not having a best friend or many friends at all that I can manage the time to hang out with and stay connected with. So often I have to deal with my brain telling me how much of a failure I am and that I can't accomplish anything and that I don't deserve anyone special in my life. I expend lots of time and energy in staving off those thoughts that it's taking away from more important things that I could accomplish.
In conclusion, I need to make a decision, possibly a very difficult one for me and one that could create a stronger sense of failure, in order to save myself financially and mentally.
Well, time to get back to it. Thanks for listening to me vent some very substantial information out of my own necessity.
