One long trip

It was just a regular day like any other and that was the problem. I was in the office preparing to start my work day, booting up my computer, prepping snacks and drinks ready at arms distance.

Monotony is my new normal and the worst part is it’s entirely my own doing.

I’ve gone from traveling year round staying in different cities every week back to a random 9 to 5. I hadn’t been a part of the workforce in so long it was the only job I could get.

I’ve been here for a year and every day I can feel my life force being drained out of me.

I’m able to feign enough enthusiasm day to day so my coworkers don’t realize how many times I’ve contemplated driving off the bridge on my way into the office.

All while wondering how they can possibly have this much excitement about coming to work every single day week after week.

Maybe I’m too cynical at this point…

Can you blame me?

Of course one can never know what a person is dealing with, what makes them tick, what makes them get out of bed every morning.

Honestly… Some days, they inspire me to keep going.

When the light at the end of the tunnel seemed faint. Each time I wanted to put my head through a window at home. I thought about how appreciative they were of this job. Some had significant others in prison. Some had parents on the back end of life that they were taking care of. Some of my coworkers never even had a passport.

I’m fully aware that the norm is people everywhere are struggling paying day to day bills.

Meanwhile I’m struggling to grapple with the fact not only was I engulfed in the opportunity of a lifetime, I am equally my savior and my demise.

You see, I was fortunate enough to get turned onto Bitcoin during its infancy stage.

Bitcoin is still an infant in the grand scheme of fiat currency but I’m talking about early 2015/2016 when it was around $300 a coin.

I had a decent job for someone my age and fresh out of college. It wasn’t my desired career but it paid well. I started off buying little by little with every paycheck, honestly just to brag.

That should’ve been the first sign of my eventual downfall.

When I brought up crypto to my friends I thought how impressive & forward thinking I must look. I didn’t even consider it investing at the time but rather under the guise of “diversifying my cash.”

By the time the pandemic hit I was already up over $150k in bitcoin alone.

In a few short years I was able to accumulate enough to quit my job, buy a condo, and travel the world at my leisure.

During its meteoric rise all the hype was around purchasing ledgers for your crypto for added security. Crypto wallets were being hacked left & right. The ledgers highlighted an intricate password requirement. Far more complicated than your everyday email password.

I’m one of those people that just interchanges the same password for everything I use. If there’s anything I’m signing into it will most likely be arranged in 1 of 3, sometimes 4, ways. As a credit to them, I think that was exactly what they wanted. The scrutiny of the passwords was so stringent you couldn’t even create another. Once you entered it, you had to write it down somewhere or it could be lost forever.

When Bitcoin was going to the moon I was so full of myself I decided to take a year long trip around the world.

Gallivanting country to country, really treating myself.

I thought I was going to be a millionaire in no time.

I carried my ledger and written password with me everywhere!

I never kept them in the same place and I obsessively checked and rechecked to ensure that I had them on me.

Halfway through my year-long excursion Bitcoin hits its first major dip.

Honestly I didn’t even notice.

I was caught up spending and spending through all the money I converted into USD & and by the time I was able to pull my head out of the glass I bought a ticket home and needed to get my life in order.

To say that I overspent was an understatement and Bitcoin was down by tens of thousands.

Finally settled back home and a realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

I lost my written ledger password & I had no clue when was the last time I saw it.

Not only did I lose it, I lost it in a random miscellaneous country in Europe.

I’ve torn through my apartment countless times. I still can’t believe I never wrote it down in another place.

How could something so valuable have no way to reset your password?

The thought lingers in my mind like flies on poop and these days I regularly walk around with the look on my face as if I just stepped in it.

I look at that ledger everyday and feel like I can see the money floating above it taunting me. Running through the blurry nights in my mind trying to piece together some semblance of what the password could be.

It sits there and all I can do is watch as the price goes down. Days pass and I can only think of how high up I was and how far I’ve fallen. How careless my decision making was during that time.

How could I not set up a contingency plan for myself?

How many times can I have these thoughts before finally accepting the hole I’ve dug myself into.

Here I am, in this office again, staring aimlessly at my computer screen…wondering if I can justify slapping my coworker to HR for them claiming the solution to my problems is resetting my password.

In my head, I'm still tripping.