A Week Without Our Kids

Our kids were gone for the week.

Wait a second, I didn't accurately express that.

OUR KIDS WERE GONE FOR THE WEEK??!?!

Cue the confetti drop.

It was the last week of summer. A week we'd all been collectively anticipating for months. The dates on the calendar on the fridge had been circled in three different shades of red for months. In a few short days, the school year full of hectic busy-ness would return.

But not yet.

"Where had our kids gone?" you may be wondering with concern. Had we shipped them off to a week-long prison, I mean camp? Had we arranged for one long sleepover with friends who had neglected to read the fine print on our contract? Had we told them to go play outside and lost track of time?

No.

One set of grandparents had actually requested to have the kids for the week which we gladly agreed to after first making sure that they were feeling okay. When we hung up the phone we laughed like two criminals who had pulled off the heist of the century. We cackled like two witches who'd mixed the most excellent devious potion. We giggled until our kids looked at us suspiciously wondering what, indeed, was that funny.

One moment they were here kissing us goodbye as we packed bags full of clothes, books, snacks and stuffed animals. We kissed and hugged and wished them well. We shed tears.

And they were gone.

Let the party begin!

Somehow the kids had made their way to their grandparents and we were free. To make it easy for you, I'll now eliminate all unnecessary words and punctuation from the previous sentence - kids left, we free.

Yes, we were free - not that I want to equate raising our kids to being incarcerated, but...not sure how to finish that sentence, so let's move on.

We stood there, the two of us, in our now empty and eerily quiet living room, stunned and utterly unprepared for the moment. I made a mental note to jump for joy later on that day in front of the mirror when in full control of my limbs and facial muscles so as to truly capture the moment.

Once the dust had settled, we looked at each other, sat, and wondered what we should do first as we prepared to shake off the shackles of bedtime stories and dinners prepared just so and insisting on rooms being cleaned up. For one whole week there would be no fights for the remote or crying after family games or petty arguments to break up, or at least none involving children for a change.

Seeing as both of us were still on holidays, the choices were seemingly unlimited. For once, we could almost do whatever we wanted for 7 whole days including, but not limited to, building a killer fort with couch cushions. I was about to smack myself in the face repeatedly, but my wife beat me too it. Ouch.

I don't want to give the wrong impression, at least not right now, but it was initially a tad overwhelming. To state the obvious for the record, we love our kids. As busy and crazy as our weeks are together, I wouldn't trade it for anything, aside from slightly less whining. And it's not that I can't pick and chose how I spend my free time, but, as a parent you are used to having so many restrictions.

Afterschool programs and lessons and meal times and homework and shopping and sports and bedtimes and don't forget about quality family time. When you add that all up, carry the one and then subtract from the total it doesn't leave a whole lot of time to do too much for yourself especially if your math skills are rusty. For the two parents to actually spend time together outside of 9:45-10:45 at night after the kids are finally asleep, the dishes are done, the living room tidied enough to live in again and the parents with only enough energy to lay on the couch would be amazing.

We sat there, huddled together for warmth before remembering that it was summer, and alternatively stared at each other and the blank TV screen. What to do and where to go first? How to best utilize the week without blowing the bank, or blowing the bank without being caught? How crazy and outlandish should our plans be?

The questions assaulted my brain as did the pillow my wife was playfully hitting me with while we sat there with this wide expanse of unscheduled time and no one to look after. It had only been a few minutes and yet it already felt so strange. And somehow being this strange person in a strange land, felt like deja vu for me. Like I'd been here before, years ago when I was a younger, less-wrinkled version of myself.

Why?

Then it dawned on me, it was just like the time right before we first became pregnant. 33 and 31, relatively young, and free. Technically my wife was the only one pregnant (she called dibs), but I like to refer to us as "we" for tax and insurance purposes.

Back in those days, life was full of impromptu trips to random destinations. We'd spend whole afternoons strolling around looking in shops and having coffee and selecting ingredients for a meal we'd cook together while enjoying jazz music and white wine. We'd spend afternoons throwing frisbees in the park without any idea what time it was as there was nowhere to go and nowhere to be.

At the drop of a hat, we'd race off to listen to live music or hit a tennis ball or watch a movie or all the above at the same time. Though busy in life, it felt like there was time. Time to sleep in, to "waste" an afternoon laying on the couch or in a lawn chair somewhere. We were always able to operate at our own speed, mess with the schedule, do what we wanted when we felt like it, before kids.

Then the kids arrived and everything changed. Mostly for the best (remember we love our kids), but as busy parents we often longed for some of the life we'd left behind.

And now, 10 years later, we had a week to recapture all of that.

Before you think that we didn't, we did.

We went for lazy lunches and lounged at cafes for hours on end, I wrote and she read and we actually took yoga classes together. Matinees were watched, puzzles were collaborated on and games were played.

We were out for dinner one night and ran into a couple we know who were struggling with their two little kids. It was a scene we had acted before many many times. The parents were being pulled in a millions directions at once by their two little ones. They looked at us and we at them.

"Where are your kids?" they asked with curiosity and exhaustion. The answer was given and the looks we received were ones of incredulity and jealousy as having any amount of free time seemed like a concept so foreign to them that it was as if we were speaking a different language or that we were aliens offering them a free ride on our spaceship.

We'd been there. We knew how they felt. We had longed for free time and now we had it. And, though we had a wonderful week, it did feel foreign and strange and weird. As much fun as we had together in our freedom, the whole time it felt like something huge was missing.

My afro from my 20s. I mean, the kids - definitely the kids.

It's true, we missed our kids. It was like two pieces of a very simple jigsaw puzzle were missing and the puzzle was just incomplete. For the better part of 10 years, we'd always been together; playing, reading, eating and everything in between. We are a family that spends a lot of time together and now we weren't. It just felt odd.

Not that this odd feeling prevented us from living it up as much as two forty-something homebodies could live it up, but throughout each day the following thoughts and queries were spoken:

"I wonder what the kids are up to?"
"Wouldn't the kids like that?"
"I miss them."

The house was too quiet. Evenings without bathtime and bedtime and reading time felt unusually long. No good night hugs and kisses and "I love you mom and dad" as one last treat before the day ended was strange. Mornings without a little one walking quietly up to me as I slept saying "can you wake up with me now?" just felt odd.

