I first decided to move away from my home in Baltimore, Maryland in 2018, to Las Vegas to pursue my childhood dream of being in entertainment.
After living in Vegas for four years, I decided to move to The Sunshine State of Florida.
I have been living in South Florida for a little over a year now and I have completely changed my life from not only what I do for a living, but my mindset and how I operate.
My new way of life has taught me some of the most valuable lessons that I have learned up to this point in my life.
Working on a ranch in South Florida, in the middle of summer, with pouring rain every single day has taught me how to truly embrace the suck.
I will state for the record that working hard labor will make just about anything instantly easier. With that being said, I never had a problem with having to do hard labor - in fact, I actually enjoy it. I enjoy the feeling of having to use my hands to build things, fix things, haul around bales of hay, and learn the various operations of what it takes to maintain a property and manage a ranch.
On top of that, I reached another goal I set for myself in training horses. I moved to South Florida because I wanted to train horses and live by the beach. I had the absolute best of both worlds even though at the peak of my horse training business, I had zero time to enjoy the beach because I was working 7 days a week and riding horses for several hours everyday, on top of managing the ranch.
Florida is by far my favorite place that I have lived to this point in my life. Aside from the humidity, the rain, and the astronomical cost of living, it was a place that I was at genuine peace living in.
On top of it all, I met my horse Cooper - I knew from the moment I met him, my life was never going to be the same. I knew then that I am going to have horses for the rest of my life.
Having spent the last month back home in Maryland, I have come to a powerful realization for myself.
Given that I have very rarely seen any of my closest friends and family in the last five years, I realized just how much they all mean to me.
Having some of my closest guy friends around after not having that close comradery in the last five years has opened my eyes to how important it is for men to have their bond with other men.
Men need the comradery and the kinship they get from hanging out with their boys because the boys are the one's who are prepared to go to battle together. We go through genuine hardship together, and we can all sit around and laugh about it when we are done. This is just the nature of men being men.
While I realize having my boys around is important, there is something else that has made me decide to officially move home to Maryland for the time being - my nephew.
As I have talked about in previous blogs, the bond that I have with my 14 year old nephew is something special and it has truly opened my eyes. It has opened my eyes to the fact he is about to enter into some of the most challenging years of his life growing from a boy into a young man over his next four years of high school.
Being that I have barely gotten to see my nephew over the last five years, seeing how much he respects me and looks up to me is something that I can't take for granted.
I have shared a bond with the kid from the moment I first held him, just minutes after he was born.
His biological father has never been in the picture and no effort was ever made on his behalf.
My nephew has never had a father to protect him - he never had a father to teach him respect - he never had a father to teach him how to be a man. But what he does have is me, his favorite person on the entire planet.
I have witnessed the kid cry in my arms when he or I would have to leave the few times I have gotten to see him over the last few years, since I first moved away from home.
I have missed what has seemed like his whole life, even though I have been there from the very beginning.
I have thought about it deeply and often at times, I feel guilty for having left and missed so much of his life over the last five years, but I also know that I have a life of my own. While that may sound selfish, I have learned more about myself, I have learned more life skills, and I have learned the true meaning of being a man in my journey since I have been gone.
I have had to teach myself everything about what it means to be a man. I didn't see much of my father growing up and I truly never had a man that I could look up to to understand how to be capable or be strong. I never had a man that I could look to and think the world of.
I have had people help me along the way, absolutely. I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for the people that helped push me in the gym and become strong. I wouldn't be where I am if it weren't for the people that have continuously supported me from the beginning.
The people who believe in me, give me a deep source of strength and duty to do everything in my power to give back to them, and be true a benefit to the world.
My nephew believes in me and there is no reality on any universe in which I ever let him down.
It is my duty to be the man in his life and teach him how to be a man - teach him the things I was never taught.
It is my duty to make him mentally and physically strong so that he becomes capable of anything he sets his mind to.
It is my duty to be a positive force in his life so that he believes in himself as much as I believe in him.
It is my duty to teach him how to treat a woman with respect and how to become a man that is capable of protecting her at all costs.
I am the only man in his life, and I know that I am at a place in my life where failure is not an option. I will do the things that I say I am going to do, no matter how hard or how long it takes - I will instill these same values into him as well.
While he may not be my biological son, he has always been like a son to me. From the time I first taught him to pick up a hockey stick at a couple of months old, to the hundreds of pushups that he hates me for making him do everyday.
This temporary pit-stop home is something that I feel obligated to do because of the stage my nephew is in his life. He is going through changes biologically - he needs me and I am not going to let him down.
Truth be told, I have no idea where I will eventually end up next.
But what I can tell you is that I will have a big ranch with my horses, a woman that doesn't mind getting her boots dirty, and kids that walk like me, talk shit like me, and look up to me like I am Superman.
I will probably have my nephew working for me on my property and picking up the horse shit because hey, that's better than pushups!