We sat down with our co-worker and friend, Michael Lopez, to talk about his experience as a dancer, a physical therapist, and bike-packer; and something really disappointing happened… I didn’t get hardly any of it recorded. I always record interviews so that I can write the story as accurately as possible and usually listen to it a couple times while typing up the blog post.
After over an hour of in-depth conversation with Michael, I reached down to turn the recording off only to realize the time stamp said seventeen minutes. SEVENTEEN MINUTES! What about all he’d said about his time in PT school and his experience working with high-risk kids and his bike-packing trip through Pittsburgh and his kids?! I surely cannot craft a story that details Michael’s immense passion for helping others and his spirit for adventure without his own words to guide me.
But I will try. I will first apologize for any mistakes or inaccurate descriptions of the experiences Michael shared with us. I will only do my best to tell his story, without the interview recording, but rather my relationship with Michael to help me.
We met Michael just after a hurricane of events that we didn’t have the slightest inkling about at the time because this guy is always so positive. We did hear lots about his adventures though, and knew that his career had included professional dancing (he choreographed for The Hansons!) and extensive schooling and experience working in physical therapy (though he never passed his boards due to high test anxiety; that’s why he’s currently working with us at Gearhead Outfitters and we are selfishly thankful for that because he’s so DANG GOOD with people). That was a lot for one sentence… But I don’t even know where to squeeze all the info about this guy!
Michael loves people, he’s hungry for adventure, and he’s one of the most sincere individuals I have ever known. We listened intently as he shared parts of his story with us, beginning with his upbringing here in Oklahoma. Early on, Michael was involved with dance and that lead to a lot of traveling around and time spent with older friends. This led to a little bit of trouble.
Michael said that his straight-A sister always told him, “You’re problem is that you get caught. I did everything you did, but people will look the other way if you’re doing good in school.”
Michael didn’t do the best in school. Instead, he pursued a career in dance where he excelled for years. When we met Michael, we asked why he’d left that world (aside from teaching some classes). He told us, “Your body can’t move like that forever. Age catches up to you.”
It doesn’t appear that age is catching up to Michael from the outside. Despite being old enough to have a 20 year old daughter and 17 year old son, Michael looks to be in his mid-twenties. I have a theory that his youth abounds because he’s active and optimistic.
After a career dancing and choreographing, Michael went after a degree in physical therapy. This time, he did excel in school. Michael spent a few years working hard to master his new craft. While working to pass his boards, he spent time at a few different hospitals and with all kinds of patients. He was one of few accepted to work in cancer treatment and was given a great shock the first time he walked into work and learned a patient had passed away.
“We’d connected because he liked my shoes. He was grouchy and he wouldn’t communicate with anyone else, but he liked my shoes and for some reason that allowed him to open up to me. We bonded. And then he was gone.”
Michael was stunned.
Fast forward through some months and Michael was working at the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health where again he felt something allowed patients to open up to him more than they did with anyone else.
“I treated them like people. Just people. I told them I didn’t want to know what they had done, and treated each person with the same respect and dignity as I would have any other patient. So I felt as if they trusted me.”
One day, a patient snapped at a colleague and Michael did, well, his job. Wrapping his arms around her, he put her in a hold while she continued to lash out and punch the man in front of her. Michael dropped to the ground and something happened to his knee. He heard a “pop.”
It took a long time to recover from that, and while waiting, Michael began to wonder what he had done wrong to deserve this. He was doing exactly what he was supposed to do in a dangerous situation and had been rewarded with an injury and months away from his chosen career path.
Michael finally had to tell his awaiting position that he was still not recovered. This is when the big question set in: What now?
I always smile to myself when this question naturally occurs in the interview, without much prompting. It’s amazing and beautiful to me that we all seem to have this thought at one point or another, whether it be straight out of high school or later on in life after years and years of working toward a major goal.
It seems to me that we all eventually find ourselves in our own “in-between.” In-between what we’ve accomplished and our next goal. In-between our comfort zone and the adventure we crave. In-between what we’ve always known and what we long for. In-between what’s safe and what’s exciting. We get stuck here asking the question, “What do I do now?”
Then a whole lot of doubt sets in. What’s my purpose? What am I supposed to do with my life? How do I find happiness?
It also seems that no one has any answers. You just have to keep wandering around the in-between trying to figure it out. Some days you’ll feel like you have, and some days you’ll feel more lost than you were before.
Michael dedicated time, energy, and his heart to a field of study that would help other people. And it was failing him.
After taking ample time to heal, he took his boards again. Each time he’d taken the test he’d gotten a little closer to passing, missing by only a few points. But on his last attempt, he didn’t even read the full results after seeing that he’d failed. “It didn’t matter,” he said. “I was really good at what I did, dedicated to the people I took care of, educated in how to care for people properly, and successful when working in the field. And it didn’t matter because I couldn’t pick the best answer on a multiple choice test.”
Now what was he supposed to do? He was well trained and practiced in a field that he could not work in.
Over the next several months Michael sought adventure. He took several bike-packing trips and hiked down at Eagle Rock loop a few different times. One of these times, he was kidnapped. Of all the stories we’ve heard from Michael, this one deserves some attention.
Since his first attempt to backpack Eagle Rock Loop was thwarted by a rainstorm, he decided to try again. This time, a terribly upset stomach left him trudging down the trail with little energy and a distorted sense of reality. This makes for a terrible combination when in the backcountry, so he decided to make his way back the best he could. He needed to get out of the woods and back to nutrition, shelter, and medical attention.
He ended up on the side of a road hoping for a kind soul to stop and give him a lift. Miserable and uncertain about his capability to navigate himself safely back to his own car, he waited.
Eventually, a car stopped. But his rescuers demanded he strip down and lay flat on the ground. WHAT?!
Poor Michael was hopelessly sick and desperate to get to a town, but the newcomers were unsure of his origin; fearing he was an escaped criminal or a potential threat.
“I could see where they were coming from, I mean, I probably wouldn’t have stopped for me, but I was also so tired and depleted, I just wanted to get out of there,” Michael told us. “I told them to look at my stuff; it’s nice stuff, I was just backpacking and got sick. But there was a machete in my face and I really thought those might be my last moments in this world. I thought about my daughter and my son. I ended up in the back of their car with my wrists and ankles tied together and a dog six inches from my face. It was wild. Once we reached a hotel and they had realized I wasn’t lying, we laughed about it all. The next day when my friend showed up they apologized to her over and over again.”
If I didn’t know and trust Michael, I wouldn’t believe his story. Eventually, he did make it back down to Eagle Rock Loop a third time and conquered the trail at last. This kind of adventure began to help Michael answer his “What now?” question.
We asked Michael about what in life has made him the happiest, how he has sought to deal with that pestering feeling.
“I’m happiest when I’m helping people, honestly,” Michael told us. “After my dad died I had a lot of money and I blew it all. That didn’t make me happy. I’ve had the rock-star life filled with parties and that didn’t make me happy. But I’ve also worked in hospitals, with kids in high-risk areas, and with customers at an outdoor shop; what makes me happy is making other people happy.”
Michael has done quite a bit of work with kids and he said that showing them that someone truly cares about them was likely the most rewarding thing he’s ever done. “Even if you effect just one, think of all the other people they might effect. Doing good is a chain reaction. So you may not change the world, but you may help to positively impact one person, and they may positively impact other people, so in the end you may have very well changed the world. So you just do what you can.”
We asked Michael what his best advice is for people who are struggling, are unhappy, are lost or a little confused.
“What would you tell somebody who’s in-between?” I asked.
“Just, be the best you,” Michael says.
