***Authors Note: This is an older story of mine, written during a time when I guess I just had a lot of words pouring out of my head. It will be presented in parts. This first part does not particularly have that much "action" in it, rather is offered as background and build up to the chapters yet to come. Stick with it and enjoy! ***
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From an early age, I have been told that I can be a bit impulsive. My mother used to say that there was rarely something I wanted that I didn't get. Not because it was given to me, but instead because I went out and got it. She said I was a hustler, doing odd jobs for neighbors to make money, making trades with friends, always playing to long-game. Considering how much I enjoy my life, I'd like to think that my impulsiveness has worked out pretty well for me. Then again, even I can admit that it has caused me some headaches.
My name is Phil. When this story started I was in my early 40's, white, relatively attractive, relatively fit and relatively wealthy. I am still most of those things, just no longer in my early 40's. But to truly even get to the start we need to go a bit further back.
IMPULSE: After college I took an inheritance I received when my parents passed and purchased a small, run-down apartment building on the gulf coast in Florida.
RESULT: Well, I made my money in real estate so one would think it worked out pretty well.
Over about 18 months I succeeded by consolidating. I changed the original 18 units in the building into 9 "upper end" and 2 "luxury" apartments. My finances were in the black only 26 months after I signed that first mortgage and I then took most of the proceeds I had made and put them into additional properties. 20 years later, I was a mini-magnate in my community. I owned over 200 rental units spread across 14 buildings covering almost 40 acres of prime, sandy, beachfront real estate.
I also owned 2 divorces.
IMPULSE: With my wealth I had decided to treat myself. I was young and wealthy and figured the good times could only get better. So, it was fast cars, big houses and beautiful women. I was married and divorced with my first wife, Sarah, in 42 months. After a string of what amounted to the exact same relationship(s), I married my second wife, Aubrey, and was divorced from her within 36 months.
RESULT: Neither turned out to be the person that I thought they were going to be.
In their defense, our problems were not completely their fault. I was working... a lot. My hours in the office and in my properties ranged between 70 and 100 per week. A relationship means 2 people and they were mostly on their own.
Yes, it did turn out that each one of them was more interested in a certain lifestyle they thought they could obtain with me (or my wealth) then they were interested in me or how I obtained my wealth. It wasn't as if either had ever stepped foot on one of my properties to see just how things worked in my professional world. It appeared they looked down on my doing manual labor and the people I was working with. Instead, they were each always pushing the latest clothing and parties and tangible objects that were for sale as a way to prove how perfect their (our) lives were.
It wasn't like I couldn't afford it, I certainly could. But, as it turns out, that lifestyle that I thought I wanted just didn't turn out to be the one for me.
But, there is nothing like a mid-life crisis to get a person's head back on straight.
Some time back I had a fall at work. I had a severe, compound gross fracture of my femur on my right leg. Now, while modern medicine can work wonders (doctors reset the bone, applied 2 stainless steel rods to its sides for support and had me stitched up and out the door in a few days), so can traditional macho bull-headedness wreak havoc.
I didn't stay off my leg like I was told to.
I didn't stay home from work like I was advised.
Within 6 weeks I was back in the hospital with a staph infection and additional microfractures around my leg. As an added bonus, in the short period of time I had done so much over-compensation with the rest of my body that my entire spine and muscle system were completely out of whack.
In short, I was a physical mess. And, if I was being honest, I was a bit of a mental mess as well.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
IMPULSE: I sold my properties... all of them.
I moved out of my massive, fancy house in the suburbs and got as far away as it seemed reasonable; another city and into a modest (by wealthy people standards) loft on the waterfront.
I got rid of the vast majority of my stuff.
I was trying to start from scratch (again, by wealthy people standards). Maybe it was all a bit drastic but honestly I believed it was the best thing for me.
I also decided to focus on getting my head and body right again. What was the point of working the hours I was putting in if I had no time to enjoy it or nobody to enjoy it with? I realized that there had never been a goal in mind with my wealth generation, only "more."
RESULT: It wasn't like I was going to live in a yurt in Afghanistan, I had certain levels of comfort that I... well, that I felt comfortable with. This meant physical and mental comfort. Translation: I moved into a construction site. While still under renovation, the building I moved into was a work in progress but did have a very well equipped gym on its top floor including a wide variety of weights, cardio equipment and even a commercial swim spa (amusing, considering it was gulf coast, waterfront property). To help me use the facility properly (not getting myself off track or injured even more) and to help me with my entire personal journey, I hired 2 people into my life.
Paul was in his mid-thirties. A tall-ish Asian-American whose specialty was being my live-in personal assistant. He kept track of my appointments, my apartment clean and me fed with fantastic, nutritious-but-delicious meals. He was quiet but personable and suited me well. He was there when I needed him, disappeared when I didn't and honestly, most of the time I only knew he was around because of the couple of meals we shared or the fresh laundry I put no effort into on my own regularly appearing.
Stacy was probably in her late 20's, or at least that is the assumption I made when we started working together. In reality, I am a terrible judge of age and hadn't actually asked. Also somewhat tall-ish at 5'7", she was a very spirited, very independent brunette whose specialty was being my combination physical therapist, massage therapist, chiropractor and personal trainer. She was the one who was beating my broken old body into submission and attempting to get my brain to think that it was enjoyable in the process. She was not technically live-in like Paul but, based on how much time we spend together, she might as well have been.
Speaking of my old, broken body I can admit I exaggerate just a bit. I was 42 years old, just less than 6' tall and normally a trim 181lbs but at that point ballooned up to 197 (losing muscle mass in the process). My muscles and joints were still not necessarily responding as well as I would have liked for them to have but we were working hard and I was feeling younger and more appropriately fit each week.
For the most part, my days consisted of the following.