My Path to this life – An introduction to the Critter behind Bear Made It

The year was 1982 in a San Bernadino, California hospital. That was the year that my parents welcomed me into the world. Barret Bateman was the name on my birth certificate but to them and the rest of my family and friends I was “Bear”. That nickname has stuck with me through the years, but I am pretty sure they had quite a few less savory names for me as the years progressed, LOL. I was a handful, but there was one consistent theme to my life habits. I loved to explore, disassemble, and reassemble anything that I could get my hands on. I love to know how things work and to be able to fix them if they break. Building and creating have always been something that I am drawn to.

In the summer prior to seventh grade we moved to the White Mountains of Arizona in a sleepy little town named Show Low. Show Low is a fantastic place and the whole White Mountain area is blessed with natural beauty, mild temperatures, snow, lakes, and lots of ponderosa pine trees. If you ever can visit the White Mountains of Arizona, please do it. During this period of my life I climbed those Ponderosa Pine trees, listened to music, and rode BMX bikes. That was it really. I just wanted to be outside as much as humanly possible. Exploring the world and hanging out with friends was my priority and for the most part I drifted through Junior High and High school without any purpose. I got a job when I was 14 so I could buy the things I wanted (Compact Discs and Skateboards), not to support any real purpose.

In my junior year of high school, I took a class where we built a house and completed some other construction related projects. I was hooked! What an awesome experience……. I could use my hands to build complex structures and then someone would use it or live in it. It was inspiring and humbling to know that our house was sold, and a family lived in it. Unfortunately for me, I did not follow through with that interest and it would haunt me. I grew up in an era that shunned the trades. I was taught that there was no money in the trades, no pride in the trades, and no intelligence in the trades. I was taught that if I wanted to be truly successful, I had to go to college and get a degree. Become an engineer or some other degreed program that told the trades what to do. That, apparently, was what success was supposed to look like. That, apparently, was what I was expected to do, and I can say now with confidence that that expectation was (and still is) total bull shit. I know so many people in the trades that have money, a sense of pride that can be overbearing at times, and a type of intelligence that only comes with years of hard learned lessons and experience. I should clarify that the expectations I speak of came from the culture of our society at the time and not from my parents. My parents have always been very supportive of the decisions I have made, and I am positive they would have supported me had I decided to enter the trades rather than attend college. In fact, they gave me absolute support when I made the decision to join the Navy rather than attend college. College was not something I was interested in. I wasn’t sure what I was interested in doing after high school. To say I was confused or conflicted about what my future looked like would be an understatement.

Circa 2003

On deployment on the USS Carl Vinson

In the summer of 2000, I left the wonderful mountains I had called home on a plane bound for Great Lakes, Illinois and Naval Boot Camp. I was going to be a Naval Nuclear Power Plant Operator! That sounded exciting at the time. I pictured glowing water, high tech toys, and high stakes engagements with the enemy….. whoever that was. This was before 9/11/01 which was a relatively peaceful time as far as the US was involved. I spent the next year and half learning how to operate a nuclear power plant. It was cool, but not as cool as I had hoped. We are basically boiler room operators. We turn valves and make steam turbines spin. Most of my time was spent painting things, waxing passage ways, and cleaning bilges. Truthfully, I hated it. I was sad and upon reflection I think it was because I was not being creative. I had a nice car, a motorcycle, ate nice meals, and I traveled. I was still feeling unfulfilled and I wanted out. I was not living with purpose. At this point I started focusing on the things that I could not change in my life and the frustration became overwhelming. I became disenfranchised with my own life and felt I had no control. I hated myself and the hatred was crushing. This lasted for about a year until I started to realize what I was doing to myself. I re-evaluated my situation and I focused my energy into changing things that were in my control. I think this was a great self-reflection point for me and the beginning of a long road to discovery and seeking happiness (a road that I will never exit, it is a lifelong pursuit). I realized that hating my decisions and blaming myself for things that were out of my sphere of control were self-destructive activities. I kept saying to myself “you’ve got to stop hating yourself or you will become broken.” I even got tattoos to mark my awakening. People do not usually understand the tattoos and others laugh at me when I tell them what they say, but I don’t mind. They have a very deep meaning to me, and they are words that I utter to myself when things seem bleak. HATE YOURSELF / BREAK YOURSELF. I would return to that philosophy soon enough...

