I CLIMBED 300 FEET TO AVOID LOOKING IN THE MIRROR.
We love a good redemption story. The crash, the burn, the rising from the ashes. But nobody talks about the "Limbo Era."
For two years—from October 2022 to September 2024—I lived in it.
I had already lost my "dream career" at Hydro One. I had already gotten sober. But I was waiting to be sentenced. I was waiting to find out if my life was over (or so I thought at the time).
So, what did I do? I went back to work.
I took a job in high-angle construction, climbing wind turbines. I told myself I was just grinding, rebuilding, doing what men do.
But the truth? I was trying to outrun my anxiety by climbing above it.
At first, the top of the tower felt like a whole other world. I could leave my worries on the ground. But reality always finds you. Eventually, the wide-open space vanished, and I was jamming myself into the nosecone, working in spaces so tight I couldn't move.
I leaned into the "Blue Collar Brotherhood" because it gave me an identity when I didn't have one of my own (while I was rebuilding my own).
But I felt like a fraud. It hit me when I was denied a flight to Portland for training because of my record. I had to sit down with my manager and do a workplace "Step 5"—spilling the beans on my past. Then came the rumors. They didn't treat me differently, but I felt they looked at me differently.
It worked. Until it didn’t.
On September 17, 2024, the judge spoke, and the "Brotherhood" couldn't save me.
I went from a high-angle technician to "New Fish" in Sudbury Jail. I went from the top of a turbine to a concrete slab in a 3-man cell beside the psych ward.
The transition was violent. One minute you are a free man earning a paycheck; the next, you are eating an egg salad sandwich on a bunk, holding a "full roll" of laundry, the only thing I physically owned at the time.
That shift—from the height of the grind to the reality of the cell—taught me the hardest lesson of my life:
You cannot build a future on a foundation you are afraid to look at.
You can climb as high as you want. You can lift as much weight as you want. But if you are using that grind to escape your story, you are just waiting for the crash.
This New Year, forget the resolutions.
Ask yourself the question I was afraid to ask while I was hanging off that tower: What are you running from?
My name is Cole Smith. I’ve lost the career, I’ve done the time, and I’ve owned my story.
If you’re ready to stop running and start building, let’s talk.
#TheUnpolishedPath #OwnYourStory #BlueCollar #MensMentalHealth #Sobriety #RealTalk #FounderStory #LimboEra
