Let Me Re-Introduce Myself

Hi, I’m Mike, and I am the main voice of Wolfpack Explorers. While you will see posts from us on a variety of topics from our adventures, expeditions, overland trips, Jeep, and gear, I also wanted to document our journey from my perspective. And by journey, I mean our personal journey along with our physical travel across the world.

Back in 2009 my wife and I went through something that completely rocked our world and changed our lives forever. Looking back on it I can see three different blocks of my life.

Before

My life before was pretty boring. But I was blessed and really had nothing to complain about. I was born in a wealthy suburb of Boston. I came from a steady family who loved me and gave me everything that I wanted. Very stable, I even lived in the same house until I moved out in my 20’s. I went to Boston University and had my tuition paid for by my family. But my family did instill a lot of qualities that are key to me to this day. Hard work, integrity, love for your family.

I had met my wife to be when I was 23. Eventually, we wanted something different and decided to move to Sugar Land Texas, a suburb of Houston in 2007. Things began to really come together. We got married in St. Lucia with a small wedding with family. My wife had a great job at an oil company and was making more money than she ever had. I had worked in sales for tech companies since I graduated and after coming home from our wedding I got a big promotion and raise. We built and moved into a beautiful house, and after some effort, we became pregnant with twins.

Things couldn’t have been better. And then it all went to hell.

During

It was a challenge to get pregnant. After trying for a while we found out that my wife had some medical issues that would make it difficult. So we tried IVF which is a challenge in itself. After four rounds we finally got pregnant with twins, a boy, and a girl. Perfect, just what we wanted!

During the testing at the end of the first trimester, we found out that our daughter had an anomaly that made my wife’s pregnancy high risk. It would be a challenge for her but there was a good chance that our daughter would be OK.

But then my wife went into early labor at six months and they couldn’t stop it. Our daughter lasted two weeks in the NICU before she passed and our son lasted a month. They were both gone before they even really came. It was awful.

And then about a year later out of the blue, we got pregnant naturally. But then during the testing at the end of the first trimester, we found out that our child had an abnormality that would not properly support life and we had to terminate. It completely demolished us and changed everything.

My wife didn’t go back to work and dealt with massive depression. We had two decorated nurseries upstairs and couldn't stay there anymore so we sold the house. The next 10 years were a complete struggle. We lived in 9 houses in five different states. Then we started dealing with a lot of financial issues. My wife was out of work and I found my work impacted. My life before revolved around my work, and then I just didn’t care. I changed jobs multiple times and wasn't making as much in commissions. It was a real struggle.

While I was struggling as well I couldn't deal with it and had to focus on getting us through it. We were starting to get back on our feet. We bought a house for the first time since Texas. I was able to buy the Jeep of my dreams. But I was still struggling and then in 2020, I hit my breaking point. I hit my highest weight ever by far, I was so depressed that I would start crying on a whim. Thankfully I had a doctor’s physical and I told her that I needed help, so I made an appointment with a therapist and with the bariatric team to discuss weight loss surgery.

After

It all really helped. I have lost 70 pounds and while I have a long way to go I feel the best that I have in years. I still struggle with my emotions but am much happier and am better able to deal with the tough times. During our darkest periods, we had found nature and the outdoors. We spend as much time as we can outside, camping, exploring in our Jeep, and just driving looking for wildlife. It really helped us heal and better stay in the moment.

As you can imagine, we also completely changed as people. I didn’t care about the same things, the house, the money, it just didn’t matter as much anymore. We found much more pleasure in our experiences. We decided that we also didn’t want to wait until retirement and that we wanted to live our lives now before it was too late.

I used to live to work, now I work to live. We love to travel and it has truly helped us. Travel doesn't haven't be to faraway places, we even get a great deal of pleasure from road trips almost anywhere in the United States. My Jeep has been my savior. We love nothing more than going for a drive and finding new trails. Overlanding and overland adventures are now in our blood.

I often heard about trying to take a positive out of a negative situation, and I thought I understood it. In reality, it is much more complicated than that. I prefer the person that I am now and believe that I am a better, man, friend, and husband. But at what cost? I do believe that I can take a positive from these difficult events but often find it hard to accept.

I am not telling you all of this so that you would feel bad for me. I am sharing because it is an important part of who we are and helps explain why we are doing what we are doing. To be honest it has also been helpful to get my feelings out in the open. It was really hard to talk about this and for years I kept it all inside until I couldn't anymore. I first talked to a therapist, which was one of the hardest things that I have done. Then I decided to write this post, and it took several days for me to actually hit publish.

In the next post, I will share where this has all brought us and where we want to go in 2022 and beyond. I hope that you give it a read. Until then I hope that you all have a Happy New Year!