And then it hit me. I was seeing into the future. A future without a full house.

This week was sort of like what it will be like when our kids have grown up and moved out. When we aren't a young family any longer. When there are no mouths to feed and cuts to bandage and homework to help with. When our kids have grown up become adults and have moved out. When this week without kids at home becomes the long-term reality of our lives.When we are old.

Shudder.

This week alone both reminded me of when we were younger while also giving a glimpse into what it will be like at the other end of the rainbow one day. I saw that that life, as great as it is right now and as much as we wish for time to slow down, will continue to march towards the end of this stage. That all of the wonderful and amazing things we all do together do have expiration dates. Time marches on and kids do grow up.

We'd had a wonderful day together; lots of laughs and chances to fully relax, yet at the end of this nice day, we sat there in our slightly-depressingly empty nest, and I felt sad that this thoroughly enjoyable phase we are so fortunate to be in, will inevitably come to an end.

But not yet.

Clearly, this week would end and our buoyant and joyous kids would bounce and scream back into our world. This week would end and our lives would once again be filled with laughter and crying and frustratingly-annoying sibling squabbles and fights before we knew it. This week would end and it would quickly seem like nothing but a figment of our imagination. This week would end and we'd long for some free time without kids.

And as we spent the last evening, eating our final dinner and watching a movie completely of our choice at the ungodly hour of 8:00pm, we wished we'd done more with our time. Buyer's remorse?Had we done all we could have done? Did we fully utilize our time in such a way that we'd have no regrets? What did it say about us that we weren't completely able to let loose and enjoy ourselves without our kids? Had we become lame? Had I lost my separate identity over time and fully become Tommy, the father who couldn't exist and function on his own?

And then they came back.

Full of stories and items grandma bought for them and questions and energy! Wanting to go out and stay in and be driven places and to see friends and have meals cooked and on and on and on. And though I would have loved for a few hours on a Sunday just to do whatever I wanted on my own without a soundtrack of complaining or whining or pleading, I was so happy to see them and never wanted them to leave again.

Ever.

Dear Kids

Hey Kids, it’s dad.

I just thought I’d write you this short letter to let you know how much I love you and care about you. Seeing you grow from babies into these two amazing kids is such a powerful and tremendous experience for me. Being your father is easily one of the best things that has ever happened to me and I thank you for helping make my life feel so wonderful and complete. Each and every day, I am so appreciative that you are my kids.

While I have your attention, though, there are a few…small areas that are on my mind, ones that could use some minor improvements or fine tuning on your parts. Only if you have time, of course. No pressure. And I’m definitely not meaning to sound annoying or like a nag or that I’m angry or frustrated, because who could be angry or frustrated with kids as wonderful as you are…most of the time.

But, it would be great if you could read, discuss these items among each other, and sort things out a bit. Not huge things, mind you, because remember, overall you are amazing and wonderful. Never forget that. I’m just saying that we all have things to work on — look at your dad! If someone took some time to write me a letter like this with things for me to work on it would be much longer. No need to nod your heads so vigorously.

Anyways, if you aren’t too busy laying on the couch watching TV or eating the food that I joyously prepared for you while you also relaxing on the couch, it would be great if you could peruse this letter and consider my suggestions. Only if you have some time. No stress.

Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but you can each be slightly grumpy in the mornings. Not that I’m being critical! Believe me, I get it — mornings are tough! To state the obvious, no one enjoys having a great sleep in a cozy bed cut short. Having said that, it would make your dad so happy if the second you started interacting with other humans in the real world (namely me), if we could all just be in a good mood. I’m okay with tired, I’m okay with bored and I’m even okay with some well-timed sarcasm, but grumpiness makes me sad. You don’t want a sad dad, do you?

Breakfasts, especially on school days are slow! Hey, I get it — what passes for kids’ TV these days is hilarious and captivating. Some great work is being done on many accounts. And, as we all know, the real issue here is that your dad even allows you to watch TV in the morning on a school day in the first place. What sort of idiot is he (compelling question for a different day)? But look, no one enjoys cold eggs and no one enjoys being yelled at “why aren’t you eating?” and “could you please eat?” and “why won’t you at least take a bite?” while they gape mindlessly at the screen. So, it would be really peachy if you could just find some way to eat breakfast in a more timely fashion.

And I know we all want to look our best, so selecting the perfect combination of clothes as well as meticulously cleaning your teeth and brushing your hair is a top priority. I, for one, should spend more than the three-to-five minutes I spend on these tasks. So, I completely get that some time is needed to be prepared to set a foot out of the house (and exponentially more for two). But, when I’m racing around doing a million things and I see you standing there in front of the bathroom mirror almost literally brushing one hair at a time or ever-so-slowly trying on your third outfit with the toothbrush dangling out of your mouth, I go a bit batty. “There goes good ol’ crazy dad,” you must be thinking as you treat each individual tooth like a precious diamond as you remember the dental hygienist recommending. If you care for my sanity, could you perhaps pick up the pace just a tad?

Easily one of my favourite moments of the day is when I pick you up from school and I get to see your freckled smiling faces once more except for those rare (often) meltdowns in the car. I know you are tired and I know school is exhausting and I also know that it takes a lot of effort to “keep it together” all day when out in the public. But, sweeties, daddy is tired and exhausted too and he’d love nothing more than a quiet “how was your day?” and “what did you learn at school” drive home. Not that I don’t want you to share honestly, but if it could all be done at a lower decibel level with no crying and kicking my car seat or to at least give me a short warning signal so as best to ready myself for the (your) storm, that would mean so much.

Also, at least once every few days, one or the other of you has misplaced a favourite article of clothing or a much-needed lunch bag or some homework your teacher will kill you if you don’t hand in. And somehow, even though I was at work all day and clearly am not to blame (for this), it is all my fault? Now don’t get me wrong — I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining or criticizing you at all. Completely not the point of this letter. You are both amazing! And forgetful from time to time. Again, I’m far from perfect myself, but if you could take more care, watch your things, maybe glue or tape or even staple important things to your body it would help. Daddy is trying to be funny, aside from the not-losing-things-anymore part.