I was in the Navy for eight and half years and for five years I was miserable. For three and a half I was happy. Here is where I start to learn my purpose, or more correctly, the beginnings of my purpose. I started making things with my hands. There was a massive cat tree that I made with 2x4s and MDF and a bunch of other odds and ends. They were screwed and glued and the farthest thing from fine furniture as I can imagine now, but I made them, and I cherished them. I was in an apartment so the amount of DIY sort of things I could do was limited. I started thinking of all the things that I wanted to do but avoided doing for various reason. I decided it was time to start learning again. I started with Barbecue and a wonderful Weber 22” charcoal grill. I read, researched, and cooked everything from ribs to lamb to grill cheese sandwiches. I made sauces and side dishes and I found a passion to cook food and feed people. Next was brewing beer, and like barbecue, I consumed information and brewed my heart out. I worked on my 1973 Jeep CJ5 (still a work in progress) and I camped. Always reading, learning, experimenting, evaluating, modifying, and relearning. Always finding purpose.

Around this time, I met a girl that would become my first wife. It was a toxic relationship that quickly deteriorated. It is a subject that I would prefer to avoid, but it is a part of my story and a part of who I am today. We avoided each other and dealt with the tension in our own way. I’ll leave her out of the rest of the story, but as a result of the situation I began to despair again. We moved to Central New York when I got out of the Navy and we bought a house. I was excited to renovate and bring the house to life. I wanted to learn and grow and work with purpose, but that was not destined to happen. I became depressed being at the house alone surrounded by toxic feelings, so I found disc golf and I immersed myself fully into it. With disc golf and the shitty home life came excessive alcohol use and a litany of unhealthy habits. I hated the decisions I had made again. I sank into depression and I lost my appetite to do anything other than drink for close to a year until I woke up hungover on a friend’s couch wondering what I was doing with my life. Those words tattooed on my calves echoed in my head again (HATE YOURSELF / BREAK YOURSELF) and I resolved then to live a healthier more purposeful lifestyle. I needed to clean myself up, stand tall, and address my mental and physical health. I slowly worked on the house and other projects including a tabletop made from rather robust pallet wood and pocket holes. I was getting back to my purpose. I was drinking less, working out, and eating healthier again. Finally getting a handle on my physical health. It took me another year to get the courage to file for divorce and the final stages of my mental health recovery began.

The most amazing person walked into my life

Circa 2015

Around this time, I met the most amazing person, Megan. She is a caring, talented, and dedicated woman and we have wonderful conversations. Those conversations and our relationship continued and deepened until we found ourselves in a relationship. I moved out of my house while the divorce was proceeding. Please bear with me, I am almost back to woodworking and building things. I had a new job at this time which required a lot of studying and working night shift. Megan encouraged me to grow and learn while she was growing and learning. We were trying to find our purpose. Something that I had been wanted to do for a few years was to mill my own lumber and that is what I asked for when Christmas rolled around. She got me an Alaskan mill, and I milled my first cherry and walnut logs. Something clicked.

My pallet wood phase

Storage for our essential okie distiller

Of all the things that I was inclined to try woodworking was on the top of the list. I had watched every episode of The New Yankee Workshop. I wanted to make what Norm Abram made….. I wanted to be Norm Abram. I searched Craigslist and I found a 6-inch jointer to restore which led me the Marc Spagnulo and The Wood Whisperer. Marc made woodworking seem much more attainable, so I started consuming his content. Eventually I signed up for the Wood Whisperers Guild inspired by Matthew Cremona’s farmhouse table build. My new favorite woodworker I think related to his approach to woodworking the most. I now had lumber and Megan’s father had a Dewalt thicknesser and a table saw. I started down my woodworking path. I am hooked!

A few months later we rented and moved into a little house with a large garage that I quickly filled with tools that I found and Craigslist and brought back to life. I made a Barbeque cart for my Weber out of the walnut and cherry I milled up, boot racks out of pallet wood, cutting boards, and so much more.

My divorce finalized, and I kept the house that I bought all those years ago. The plan was to fix it up enough to sell it, but after working on it for a few months and meeting the neighbors Megan fell in love and we moved in. Renovations began again and Megan started nursing school. Then, the most amazing/terrifying thing happened. Megan was pregnant….. I was going to be a Dad. I pushed to get the house to a point were there was a functioning nursery before our first son was born. We were going to be parents. I did it, but the rest of the house was undone. We were parents! No floors, no trim, no stair treads, and no master bathroom. Renovations slowed down to nearly nothing after Keene was born. During this time, I started collecting and restoring hand tools. Then I discovered the world of carving. I got sloyd knives and hook knives and I made spoons and kuksas. I got a 48-inch Alaskan mill and I was milling whatever I could find.

