The Binary Biker is Moving to Pittsburgh

The time has come for me to join my wife in Pittsburgh.  A year ago, I blogged that my wife was moving to Pittsburgh because she got a job with Google.  We made the difficult decision that I would stay in Florida for two reasons:

1. My job was pretty awesome and I wanted to take it as far as I could and, hopefully, cash in on a major sale of the company to a buyer within two years.
2. My youngest son was still in school and I couldn’t take him to Pittsburgh with me because of restrictions in my custody agreement.

I fully intended to stay in Florida until my son graduated high school and my company had cashed me out in a big way, but it just didn’t work out that way.  A change in mindset and a fortuitous event set the stage such that it became evident that the time to move was now.  It’s funny how that works out sometimes.

I resigned from my job a week and a half ago.  For the past few months, it has been harder and harder to stay focused while I missed my wife.  The constant traveling, living on Skype, and being – lonely – all the time was taking a toll on me mentally.  My performance suffered at work and my personal relationships were strained as I became more and more of a recluse.

I would rush home the second I got off work to fire up Skype so I could spend time with my wife.  I would cancel outings with my friends and structure my entire life around having to be home every day just so I could Skype my wife for a few short minutes.  The more I longed for my wife, the less time I spent with my friends, furthering my isolation and loneliness. Already an introvert, I became even more withdrawn.

If you look at my blog posts, you’ll see that I stopped writing.  I stopped doing the things I love – the things that define me – because I was lonely.  I rode to Biketoberfest and Daytona Bike Week and Sturgis, SD this past year – alone.  It was a terrible feeling to go to a bike rally without the woman who makes it all enjoyable for me.  So I stopped riding as much.  I gave up so much of myself because I was lonely.

It was becoming a terrible burden and was impacting every area of my life.  I realized that the situation was becoming untenable.  A change was going to have to be made.  My wife couldn’t leave her job – she’s doing an awesome job at Google and I am so proud of her.  As much as I enjoyed working for a small startup with vision and drive, I realized that I needed to go up to her, not the other way around.

Still, I didn’t pull the trigger.  I hoped that things would get better.  I started forcing myself to hang out with my friends.  I threw myself into working out so much that I was doing 500-600 push ups a day, running/walking 2.0-5.0 miles a day (not a lot for most, but it was a lot for me), and doing VO2 max training 3 days a week.  And I blew my shoulder out.

I had great days at work where I had vision and clarity, and then I had days where I couldn’t focus because all I could think about was my wife.  It  was almost bi-polar.  Some days I could focus and be “on” and others I was just “off” and nothing could get me right again.

And then my son decided he didn’t want to be in a physical school next year.  He wanted to be in virtual school – taking online classes.

That changed everything.  In virtual school, he has no restrictions on where he has to be to attend school.  He can spend literally a month or more at a time with me in Pittsburgh and still attend school in Florida.  I would no longer have to sacrifice my time with him to be in Pittsburgh.  It would be a change, yes, but something we could manage.

So I resigned.  I am unemployed and not looking for a job until I get to Pittsburgh next month.  I am spending the remainder of May packing up and getting out of the Florida house and spending quality time with friends and family before I get up to Pennsylvania.

I have a lot to do, but I am excited for this next chapter of my life – especially now that I have a plan to make sure I don’t lose any time with my son.  I’m also looking forward to the great rides up north on the motorcycle – but I am not looking forward to the six months of unrideable weather.

Wish me luck, readers!

(oh – and since I made the decision to be up with my wife in Pittsburgh, I have written well over 20,000 words)