You are each other’s best friends and nothing warms my heart or puts a tear in the corner of my eye then to see you sitting next to each other on the couch reading or on the floor playing a game or being kind to the other for no special reason. If only those moments could last the whole day! But they don’t. Something always comes up that shatters the peace. Now, I wasn’t born yesterday (clearly) and I fully understand you can’t get along all the time with someone you live with, and sometimes a little frustration is warranted, but dad would be gaining many fewer grey hairs each day if you could just get along. This means thinking before your hit, taking a deep breath before you yell and remembering your sister loves you and that your dad may be on the verge of a mental breakdown.

I hope this is going okay so far — you know how much I love you and never want to hurt your feelings, but while we are on the topic of fighting, it makes me tense with frustration when either of you are going out of your way to purposely be difficult. In case you aren’t quite sure what I am referring to, here is the scenario. Your mom or I will be asking for your help around the house or trying to get the family ready to go out and everything is going swimmingly and then, without notice or any obvious reason, one of you decides “hey, let’s just arbitrarily stop listening and following instructions just for laughs”. Not funny, but still adorable, but, to be clear, definitely not funny. And nothing can continue until one of you decides to let it. I’m sure the power and control is delicious and I hope you get to enjoy that when you are parents one day, but for now, make it easy for your dad, pretty please?

At the risk of feeling like I’m piling another one on my list of complaints, nothing puts a damper on a perfectly nice evening than a long, drawn-out bedtime. We all know that staying up is fun and five more minutes never really hurt anyone even when five really meant ten or fifteen (sounds like a prison sentence, doesn’t it?). And you raise some well-thought out and semi-articulate questions such as “Why are you being so mean?”, ”Why do you guys get to stay up so late?” and “You just want us to go to sleep so you can spend time without us.” We’ve done so much with and for you all day, so it would be amazing if you could hop upstairs like the cute little bunnies you are and go to bed. All of this ideally would happen without you having to be tucked in, kissed good night, had your water bottle filled up, your nighttime music changed, your pillow fluffed again and again and again till somehow, it’s morning already.

And at the end of yet another day, your mom and I flop down next to each other on the couch, utterly spent and we look back on the day that was. I hope you know how much we love you and wish you could somehow grow up a little more slowly as the teenage years and all of that excitement (wheee!) is just around the corner. Sure there is some frustration and some tears and some arguing from time to time and sure you two could be easier on each other and on us and sure you could cut back on the crying and yelling and hitting but never forget how amazing you are and that I still love you tremendously.

Your dad, Tommy

Sorry if I'm Repeating Myself

I often get this feeling these days.

Don't worry, I'm not about to break into song.

All the time I have this feeling like what I'm saying, I've already said before. Many times before, in fact, like I'm caught in a temporal loop or experiencing deja vu or the universe has finally had enough of my whining.

Not that I don't have original thoughts and ideas and takes on topics, I do, or at least I think that the words that come out of my mouth or via my fingers are original and worthy of a nod or a gasp or "damn" from the listener or reader.

But so frequently I catch myself (harder than it sounds), both in my spoken and written word, repeating words I have said before, almost like I'm quoting or plagiarizing myself. And when I do, I'm not totally sure how to react. Sad? Mad? Glad?

I mostly feel disappointed with myself for falling back on something easy rather than working hard to break new ground.

Does that make sense?

As a person, I'm driven by this desire to be unique and different and interesting. As an animal, slightly less so. Seriously though, I'm strongly motivated to avoid a cliched existence (unless purposely littering my written work with them for comedic effect).

All throughout my youth and into adulthood I've been aiming to strike a balance between nerdy and athletic as well as going out of my way not to sound like anyone else. Even as a young kid, I was obsessed with doing things my way. I was never a sheep, aside once for Halloween, and I was never a follower, except the few times when the leader was particularly good looking. And I dressed differently. Thanks a lot, mom. No seriously, I am actually thanking my mom a lot.

As a high school student I struggled with this strong pull to fit in at all costs while resisting this gravitational force with all my might. I think we all feel this struggle to varying degrees and each person feels this desire to resist the pull to fit in differently. For me, it felt like a gigantic, high stakes ,five year game of tug-o'-war as I sorted out who I was, what I was about and how much I cared what other people thought about me. When I arose from the ashes (why there were ashes is a story for another day) as school ended, I had a confidence and a style and a pair of significantly less than 20-20 eyes as well as a goatee.

And with those tools I was ready to be an adult, or at least as ready as one could be with a liberal arts education. I spoke my mind more frequently than before. I started writing, creatively. I showered daily. I was my own man.

And so it went for a number of years. I had relationships. I finished a few degrees and was rewarded with a moderately-paying job. I got two cats, developed a love for said cats that only dissipated years later when I realized that they were the sole reason I was constantly sneezing. Through it all I continued to shape myself as if I were a large piece of soap or modelling clay (I'm not. You can stop looking shocked right about now).

Something happens as we age (multiple things my biology friends tell me with an annoying smugness) and become parents and even more so for me as a teacher and counsellor. I constantly find myself in situations where I'm expected to be the adult now. "When did that happen?" I often ask, followed by "But I don't wanna grow up" followed by ordering a pizza. I find myself constantly being asked my opinion or doling out advice or giving suggestions or drawing from my past experiences to help someone younger than me navigate a challenge.

And though I pride myself on having my own way of thinking, so often I find myself giving a fairly typical speech and I hate it. I don't want to be like someone else. I definitely don't want to sound just like another person. I absolutely want to come up with my own material or unique view. And, I also don't want to have a set of memorized go-to responses that I can pull out when needed depending on the situation. I repeat things I've said before often these days.

Now you may be thinking (let's give it 2-1 odds), one can copy or repeat themselves and still be considered original, their own person. That's true, and if I had the means, I would literally copy myself an infinite number of times. But, I am concerned (consumed?) with constantly striving to come up with new ideas and to not fall into the pattern or trap or comfort zone of recycling and reusing what I've already uttered or typed before. I love being creative and when I say something again it is like my brain was unable to drum up something new and that doesn't sit well with me considering the money I shelled out for drumming lessons.

Plus, I am a different person than I was last week or last year and I like to think that I am still growing and improving and progressing. So when I read a piece I wrote a few years ago and it sounds achingly similar both in word choice and in content to something current, I shiver. And when, I find myself saying to someone "sorry if I'm repeating myself", a grimace crosses my face. Then there are those times when I give a student a well-used speech that, as true and apt as it may be, it is another form of repeating myself and being unable to come up with something fresh.

