The OCD Diaries

April 3, 2017

I Was Lost But Now I’m Found

Firestorm in the shape of a fist and the middle finger

There are plenty of reasons I haven’t written in this blog in a long time. The easy reasons are that my career has been busy and I’ve been managing a family building on the side. I also decided awhile back that I shouldn’t write unless I had something to say. To be honest, I just didn’t feel like opening up like I used to.

But lately my willingness has returned.

Mood music:

The last year has included some of the best and worst times of my life. My wife and kids continue to make me proud with all they do, and I absolutely adore my still-new job. Though I never wanted responsibility for the family real estate, I found ways to make the best of it, and I’ve certainly learned a lot. I’ve also always been a sucker for trying to fix things that are broken, and in that building I found no greater challenge.

But somewhere along the way, I lost myself.

I started trying to be my father and do things the way I thought he would have. For a while, I was paying more attention to that than my real job. Sometimes I had no choice, because the property has a huge environmental cleanup attached to it.

My mental and physical health deteriorated. The frequency of migraines shot up, I gained weight and started slipping into my habit of being a people pleaser.

I grew obsessed with saving my father’s dream of selling the building and leaving his kids a financial cushion. I desperately tried to make everyone proud, especially my sisters, who co-own the building with me.

As I worked to put the property back on its feet and rent out the spaces, I found myself trying to put my trust in the various contractors who came along, when I should have been eyeing everyone skeptically and asking tougher questions. When a property needs work, it’s stunning how the sharks smell blood and start circling.

By year’s end, I was bitter and resentful, angry with my father for dumping this mess on me. I resented being left on my own without the necessary business experience. Most importantly, I started to realize I wasn’t being myself.

In mid-2016, I left one job to go to another. The role turned out to be different from what was discussed early on. I found myself with little to do, so I took that as a reason to focus on the building even more.

That didn’t last long, because I’ve never been one to phone it in with work, and the fact that I was doing so was eating at me.

Then I found another job, and in the process found I myself again — remembering what I did for a living and why I was on this planet. The person I was began fighting the person I had become.

As I fell back in love with my real work, my resentment of the family responsibility grew. Some questioned how I was doing things, which made me angrier, since I felt everyone was happy to leave it all on me in the beginning. I started to get sicker.

At the bottom of that pit, things started getting clear again.

I remembered some important things:

My first responsibility is to God, and, by extension, my immediate family — specifically my wife and children.
My life’s work is in information security, not real estate.

A few months ago I took all my confusion into the confession booth. The priest suggested I practice prudence — using reason to govern myself. In my case, prudence meant putting the added responsibilities in their proper place, behind the things that are more important.

That’s what I’ve been doing.

I asked my sisters to start taking on some of the building responsibilities, which they have. I began limiting the days at the family building to once a week and spending most of the time each week at my company’s office. It’s made things better.

There’s still a lot of turmoil right now. I can’t fully escape the building. I still have to do better at doing right by my family. But my life has come into clearer focus, and I’m grateful for that.

The time for people pleasing is over. If my father is watching, I hope he understands that I can’t be him and that I never should have tried.

Some will be taken aback by the choices I make going forward, but they’ll have to deal with it. If something doesn’t fit into my top priorities, I won’t spend any more time on it than I have to.

If that makes them angry, so be it. It’s time I got back to being me.

September 18, 2015June 25, 2020

Learning to Deal with the Pressure

Update 6/25/20: When I wrote this, I had no clue about the stresses and curve balls still to come. I aged a lot in the 5 years that followed, but through fire and error, I remain standing.

Baseball has never been my thing, but I’m learning to deal with the big curve balls that keep coming my way.

Mood music:

Last year, before my father’s health went into its final descent, he asked me to help him with his unfinished business interests. Since his death, the task has been something close to a second full-time job.

I’m now in charge of cleaning up and selling the building that housed the family business. The work needed on the property is extensive and expensive. There are additional plots of land I’m responsible for selling, and there are accounts I have to manage responsibly — all while doing the best work I can in my real career as a writer in the information security industry. Work days are frequently interrupted with phone calls from lawyers, financial advisors, and real-estate people. And then there are bills to pay to keep the building standing.

Business is not my background and I never wanted this additional work. Life was already full and busy. I didn’t think I was up to the task because of my limited knowledge about real estate, investments and all the people that come with it. I was scared, frankly.

I was worried about mismanaging the family legacy. I was worried it would make me more absent as a father and husband. I was worried that my real job would suffer.

It’s still a major stress in my life and will be for years to come. But along the way something has happened: I’ve learned to carry the load and am even willing to contemplate the possibility that I’m getting good at this.

To my astonishment, I’ve still been able to give my real job 100 percent. And with the family business legacy tasks, I finally feel like I’m in full command. Though I want to punch my fist through walls many days, I’m glad I took this on. I’ve learned a ton, and the knowledge will be valuable going forward.

I think I’ve been able to do all this without neglecting my wife and kids. I certainly hope so. My faith has sustained me. Many awesome friends have helped me along, too. And the members of my household have been extremely patient. I’m grateful for that.

My coping tools have helped, though I admit there are days I forget to use them.

That’s how life works. Curve balls come our way and we either learn to catch them or get slammed in the face. I’ve taken a few blows to the head along the way, but I’m learning to play the game.

January 20, 2015

The Business Is Over, But Its Legacy Lives On

Those who knew me growing up remember the family business, especially the blue-and-gold building on Route 1 in Saugus across from Kappy’s Liquors. The business is closed, but it leaves a lasting legacy.

Mood music:

I’ve been helping my father manage the realty trust that’s been part of the family business, with the objective of selling the building. His eyesight is bad, so I frequently read documents aloud to him. Yesterday was one of those days, and my younger son was there, listening as I read a document that essentially described the history of the business.

On the way home, he said something that floored me: “It seems like such a waste, getting rid of an entire family business.”

I thought about it for a few minutes. Then I told him that some businesses go on for generations, while others have more limited lifespans. But like people, they leave something behind, no matter how many years they were around.

Our family business wasn’t going to go on for generations, as it turns out. None of us kids wanted to take it over. I forged a path in journalism and Internet security; my siblings took their own routes, as well. And with the advent of online shopping, our family business suffered the same fate as many other family operations, as people stopped going to mom-and-pop stores and started spending their money online.

But it wasn’t a waste. It provided the family with a living when it was needed and helped us shape the futures we wanted.

For me personally, the business produced the resources my parents needed to get me the medical care I needed as a child. Later, it provided me with the resources to go to college. I met Erin at college and studied journalism there. Erin and I got married and had kids, and my career is still going strong, 20 years later.

Without the resources of the family business, chances are that none of that would have happened.

The business gave a lot of long-time employees a living to raise their own families with, too.

The stuff my father and stepmom sold — headwear and footwear for weddings and proms, party supplies, wedding invitations, favors, and so on — gave countless customers what they needed to build precious memories.

A waste? Hardly.