Sometimes in life you just have that moment where a thought hits you like a lightning bolt and it's power changes everything.
For years I had led that life, doing all the right things - education, career, marriage, children - but the end result was a fairly positive existence but one where you live paycheck to paycheck, indebted to "the man" for your ongoing employment.
At 43 I made a change. It was only a subtle one - starting a side hustle in a post-pandemic climate, but as it gathered momentum it had a major affect on my life.
Suddenly I was still working, but every week the additional money was coming in from doing very little, meaning I suddenly had new freedoms, new power, new life.
That probably sounds quite dramatic, but to a fast-becoming middle aged man it meant I could do things - buy that car, get that new wardrobe, invest in me. The family benefitted too, but what it really did was set me off on a new adventure.
For you to understand that I have to take you back to a pre-side hustle era when I stumbled across an innocent 19 year old virgin on an Internet site.
Initially the conversation was pretty standard. She was a hard-working black girl from a random state in America and I was a white guy in the UK who had hardly gone without. We were like chalk and cheese, or as Stevie Wonder may have sung, like ebony and ivory.
As we exchanged messages they became more explicit until we both admitted we had fantasised about each other. That kind of opened the floodgates of our curiosity towards each other.
Fast forward to more recent times and I'm now in a vast American airport on an apparent "business trip" yet this "business" isn't as corporate as all imagine.
Having escaped Immigration and given the taxi driver a screwed up sheet of paper with an address of a hotel, I'm making my way through a busy, stereotypical American city with my mind racing about what the next 24 hours may deliver.
The taxi pulled up at a smart looking hotel and I tipped the driver generously. I always imagine that these guys think of people from the UK as being tight, so I always try to do my bit to change that view.
Travelling light, I grabbed my overnight case and headed up the stairs to the revolving doors, admiring the impressive archway entrance as cars crawled past me in the afternoon heat. Once inside, the receptionist greeted me with a friendly smile as I checked into my suite. I flirted a little with her, but it was more to pass the time it took to get my key than any conscious effort.
"I'm expecting a guest" I informed her. "When she arrives can you give her this room key and send her up?". I figured the receptionist probably thought I was referring to a hooker, but at the end of the day it was none of her business. "Sure" she replied with another wide smile. I left her wondering and headed for the lift to my room.
I think I waited about 40 minutes before I heard a keycard in the lock to my door. The suite was big with a lounge and bedroom with a massive en suite bathroom. I'd freshened up in that time, checked out the view from the full height window towards downtown and flicked through about 50 random TV stations finding virtually nothing to view.