In my writing, I've been told countless times that I've got a unique voice, which I take as high praise.
I purposely try not to read too many other authors who sound at all similar to me, as I don't want to consciously or subconsciously be influenced too much. I have also been told that I write how I talk, also high praise, as I have attempted to capture what is in my head and what comes out of my mouth in my writing. And yet, as I continue to write and write and write, I get the feeling more and more that I am repeating words and funny bit and themes, and I don't like how that feels.

Sure I continue to push myself to improve as a writer, and I believe that I have, but I spend a significant amount of "creating time" looking at an unfinished draft and beating my head against the wall (thank you, padding!) trying to finish something that just won't allow itself to be finished no matter how many times I write and rewrite a paragraph. "What or who is stopping me?" I wonder as I look at myself accusingly in the mirror.

Often it is lack of sleep or the fact that the topic of the piece is just very unexciting, but typically it is because what I type sounds too "been there, done that" and a new piece stalls as it lacks originality and enthusiasm. I fully understand that there are only so many adverbs and creative ways to use a semicolon, but I demand originality and refuse to continue to publish the same piece every week over and over again as some sort of psychological experiment on my readers.

I remember being a student teacher and being told by my faculty advisor that if I was bored with the lesson that the kids would pick up on that. A huge part of the success for many teachers, myself included, is in the deliverance of the material. "Guess what kids?!? Today we are learning about fractions! Booyah!" If I can summon up the necessary enthusiasm and find the best vocabulary available to me in the recesses of my brain, then I can salt and pepper my speeches and written work with the newness I'm craving and desiring.

Having said all of that, for the reader when I've published some writing or the listener when I am talking, I believe the repetition I bemoan mostly goes unnoticed. The bemoaning does not - it's super annoying. I don't believe I sound like a broken record, and believe, me I would know as quite a large amount of time in my formative years was spent listening to and befriending broken records.

But, I am sure that when I communicate an idea I'm slightly bored with, that it doesn't come across as excitedly or enthusiastically or as creatively as it would if it was new. We all know how it feels to be the recipient of a speech from an adult on a ubiquitous topic such as trust or honesty and we just want to interrupt the speaker saying "I know, I know". And now I am that adult, only I have the self-awareness (enough with the shock and awe, thank you very much) to not be that adult.

I can be unique and different and original. I've been there and I can be there again. I don't have to repeat others or myself. I can continue to reinvent the wheel! (oval anyone?) I can climb to new heights figuratively speaking of course what with my totally debilitating fear of heights. I can absolutely become a better writer and a more eloquent speaker.

Having said all that, I am my toughest critic on nights the other guy is busy. It's not like I have a huge problem - it's more of a long string of minor ones. While I don't have to repeat myself, I also don't have to berate myself for some repetitiveness. I'm not going senile (just around the corner), and some great thoughts and ideas and speeches and funny bits in writing are worth saying again almost like a Greatest Hits album.

Knowing myself as I do (it's like we're best friends), I will never settle on boring and I am just not satisfied with substandard and uncreative work. I will write and rewrite as I find that fresh material. I will revise and constantly freshen up advice I give students or stories I tell friends. Or, if I must say something again, I will present it with an excitement of a man half my age (with the full head of hair to match). So, I am sorry if I am repeating myself, but I am working on it.

Why Teach? A Somewhat Brief Overview of How and Why I Became a Teacher

For my whole adult life, I have worked in schools; first as a high school teacher and for the past 10 years, as a counsellor. In fact, since the age of 2, I have been in school. And, while it isn't a heart-pumping thrill-ride each and everyday, I love what I do and consider myself so fortunate to wake up and actually look forward to going to work and that I leave each evening feeling like I made a difference and have had an impact on the lives of the youth I work with.

Recently I was cornered by one of my recent graduates, but to be fair and accurate, I was already near the corner of my office when he entered so it wasn't entirely his fault. Turns out he was looking for some career advice and he wanted to pick my brain, metaphorically speaking of course, or else I would not have been interested in the slightest. Career counselling is one of my favourite aspects of my job and I love helping a student figure out who they are, what their strengths are and what sort of careers would be a good fit. We also, if time permits, try on fake mustaches.

This student was considering becoming a teacher himself and, after a short, but enthusiastic, round of applause, he asked about my story - why I went into education and didn't pursue a more obviously lucrative career like pig farming. The whole thing felt sort of like how a researcher who is interested in how a mouse responds to different stimuli must feel, just on a much larger scale. I paused before replying to make sure it wasn't part of an elaborate prank or that he wasn't asking solely to check the status of my sanity. Then. after attempting to sneak out the back door before remembering that I only had one door to my office which he was not-so-coincidentally blocking, I began to think. I took a few moments to stroke my glorious summer project, my beard, as well as considering the answer to his question, a question I've been asked many times before.

Why teach?

A question that is gloriously simple which, coincidentally, is also how my kindergarten teacher described me to my parents on my final progress report.

A question that is as good as it is short and it's also a question kids used to ask me when I assigned too much homework, only hopefully including a comma in those instances.

A question I'd first been asked all those years ago when I was about to enter the Teacher Education program at UBC in 1994 and many many times since by the bartender at my summer job, my friends becoming doctors or lawyers, my private section squash league teammates, a random passerby dressed as a banana who was being pursued by a pack of other guys dressed as monkeys as well as so many others.

Obviously there is no one correct answer, but before I relaxed too much I reminded myself, there are plenty of wrong answers with my having a God Complex and wanting a daily excuse to hear myself talk being just two of them. And my response, when asked this question, is not solely why I chose to teach, but also why anyone would go down that suspiciously well-lit path in the forest when other paths are also well-lit while also having far better signage. Each time this query arises I feel as if I am having to explain/defend my profession as, unlike in other areas of the world, teachers are just not universally held in high regard by society. The implication always seems to be: why did you settle on teaching?

My answer to my student on that day, which was clearly lacking in eloquence thanks to my genetics, was that I just always knew I wanted to be a teacher. He appeared to be considering backing away slowly or creating a diversion so that he could flee to safety or find higher ground in case of a flood, but instead he stayed partially to ask some follow up questions and partially because he'd paid for parking and felt like getting his money's worth. I liked his moxie and said as much, just not in those words.