Our second son, Oliver, was born before too long and with him came some momentum for serious change. Something was missing in both of our lives, so we began searching. We wanted to be closer to Megan’s family. We wanted lots of land. We wanted to build our own house. We wanted to be Debt Free. We wanted more control over our own lives…. to be more self-sufficient. We needed to move out of our house, but we could not list in the condition it was in. We had about 2 years of renovations to do and we wanted to do it in 8 months with a 2-year-old and an infant. Our realtor laughed and said we were crazy, but we would sell fast if we did what we said we would do. Challenge accepted! We worked our asses off. We didn’t sleep. We renovated every room in the house (tile, drywall, molding, paint… all of the things). We repaired and repainted the exterior. We rebuilt the deck. We went bonkers…. And we had plenty of help. Megan’s family helped us out so much and I don’t think I can ever thank them enough for all that they have done.

We had a strong and united purpose….. That was it! We were both working in successful jobs and living the “Dream”. Again, I am talking about a cultural dream that glamorizes having a nice big house, nice cars, and lots of stuff. We were working hard to make other people rich. Working hard to make someone else’s dream a reality. We had a mountain of debt that was unsustainable. We had enough. It was time to make a change for the better. We are talking mental health here and there can be nothing more important than maintaining mental health. Our purpose is not to toil away making other peoples’ dreams a reality. Everyone has a unique purpose. Purpose is a personal thing and I am not trying to say that working a 9 to 5 is wrong. My 9 to 5 job has allowed me to pursue this crazy dream and for that I am extremely grateful. I have come to terms with the need to work my day job for the time being and I have found new enjoyment in it. I have found how to connect the day job with my purpose and it has made life much more vibrant. We have learned that personal growth is important to us. Striving to be better than yesterday and perhaps helping other people to be better along the way. Maybe we could educate and inspire people to live their best lives and join us on a journey to a life of fulfillment.

For 2 years now we have been living with a purpose. We have stumbled off track once or twice, but we are mindful of who we are and where we are going. We back each other up and we are a fantastic team. We completely renovated 2500 square feet of house in about 8 months. It was listed and sold on the same day and we were able to pay off all our debt (except for our vehicles). We own our land and we have not accrued any new debt while building our new house. Megan and I have started our own businesses and we are learning our way through self-employment.

We have been sacrificing a lot to achieve our goals, but we are starting to see the benefits of our sacrifices and we do not have any regrets. Family time is limited, and we are living in my in-laws house while we attempt this crazy venture. They have been amazingly supportive of us and we would have been hard pressed to pull any of this off without them. We work hard and are striving to figure out a good work life balance.

I have an Instagram account where I have documented everything up to this point. I started that account before we decided to renovate and sell. I wanted to share my woodworking adventure, but I had to pivot, and it is now an account documenting my perspective of the journey we are on. My wife has recently started an Instagram account that is documenting her adventure in being healthy and growing all our food in a garden on our land (check her out on Instagram @sprouting_roots_). Megan and her friend are both Registered Nurses who are striving to help people through better eating and living habits. We have been maintaining a VLOG on YouTube (Link) and I am beginning a BLOG now for some other thoughts I have on our efforts.

What is the status of our project? We have been clearing land and milling lumber (with our brand new sawmill) for our house since May 2020. It will be a timber framed 600 square foot house. We hated 2500 square feet. It was beautiful, but we didn’t use most of it. We opted for 42 acres of land and having lots of outdoor spaces to hang out. Think fire pits, gazebos, and tree houses (and trebuchets?). Our foundation is set and backfilled and our concrete slab will be laid in April 2021. Building material prices are sky high due to the Corona Virus pandemic but we have remained firm in our commitment to be debt free. We will find a way and we will persist! This summer will be epic and we are so excited every morning to pursue our goals and fulfill purpose.

If you’ve read this far thank you! If you are looking for a pep talk…. Go out and find your purpose, then live your best life.

My Path to this life – An introduction to the Critter behind Bear Made It

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