I think I’ve always lived the Fastlife to a certain extent. I definitely didn’t create the term, I think we all live it, some of us a little faster than others. I used to pride myself on it. I know better now. What is the Fastlife you ask? Well…let me see how I want to get into this. I shared with you our love story. My husband is a very active guy. It’s the thing I fell in love with the most, his drive to succeed and immerse himself in whatever he was doing. I share the same drive. On one of our first dates, Derek invited me out on a wakeboard boat on the Willamette River in Portland. I watched in awe at his skill. He had mastered doing all kinds of really scary looking tricks, sailing through the air, with perfect style and ease. I loved watersports too, I had been on the waterski team at Rollins College for a spell. I had tried scary things then and realized they might be too big and scary for me. I hope that wasn’t giving up. I’ve done more since marrying Derek, but there is a limit to what I am willing to let go and do. I think it’s just who I am and I’m ok with that. For me, if the fear and panic you experience doing something are greater than the joy you get out of it every time, it’s just probably not for you. I don’t think things are supposed to be that hard!
Derek says he had to push really hard to get over his fears too. His parents say he had to be thrown into the pool to learn to swim because he was deathly afraid of going in the water. This is hard for me to believe because I think Derek would live in the water if you let him. Now he would equally choose to live at the race track I think. These two things have been loves for him his whole life. I didn’t learn about the racing one, though, until he shared with me one night while we were laying in bed. I had been struggling with his moods. He was very up and down at this time and intuitively I knew something was missing for him. I simply asked him, “If you could do anything you wanted to do without limitations or anyone telling you that you can’t, what would it be?” He said, “I’d be a race car driver.” I had no idea what I was getting into then and I still wonder now what I did! The next comment from me was, “Well, how do you do that?” He knew exactly how. He rattled off a school he could go to and what the process was. It was so funny to me that I had lived with him for several years and I had never heard any of this. This was still early on in our marriage. Our children were very small. Paige was not more than 3 years old and Haylee a baby. I had just created a whole new job for myself. I already was busy raising two young girls and settling into married life in a family system different than my own. Derek was working for his father in the family car business. There were lots of expectations and family obligations to tend to. I was trying to fit in and a little too young to know I just needed to be myself. I had been bruised and broken in the past, so wasn’t quite prepared for the confidence needed to handle the pressure at times.
This was the beginning of Fastlife. It all started with a question. Actually, it all started with a connection. Derek and I cared deeply about each other’s happiness despite our youthful innocence. I noticed that he wasn’t living his best life and to me, it was natural to ask the question. I wanted his happiness at that point more than my own. I was really happy. He really swept me off my feet and I was madly in love with him.
We signed him up for the Skip Barber Racing School at Laguna Seca Raceway in Salinas, California and we were off! The Fastlife in full swing! Stay tuned for more on our journey….! In the meantime, we have a show, which I will explain later, on Amazon Prime Video and a YouTube channel. You can follow our journey there too!