In the conversation that followed I told both my rags-to-riches story as well as the infinitely more enjoyable, though less based in reality, riches-to-rags-as-part-of-an-elaborate-hoax-to-find-true-love story that I'm trying to get made into a modern rock opera as I write this. I really wanted to try to help my student figure out if education was the career for him, as it is not for everyone. To help, I'd brought along props and a light snack.

My story all started when I was young boy who was often intentionally mistaken for Little Orphan Annie because of my curly red hair and my propensity for breaking out into song while wearing a red dress. That boy, let's call him Frank just in case the Feds are reading, got up each day and went to school, because that's what little boys named Frank do. When not in school, Frank spent a lot of time in an elaborate dreamworld populated by highly intelligent unicorns who bullied him mercilessly. Frank also was highly proficient at the ancient art of whining.

All joking aside, I loved school from the beginning - the classrooms in all their rectangular and nondescript glory, the hallways full of joyfully poor children's artwork, the bells or buzzers or jazzy saxophone riffs that mark the start and end of everything and the sense of community which I am contractually unable to joke about until the year 2024. 

I distinctly recall being in grade three or four and I was, among other things, quite cute, like a smaller, less disillusioned and more infinitely more adorable version of my present self. It was recess and as we ran after one another, screaming, the conversation on the schoolyard turned, as it invariably does among 9 year olds, to our future careers as we had exhausted all that could be said about more macho topics like cars and sheet metal and the negative impact steroids may one day have on professional sports.

We went around the circle, naming jobs we were dreaming of doing and, maybe this is an indirect critique of my ability to dream big, but I was the odd one who didn't want to be an astronaut or a doctor or a cowboy or a princess. I mean I sort of wanted to be a princess, but only a fictitious one or a cowboy but only the kind that has absolutely nothing to do with cows do to my irrational fear of being recruited to "their" side. I remember telling everyone, especially my somewhat proud and somewhat worried teacher, that I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. Then she made a note using her special long, red, tapped teacher's pen in her book while glancing up at me and shaking her head slowly from side to side.

I'm not sure what initially interested me in teaching. I'm not sure about a lot of things, but I'm attempting to keep this piece focussed. What initially attracted me to the job? The power? The responsibility? The ability to unfairly grade others on a curve? Being referred to as "Mister" or "Sir" or "O Bearded One" with only small amounts of sarcasm? For those wondering, I planned from an early age to one day grow a beard and, if all went well, to go full-Muppet at some point after that. But, I did like the idea of standing up in front of a class of wide-eyed kids with all eyes on me, but I also liked the idea of my sitting in front of a classroom of an empty classroom equipped with multiple containers of thick molasses and vats of feathers, but that is a story for a different day.

I'd be lying to say the power didn't interest me. This will be the last time I lie to you. And the responsibility spoke to me with a thick German accent who turned out to be my imaginary German exchange student, Hector, the entire time. I loved the idea that I alone would be given the immense responsibility to fill these impressionable young minds with ideas and the ability to think critically and to problem solve, just like I had the immense responsibility to fill buckets full of hot, sudsy water each Saturday afternoon for reasons my father refused to reveal.

Some would argue that it was my long-term exposure to teachers from a young age, while others would argue it was my exposure to large amounts of toxic glue, but all I know is that I just always wanted to teach and I often wondered why the trees always appeared to be melting before I remembered the glue. Back in elementary school, I was fortunate to have a number of passionate, caring and fun teachers who directly influenced my career path with only somewhat-obvious brainwashing, while also indirectly influencing my love of chalk. Chalk, I must say, is fabulous and to this day my spare time is often spent going outside and drawing immaculate coastline vistas using nothing but white chalk as my family decided that I wasn't ready for colours yet.

But sure, I spent so much of my formative years eating toast as well as sharing the space in and around teachers and school it left a mark which thankfully didn't leave a scar. The scars you see are from my short-lived desire to erase all of my freckles using extra-coarse sandpaper. I just really loved elementary school and, when no one was watching, I often hugged it. One time I called it "mom". Some may wonder if it was my first love, but that was my Raggedy Ann doll with Raggedy Andy being a close second. I believed that teachers were cool as they knew stuff and used their mouths, and occasionally their eyes, to teach things to us. I loved learning and the feeling in my brain as I learned, which I often described to my parents as being akin to how a garburator works. I'd sit there, in my desk, and multi-task - one part of my brain was actively learning, one part was strategically planning on either training to become a teacher or using my newly obtained powers of ESP and the other part was eating tuna fish straight from the can.

I dreamed of being a teacher and on expanding my caveman-like vocabulary too along the way. I wanted to be one of them; to write "nice try" or "close" or "come see me" on top of someone's paper, to enter the staffroom without feeling anxious or at least feeling less anxious then I did doing it as a kid, to resolve conflicts between students using the silent treatment juxtaposed with barking like a dog, to force others to raise their hands when wanting to talk to me which never worked on the schoolyard and to gain entry to their elusive club where I figured there was lots of hidden perks and free nougat.

And throughout high school and into university, I continued to love school and look up to my teachers mostly due to my lack of height, but also because I appreciated how hard they worked and how much they cared. Despite all of the rain, I never wavered from my future career goal. I got up each morning, brushed my hair into a wonderful afro, carefully made sure not to step on the cat, before feeling guilty and going back and stepping on him and then I continued marching towards my destiny as an educator. Others occasionally scoffed at me and my desire to be in school for the rest of my life, while others claimed they were just clearing their throats and that their proximity to me at the time was merely coincidental.

Though I was occasionally confused as to where I was going in life as evidenced by a glazed-over look not dissimilar to a glazed doughnut, I never really considered any other career. "Was this fate or just evidence of a lack of any real imagination" I was once asked? I spent many summers wondering why it couldn't be both while also liberally applying sunscreen. I mean sure, I had the flash-in-the-pan ideas of being a world-famous NBA broadcaster or a world-famous flamenco dancer or even a world-famous frying pan designer thus making all flashes in pans easier what with the copious amounts of pans on hand, but all roads pointed towards education and I skipped all the way there and I haven't stopped skipping till this day. Literally.

