When I was young, I followed my heart.
Maybe too far.
After five years at Walmart, I left everything I knew and moved more than 200 miles away. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t have a job lined up. I had a girlfriend, and I believed that was enough.
Five days after arriving, I landed an interview at an industrial manufacturing company. It was a graveyard shift job in a machine shop—one of the most sought-after positions in that area. People had waited years for openings like that.
And somehow, this 24-year-old kid who had just rolled into town got hired.
It didn’t make me popular.
The environment wasn’t friendly. The work was hard. The nights were long. But I showed up. I worked. I tried to prove myself.
Still, something didn’t feel right.
One night, lying in bed talking, she rolled over and said,
“Give me a baby.”
It scared the hell out of me.
Not because I didn’t care.
Because I suddenly realized how unprepared I was.
I was working nights. I had no stability. No real foundation. No clear path.
A few days later, I told her I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to get back to Walmart. I needed to pay bills. I needed something solid under my feet.
I never went back to her.
Finding My Place
When I called to ask for my job back, something changed.
Up until then, I hadn’t had many real conversations with my store manager. This time, he wanted to know if I was serious.
He asked me straight up if I was going to run off again.
I told him the truth.
I said, “I’m looking for a home. Somewhere I can grow, learn, and earn.”
From that moment on, I was on a different path.
That conversation put me on the map.
It wasn’t overnight. But from there, I started moving up. Learning more. Taking on more responsibility. Building something that would last.
The Cost of Commitment
As my career grew, relationships became harder.
I dated. I enjoyed time with friends. I had good people in my life.
But I was also the guy who volunteered to work holidays.
The guy who said yes to assignments across the country.
The guy who packed up and went north of the border to Agincourt, Ontario, when the company needed someone.
Work always came first.
And a lot of people didn’t understand that.
Some girlfriends knew early on that it would only get harder as I moved up the ladder. The hours got longer. The pressure got heavier. The responsibility never stopped.
It took a toll.
More than once.
But at the time, I believed in what I was building.
As my career grew, relationships became harder.
I dated. I enjoyed time with friends. I had good people in my life.
But I was also the guy who volunteered to work holidays.
The guy who said yes to assignments across the country.
The guy who packed up and went north of the border to Agincourt, Ontario when the company needed someone.
Work always came first.
And a lot of people didn’t understand that.
Some girlfriends knew early on that it would only get harder as I moved up the ladder. The hours got longer. The pressure got heavier. The responsibility never stopped.
It took a toll.
More than once.
But at the time, I believed in what I was building.
Family, in a Different Way
Not having children of my own shaped me in ways I didn’t understand at the time.
In some ways, it made my love for family stronger.
I became the uncle who showed up.
The one who took nephews and nieces to ballgames when their dad had to work.
The one who sat in bleachers, cheered loud, and made sure they knew someone was always in their corner.
I didn’t get to be a father.
But I got to be present.
And that mattered to me.
It still does.
A Shared Purpose
My wife and I never had children of our own.
That’s something we understood about each other early on.
Instead of letting that become something we focused on, we chose to invest our time, energy, and resources in other ways.
Together, we’ve supported philanthropic efforts focused on children and faith-based organizations.
We’ve tried to be intentional about giving back.
About showing up.
About helping where we can.
In a lot of ways, that became our family.
Serving together.
Growing together.
Giving together.
And that’s been a blessing in itself.
Finding Our Way Back
My wife and I have known each other most of our lives.
We dated off and on right out of high school.
Then, after Y2K, we went fifteen years without speaking.
Life happened.
We went our separate ways.
Time passed.
Then one day, we both happened to be at a restaurant in our hometown.
We ran into each other.
We had lunch the next day.
And the spark was stronger than ever.
That was over sixteen years ago.
She likes to joke that we’ve been together more than thirty-five years.
We just took a fifteen-year break in the middle.
Bringing It Full Circle
These days, when Survivor comes up, she likes to joke with me.
She says she hopes they finally put me on the island…
So she can get a couple months’ break.
We laugh about it.
But underneath the joke is something real.
She’s seen the work.
The preparation.
The discipline.
The long hours.
The focus.
She knows how much I care about doing things the right way.
And she’s been beside me through all of it.
From small-town beginnings…
to long nights…
to big dreams…
to unexpected second chances.
We’ve walked it together.
Looking Back Without Regret
Sometimes I wonder what life would’ve looked like if I had stayed.
If we had kids.
If things had gone differently.
But I don’t live in regret.
Every choice teaches you something.
That chapter taught me responsibility.
It taught me timing matters.
It taught me that love isn’t enough if you can’t support it.
It taught me that commitment requires sacrifice.
That decision shaped my career.
My leadership.
My discipline.
My future.
It wasn’t easy.
It was necessary.
And it made me who I am.