I had nothing left. That’s what I remember most about that time in my life—being stripped down to the bone, down to the raw, ugly core of who I was when everything else was gone. I had lost my marriage, my business, my money, my sense of who the hell I was supposed to be. The house, the cars, the false security of a bank account filled with zeroes, all of it had disappeared like a magician’s trick, leaving me standing there, empty-handed, wondering what the hell had just happened. And in the middle of all that wreckage, I found myself in Hawaii.
People always say if you’re going to be miserable, you might as well do it in paradise. But let me tell you something—paradise doesn’t give a shit if you’re miserable. The ocean doesn’t stop crashing against the shore just because you’re broke. The sunsets don’t hold off until you feel better about your life. The tourists still show up, snapping their pictures, buying their overpriced souvenirs, soaking up a dream that isn’t yours anymore.
I landed there with nothing, just a man-shaped pile of regrets and bad decisions. I had borrowed money from a friend—just a couple hundred bucks, just enough to keep me from completely going under. My organic father, the man I had given so much to over the years, shut the door in my face when I asked for help. Funny how that works. The people who take the most from you always seem to vanish when you finally need something in return. Not that I was surprised. Disappointed, sure. But never surprised.
For a while, I crashed on a couch in an old plantation house, the kind that probably should have been condemned years ago. The kind where the roaches didn’t even bother hiding. They just scuttled across the floor in broad daylight, bold as hell, because they knew they owned the place. I was working a job that barely covered anything, my bank account frozen in place, my life on hold, waiting for something—anything—to shake me loose from the wreckage.
Haleiwa. North Shore. That was where I needed to be. Something about it called to me, like some cosmic joke telling me that if I was going to start over, I might as well do it with an ocean view. I scoured Craigslist, looking for anything I could afford, and I found it—six hundred dollars a month. Unbelievable. That kind of price didn’t exist in Hawaii. It was a miracle, or a scam, or both.
I called the number. No answer. Called again.
Finally, a woman picked up. Her voice was sharp, clipped, impatient.
“You sound too smart,” she said, and hung up.
I called back.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I’m an engineer.”
“Nope. Not good,” she said, and hung up again.
I don’t know why, but I kept calling. Maybe it was desperation, maybe it was instinct. I finally told her I was already outside, that I had come all this way and I just wanted to see the place. She sighed, gave me an address, and hung up without another word.
I drove down a gravel road past old plantation houses, the kind of place that looked like it belonged to another century. The woman was waiting for me, standing outside like she had been expecting someone else. Older, blonde, no bra, skin like leather, the scent of vodka hanging on her like cheap perfume. She looked at me like she was already deciding whether or not she could get something out of me.
She pointed down a path, and I followed it, stepping over uneven lava rocks until I saw it.
A chicken coop.
That’s what it was—an actual, honest-to-God chicken coop that someone had halfway converted into a living space. The door barely hung on its hinges. A cat bolted out the second I opened it. Three chickens flapped their way out of the broken window, like even they had decided this place wasn’t worth staying in. The floor was uneven, the walls thin enough to punch through, the bathroom a horror show of filth and bad plumbing. It smelled like mildew, animal shit, and regret.
I stepped back outside, looked at the woman, and said, “I’ll take it.”
For six hundred bucks a month, I wasn’t just renting a place—I was taking on a project. I told her I’d put three grand into fixing it up, but she couldn’t kick me out. She agreed, probably thinking I wouldn’t actually follow through.
I moved in, and immediately the jungle tried to reclaim me. Centipedes slithered in through the gaps in the walls, spiders the size of my hand roamed the place like they were paying rent, and at night, I could hear termites eating my home from the inside out. And yet, it was mine. My fucked-up, rotting little corner of paradise.
There was a married woman. She spent her days with me, her nights with her husband. It was all very understanding. The landlord had her eye on me too, always lurking, always talking, gossiping about whoever I brought over like she was desperate to inject herself into my life. But I ignored it. I had my little shack, my view of the ocean, my goddamn termites, and for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
And somewhere in the middle of all this, I kept thinking about my psychic in Sedona. Tony with an “I.” I had gone to see him before I left for Hawaii, sat down at his table without giving him any real information. Just one word—“legal.”
He shuffled his cards, muttering to himself, eyes half-closed like he was listening to someone in his head.
“You had past karma to pay,” he finally said. “That’s why you’re here. To settle the debt.”
He told me I was meant to rise quickly, that money had been a trap, a lure, because the real lesson wasn’t in having it. It was in losing it.
“Make money. Lose money. Learn humility,” he said. “That was the plan all along.”
And then he told me the most important thing of all.
“You’re free now. The debt is paid.”
I didn’t believe him at the time. But sitting there in that shack, listening to the ocean crash in the distance, feeling the weight of everything I had lost and realizing I was still standing, I started to think maybe he was right.
I stayed in Hawaii for five years. Longer than most. I built a life there, made peace with things I didn’t even know I was holding onto. But eventually, the island pushed me out. The jungle kept creeping in. The rains flooded my place, black mold took over, and I knew it was time to go.
I found another place in Diamond Head. More civilized. More expensive. But it wasn’t the same.
I left Hawaii different than when I arrived.
I arrived broken.
I left whole.
I arrived thinking I needed to win back my life.
I left realizing I never needed any of it to begin with. And maybe, just maybe, that was the point all along.