But, while I sat there on my chair, swiveling around slowly and dramatically, I considered the question "Why teach?" and all of the times I have had to explain or justify or fight off a pack of hungry wolves with the answer, which happens much more often that you'd think. Teaching in North America, unlike in many other countries, just isn't held in high regard by society. The age old joke that those who can't do, teach persists no matter how many times I demonstrate my ability to "do" things. So often I've found myself not only explaining my love for the work that I do, but also justifying teaching itself.

I strongly believe that teachers are as important to society as doctors and nurses and only slightly less important than creative writers. It just feels like important work, and as I sat there in front of my student, remembering so many amazing and cathartic experiences along the way - my education degree, student teaching, substitute teaching, my first permanent position, directing plays, my year of exchange teaching, and becoming a counsellor - it took all of my power not to weep. I always try, by the way, to weep outside in the rain.

As we continued to chat, I thought about my own path towards teaching and also about what continues to motivate me today, after over 20 years in education, to keep getting out of bed in the morning and head off towards school. My student wondered aloud if I ever found the job and the routines boring, while also wondering numerous other things that I was able to pick up on what with my natural telepathic abilities. Again, the answer is quite simple; I just really enjoy working with students and helping guide them. I feel that the job is a true higher calling which initially made me quite concerned what with my debilitating fear of heights.

Sure there is repetition, and some days are monotonous and mundane. Other days are a tad dry and uneventful. Still others are tedious and dull. And let's not forget about those days that are unvaried and unstimulating. It is just a fact that not every moment of every day is exciting, but that is true about all professions. But, the good moments and days heavily outweigh the bad or boring. Sure, I sometimes look out the window of my office like a trapped-inside-puppy dog and briefly flirt with the idea of becoming an accountant or an accountant's brazen, no-holds-barred assistant, before I come back to Earth and snap out of it. Thank you mom, for the travel set of smelling salts!

Though I've been at this for a while, and there is an occasional feeling like I've seen and done it all, what prevents it from becoming stale for me are the students. Each group of students is unique and they come with their own challenges and original personalities and I love getting to know them all as people. I see working with a new group of students sort of like doing a similar yet new puzzle with a similar yet different answer to the last puzzle I did. As one group leaves, I miss them and bemoan that my work will never be as enjoyable, and then the new, young and exciting group comes in and I get hooked once again. I honesty care about helping them all and that is something you can't fake or grow tired of, unlike that week when I attempted to convince my friends that I was a part man part frog which got old really fast.

And my colleagues. Too many to mention now and even if I could it would really negatively effect this piece of writing to the point where I'd just abandon it and go for a walk. Going for a walk every once and a while is great exercise by the way - give it try. Anyways, I have really been so fortunate to work with so many passionate and enthusiastic teachers in my 20+ years, who have greatly added to my overall love of my work. Sure, I have also seen with my own two eyes, aided by thick, constantly-smudged glasses, a small number of people who were ill-fitted for the profession. Teachers who didn't inherently like students and seemed to be in the job purely for the vacations or those were bored by their subject material and taught on auto-pilot or ones who just seemed unhappy and cranky all the time. But, these types of educators are few and far between, sort of like random, but pointy, thorns in the strawberry patch that is education. As I spoke to my student, I took a minute and imagined I had a big bowl of strawberries and whipped cream in front of me right now and I exaggeratedly licked my lips which was one of my bad habits along with stupidly fondling thorns.

The focus from my friends in the private sector when the topic of public education is brought up is often on the bad apples, the teachers who aren't that good. They argue that teachers are glorified babysitters who have it so easy with too much vacation time who leave at the bell and don't work hard. I always find that line of reasoning so offensive as it is so far from the truth. Sure there are a few bad apples, but I always say to them find me a profession where there aren't any including, but not limited to, apple farmers as some of those farmers are totally mailing it in. For the most part, the schools I have worked in have a staff that really cares and that is clear as soon as you take a few steps inside the building. After that I usually take a few more steps, followed by a short break to stretch my hamstring and then I resume stepping until I find a place to sit down.

And the pay is sufficient, at least for my current lifestyle. Sacrifices have had to be made along the way. I mean I won't be holding any champagne and caviar parties anytime soon unless it is BYOCandC, and then I'm all in. But I'm doing better than okay what with my full head of hair and new sneakers and set of shirts and sweater tops that don't scream "80s!" To be clear, I definitely wouldn't turn down more money if someone was in the mood to pay me more, unless it was hush money as I staunchly refuse to hush unless I have some sort of diagnosed throat ailment or if they sweeten the deal as I have a sweet tooth or, more accurately, a mouth full of sweet teeth.

So, to the question "why teach?" I told him, the answer is because deep down inside you love working with youth. It definitely isn't for everyone and it has to be much more than loving the hours and the holiday time. There will be plenty of days when you are tired or stressed or don't feel like going to work for a variety of reasons, but once you are there, you'll find yourself rising to the occasion because you just care, a whole awful lot. If that describes you, I finished, then yes, teach. But not everyone is as lucky as just knowing like I was. Not everyone has taken such a straight path towards education. So, volunteer at a school or community centre or youth group. Tutor or coach or mentor. See how it feels. You'll know. It will either fit like a boot or it won't and remember as my preschool teacher always said "never wear boots that don't fit".

I watched him leave just wishing I could be the one doing the leaving at some point in the future. I'm not sure if my student will pursue teaching and I'm not sure if he found our chat illuminating or helpful or coherent. But I enjoyed the chance to take a trip down memory lane and to reflect on my journey. I have some days when I daydream about "what if" I had gone a different route in life and whether I'd be even happier or more satisfied or at least write using fewer travel metaphors. Impossible to say, but what I do know, is that I am fortunate to be where I am at this approximate midpoint in my career. I experience satisfaction, fulfillment, reward, and accomplishment each day and I'm just so lucky to enjoy what I do. I just hope my student is able to find the same for himself, either in education, or wherever his path takes him.

Finding "The One"

The year was 2004 and I was single again; a fact that would have been hilarious if it wasn't so soul-suckingly frustrating and that is saying something as I happen to enjoy a chuckle at some good soul sucking from time to time.

