Breaking Out of the Swamp

A Forty-Year Itch

No matter what I did, that gnawing anxiety tagged along like I was living someone else’s story. 

Like a wart that wouldn’t budge.

Twenty-six farms. 

Trucking, Uber, DoorDash. 

Car lots and forklifts. 

One broken dream after another. Same boots, different mud.

Tick.

Living someone else’s life, carrying that weight through two marriages, chasing something I couldn’t name.

Even that mad genius control freak boss couldn’t solve the riddle. 

My buddy nailed it when he called it “boogyin’ through the shit swamp.” 

Spent forty years in that bog, wading through muck, searching for solid ground. 

No footing at all. 

But now? Now, I’m forty years in and finally out of it.

Found. Content. Complete. Powerful. First time those words have ever fit.

Truth is: I’m distracted if I’m not interested. Detached.

Wash my hands of it.

Working for a tiny slice of the pile while the rest goes to the top?

Never interested me much.

Tock.

Now that I’m doing my thing? On my time. I’m whole.

Every new job started the same way. From day one, I’d lurk. 

Observe. 

Study. 

By week’s end, I’d pick the place apart like I’d been there a decade—spotting every crack—every shortcut.

Seeing exactly how they did it wrong. 

Like a true narcissist, I knew I could do better.

I’d come home, crack a beer with a buddy, and say, “Just watch. Six months, I’ll be running that place.”

He’d laugh, I’d laugh, and we’d go back to slogging through the slime.

Those guys didn’t have a clue. Neither did I.

Tick.

Like clockwork, I’d be out of there in three months. I’d quit, move on, and probably convince myself I was “too good for that place” on the way out the door.

I’m the world’s worst employee. All over the place. I know everything and drove a few bosses half-mad with my “suggestions.”

I still probably do—sorry, John.

Looking back, I was like a stray dog, roaming from one yard to the next, never staying long enough to settle in anywhere.

Now, balancing it all isn’t easy.

Every day, I feel that clock ticking.

Only so many ticks left—so many tocks.

There’s this urge to push and stay up until 4 am, scribbling like a psycho, always taking notes, always chasing that elusive “mark” I hope to leave.

Tock.

But you’ve got to make time for the people in your life, too.

It can’t be all work all the time, or it just becomes another distraction, another drug, another…escape.

It’s taken decades to understand that restlessness—the itch that kept me on the bounce, the job hop, always hoping the next one would feel right.

I kept thinking I’d find the answer out there somewhere.

But what did I finally figure out?

I had to scratch.

Investigate.

Probe.

Tick.

The answer was in that damn itch. It pushed me forward like a compass I didn’t know I had.

This isn’t just my story.

Most everyone has that itch—the one they can’t quite scratch—telling them something’s missing, just out of reach.

It takes years to find it; you must stay in the swamp longer than you’d like to figure out who you are and what you need.

But once you get there, you finally understand.

You get it.

Because that peace, that clarity? 

It’s worth every wrong turn, every lost year, every blunder you couldn’t shake.

Now, it all makes sense.  

I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for that itch. 

Tock.

And if you’re still boogyin’ through your shit swamp, know this—you’re not alone.

It doesn’t get easier, but it does get better.

The mud gets shallower—the ground firmer.

Keep moving. 

Keep scratching.

Someday, you’ll find what you’re looking for before you run out of ticks and tocks.

Tick. Tock.