10 years was a long time ago. I don’t remember what I did for my birthday, but I do know that I’ve been roughly on my own as a single dad for just over a year at this point in 2013.
Around this time, I am volunteering on the ice for the hockey initiation program with my girls – 6 and 4 at this time – at the local community arena which is now gone. It’s a whirlwind adventure when they are with me, but depressing when they are not and it’s just me, the dog, and the cat. Perhaps there is a hamster in our lives around this time, but otherwise there were a lot of nights spent alone with my thoughts with barely a pot to tinkle in.
I’m not sure trying to maintain the marital home on one paycheck minus child support was the best move for my financial and mental health, but separation is devastating enough – I needed something to be the same. There was more than one occasion I found myself calling someone to e-transfer me a few bucks while I stood at the grocery store check-out with my girls, but we somehow made it work.
Some of my fondest memories are those years where it was just the three of us. I don’t feel bad saying that because I know that time was special for my wife and my step-daughter as well – and they had been a dynamic duo since her daughter was 2.
I had gone from arriving home from work to kiss their sleeping heads or to read them a bedtime story, to changing my schedule so that when they were with me, I could take them to school, pick them up from after school care, and go home and make dinner and their lunches for the next day.
I had lots of help from my parents – who live close – so I was never truly alone, but for half of the month, I was Mr. Mom.
In 2013, I got involved volunteering at a special needs school and by the beginning of the following year, I was on the ballot for trustee for the 2014 municipal election. By fall, I was elected to office.
Although the money helped – sort of – the hours were a constant struggle to balance being a single dad and having to maintain my regular job. Regardless, it is still the greatest professional honour I have been granted.
In 2015, I met my now wife and between the elected role, a new child in my life, and a woman who was wonderful with my girls, my life had turned around like a fairy tale.
By the end of the four years I was in the role of trustee, I was absolutely exhausted so I decided not to run for re-election, but for the next four years I did continue to follow the issues and weigh in from time-to-time.
In 2018, my wife, Tara, and I went on both of our first out of continent trips. We ventured off to Cuba, where I asked her to marry me and by 2019, we wed at the old community theatre where we introduced the girls for the first time.
Many things have happened in the 3.5 years since our wedding from COVID-19, to having run for the Green Party in the 2021 election, and running for school board trustee again in 2022, although this time without success.
The world has gotten pretty ugly since May 2020 in many ways politically and socially, but in early 2021, I was first introduced to the words of someone who would become a mentor, Irshad Manji. I have even had the opportunity to chat with her on a couple of occasions. She and her Moral Courage movement changed my life and her words and those with similar heterodox views, give me home for how the next 10 years of life on this tiny speck of dust might play out.
In the past 10 years I have said goodbye to a role model – my grandfather – a dog, cat, a couple of hamsters, friends, family, and my mom had a heart attack in there. There have been both joyous moments, and the darkest of times.
Either way, the most important aspect of my life that differs from all of my other ‘0’ birthday’s, is that I am happily married with three beautiful girls who love me.
Whatever comes of the days and years to come, their love has proven through the regular trials and tribulations of a blended family life and a global pandemic – all of that time spent schooling and working from home together, not to mention the mental health struggles that came with the whole – that we can make it through anything.
What more can a man ask for, but to be starting the next chapter of his life surrounded by this much love and support?
3 kids, 1 overworked wife, a 110 lb dog, 3 cats, 1 hamster, and a gecko. There is a lot of poop and cleaning that comes with the whole, but I’ve never felt so loved as I do in these final moments of my 40’s.
Here is to the lighter side of 50. Not asleep to the issues shaping the world we are leaving for our children, but a peaceful, center-ized view of the world through the lens of an artist, poet, writer, and lover of people and all of the creatures that will share my path over the next 10 years and beyond.
Thank you all – living and passed on – for what you all have taught me about life and myself as I fudged my way through my 40’s.
Here is looking at you, 50.
It’s just a number, but a just cause to reflect on where you’ve come, so that you may be better prepared for what lies ahead.
Tomorrow isn’t promised, so I will humbly treasure all of the today’s this life has yet to live.