I had finally faced the facts after years of looking sideways at them; I was ready for a change. A big change. A change with a capital C smack dab in the middle of a sentence regardless of what those grammarians would say. Those particular grammarians live just down the block.

Here's what happened - I had realized that I was tired of dating for all of the reasons that I had been dating for up until that point. Like many others, I too had dated for companionship, for love, so others would stop staring and once out of spite. That short-lived, spite-filled relationship was emotionally damaging while also the motivation I needed to get rid of that junk I had in the trunk. I wasn't sure why, but I had been carting around junk in my car trunk for months with the only benefit being my ability to employ a misleading expression in my writing.

But now, at the ripe age of 33, I was ready for something more out of my dating experiences, something meaningful and something much deeper, and no, I didn't want to just walk over and stand on your suspicious pile of banana leaves that you claim will lead me to this deeper place I'm looking for. "How do I move from where I am now to where I want to go?" I asked myself each morning while brushing my teeth which led to a disgusting amount of toothpaste and spit on the mirror. I believed I was doing all the right things and going to the right places and that I was made up of the right stuff, unless aerospace travel was involved. I'd even bought a spectacular new hat.

I was rolling the dice and playing my cards and I even spent hours spinning a roulette wheel grinning like the town idiot and nothing was happening. Maybe giving out signs to the universe that I liked games of chance wasn't the answer? Maybe attempting to emulate the town idiot was the wrong call? Possibly filling my afternoons asking myself rhetorical questions while scaling freshly caught trout was too meta? Was I sending out sort of a signal causing all of the great women to flee, sort of like how animals sense a storm coming before humans do? Did I need to "lose" my glasses or "be" taller or stop seeing deodorant as optional?

Regardless, something had changed in me from the past and it was not solely my brilliant decision to stop wearing thick woolen knee-high socks in summer, though that didn't hurt. What did hurt was the cut on my middle finger on my left hand. I was more confident now than ever before, moving up from "hiding in my room" to "not leaving the house without a Groucho Marx-esque disguise" to "so that's what the sky looks like". Also, I now knew, after numerous failed combustible experiments that would have made amateur chemists run for cover, exactly what I was looking for in a woman. Aside from the obvious - sense of humour, sense of taste and no rap sheet - she would have to be active, want to start a family and, most of all, "get" me even when I was being my cute, adorable, illusive and wax-covered self.

I found myself stricken by a new feeling which my doctor claimed was only allergies, while I argued that it was maturity. We fought over it, until we decided to split the difference and he only charged me half price for the session. This maturity hit me like a sack of bricks and the sack of bricks I paid my next door neighbour to throw at me for comparison's sake also felt like a sack of bricks, only infinitely more brickier. No longer was I a little boy or a young man or easily confused with a particularly vain orangutan, I was an adult who now had gained access to all of the clubs the adults hung out in if they hadn't just changed the locks and installed new security measures.

As a tribute to the important work of our early settlers, I just had an urge to settle down. I initially wasn't totally sure what that entailed, so I "hit the books" which lead to an immediate ban from the library. Who knew librarians could get so angry? Armed with knowledge, I was now ready to enlist and join the troops on the front line to win the war up until my best friend telling me that that analogy was as misleading as it was unfunny and if I ever, years later, decided to write about this experience, it's inclusion would be seen as quite obvious filler.

Touche.

As I committed to leaving singledom behind, I shed a small tear, although it very easily could have been sweat as I was perspiring at the time. To be clear, I am always perspiring, which, aside from the obvious psychological upsides, is quite frustrating especially when I am in the mood to appear dry. Being single had been "okay" and dating was "not bad", but I was finally completely ready to transition from "how are you still single?" to "who is marrying that guy, oh it's you, well congrats". 

But it's not as if they rolled me off the assembly line ready for a relationship. Despite how it looks now, it took a lot of work and sweat and rolling around in the mud trying to avoid getting trampled by pigs. True story; avoiding getting trampled by pigs was the goal I included in my high school yearbook. After years of baby steps, which I only discontinued when the laughter starting sounding more hurtful, I gradually worked my way up to having the courage to speak to a human female in person. Turns out that all of that practice in the lab with female mice was good for nothing outside of developing and perfecting no fewer than 7 different squeaks and knowing which cheeses to provide after arguments. 

I was tired of meeting a girl, being enamored and literally transfixed by her shiny jewelry, going through a truncated "feeling out period" that usually involved absolutely no feeling aside from the totally "accidental" bumping of elbows, and then going our separate ways. This painful routine happened again and again like a borderline-unwatchable community theatre production only with a tad fewer boos. But, I was slowly and deliberately, sort of like a semi-conscious koala hopped up on a strong dose of eucalyptus leaves, figuring things out. I now knew what I wanted and the sort of person who would fit that bill - no, not the comically large set of duck bills I have for special occasions - but the relationship bill (okay, you got me, the duck bills too); the big challenge was either finding her or somehow setting a trap.

I was looking and looking. Not knowing any better, or knowing better but choosing to do things how early humanoids would have done them, I was actively looking primarily using my eyes while also allowing the others senses their turn so they didn't whine and complain. (My nose never stops sniffling about how unfair and unjust things are). I wanted to find the woman I could spend the rest of my life with while playing up the positive aspects of that and all the while avoiding using that as my pickup line unless I could nail the perfect mix of pity and sarcasm.

Where was she? Locked in a women's prison for a crime she either didn't commit or didn't commit well enough which is why she got caught? I wanted to find her now! The clock was ticking, loudly. The incessant ticks and tocks were giving me a headache as well as providing a helpful metronome-like effect that helped with the pacing. I was trying as hard as I could though I'd been warned by others not to appear too desperate. After months and months of trying, including hours of late night practice in front of the bathroom mirror, I thought I'd nailed the perfect level of desperation, and yet still, no dice as well as not finding "Miss Right." Having a good set of dice to roll would have helped when things got slow. 

I'd also been told that it would happen when I least expected it which, while comforting for some, made me feel like I was a bit character in a horror film who didn't make it past the first 5 minutes. When I least expected it? "How could I live with this hanging over my head," I wondered until I just couldn't wonder any longer and I tried to hang something equivalent from my ceiling to give me some approximation. Oh, the neck spasms!

In this period of time I consecutively dated a few different women for relatively long expanses of time. The actual amount of time in each case was short, but when compared to the zero days of dating when I was single, it seemed much much longer. Each relationship possessed some of the character, spirit and chutzpah that I was searching for, while also sadly having glaring holes in their resumes. The unique combination I knew I needed to provide me with a lifetime of happiness was proving as elusive as the unique combination I needed to open my locker at the gym. "Perhaps they are the same combination," I wailed in desperation at the moon before my neighbour threw her entire family's collection of rain boots at me - all the wrong size, I might add. As I went my separate way with each of these women, I told them that bringing in stacks of newspapers as well as empty glass bottles and aluminum cans was an odd, yet strangely sensual manner, to say goodbye while they kept asking if I would, pretty please, stop talking and do their recycling one last time.

I'd hit the proverbial low. My self-confidence and lack of dating success met like two fronts in my living room until it started to rain. Turns out I was outside at the time, but that was beside the point. With nowhere else to turn (I'd tried left and then right and was all out of options), I lay on my back on the hardwood floor for a while and closed my eyes before attempting the same steps only on my bed. The bed was much more comfortable. "Dream big," my grandmother was always telling me in a slightly threatening way "and while you're at it, would it hurt you to do something big in your waking hours as well?" 

That night I had a series of crazy and crazier dreams that gave me some wonderful ideas for new pasta sauces. Upon awaking, I walked, as if in a trance, to the bathroom and washed my face or, what I later figured out, what was the reflection of my face in the mirror and yet somehow, I felt cleaner or at least looked cleaner in the mirror. I left the house with reckless abandon, shortly after vowing to live life with more reckless abandon. Instead of standing in the corner thinking about asking that girl out, I was going to stand somewhere closer to the middle of the room. No longer was I going to psych myself up in car that today was going to be different and the drive home at the end of yet another failed day cursing myself for missed opportunities. "Don't worry; there's always tomorrow sweetie" I reassured myself in the best Fairy Godmother voice I could muster up after a full day of barking out math instruction to teens - it may come as a surprise, but teens loved my German Shepherd impressions.

No, I was prepared to take life by the lapels and refuse to let go until I had a set of new, slightly ripped, lapels. When I used to zig, I was going to zag. When I used to loudly whimper, I was going to still whimper, only more quietly. When I used to stare a beautiful woman in the face, albeit from across the block, I was now going to approach her face and talk to it. I had no reason to cower or be meek or hide behind an intricate Chinese mask, even it meant that my mask collection would just sit in my closet gathering dust. Everything I had ever done had led me to this moment. The failures, the rejections, the notarized letters to cease and desist had attempted to knock me down, but instead that had given me something closely related to and rapidly approaching pride. She was out there, I just knew it, and I was going to find her and I'd even packed a light lunch for the trip.

I ventured far and wide. I crossed the tracks and climbed the trees. I spent hours of back-breaking labour digging up my backyard, before remembering I lived in a second floor apartment. I read the tea leaves and rode the waves and even considered taking a glass blowing class at the local community centre before coming to my senses.

And then one day, it happened.

I need to say a quick word to all of you who were hoping for a sad, depressing, atypical non-Hollywood ending where I end up never figuring things out and I spend my days alone sitting by the fire chewing tobacco, I'm sorry, this is not that story.

I turned around, slowly for dramatic effect and she was standing there like how you'd imagine someone would look if they were standing. She moved her head from side to side as if in a shampoo commercial or to demonstrate for all watching that she had a full range of motion with her neck. I introduced myself smartly resisting the urge to insert the word "the" at any part of my name. She quickly retired to huddle with her assembled team who could have easily passed as either a group of very liberal accountants or the best mime troupe this side of the Mississippi to consider her options while I was left to flap in the wind which I did, as those moments are rare and fleeting.

It all just worked with her; I couldn't explain it. For a good week I was rendered speechless and the outright joy of all who knew me both for my good fortunate as well as my speechlessness was a real treat. Our relationship, while early still, worked both literally and figuratively and on as many levels and dimensions as either of us could comprehend with an average layperson's understanding of quantum physics. We were like two peas in a pod, or more accurately, I was, while she was supportive of my strange, yet oddly endearing, vegetable-themed hobbies.

Where all other attempts at relationships in the past felt difficult and tenuous, this was easy. Almost too easy, and yet it wasn't. It ended up being exactly the right amount of easy. We just hit it off from the beginning. To break the ice, I brought a chunk of ceremonial ice. Then we went on one date and then another and then another and I'd keep going, to give you the full and accurate picture of how many dates but I'm trying to wrap this up before dinnertime. We laughed a lot, so much so that we both complained of sore jowls. We talked a mile a minute which is, ironically, not that fast especially if the car you are in is on a highway at the time - believe me, it makes sense.

I was amazed. I was stunned. I needed to be roused every few hours with smelling salts that she oddly insisted on going Dutch on. Everything about her was on my list - especially not having a warrant out for her arrest as that is just a turnoff for me - and I found myself gleefully checking off all of the boxes that needed to be checked off until she cleared her throat as she was attempting to tell me about her day. And I wanted to hear about her day and was also happy to watch a short marionette production about her day if she had happened to stage one on short notice.

One thing led to another (this is always true and not really worth noting) and the next thing I knew I was proposing. I, Tommy Paley, was asking a woman to marry me and I felt a little nervous. Not that it was in any way the wrong thing to do, but nervous as the sheer weight of what this meant descended upon me like a pack of hungry bats (don't ask). Being married wasn't something I was planning to venture into unless it was the real deal. And this was it. I just knew she was the one. I knew it from the moment I met her. Or, in actual fact, like somewhere in the first several moments as I can't say for sure that it was the very first as I was pretty excited and not my sharp, analytical self at the time. 

It was like a fairy tale, aside from the distinct lack of evil witches and moats. Exactly like a fairy tale in every other regard though. As I dropped to my knee, I thought back on all of the years of loneliness, of questioning as to whether there was something horribly wrong with me, of those days in my youth when a simple drop to a knee wouldn't have hurt at all and I smiled. She smiled as well, looking down at me on one knee before her almost as if to relish that she was even taller than me than usual. And after I asked her the question to end all questions, she replied with the words I'd always wanted to hear but never totally thought I would,

"Yes, of course yes. You do have a ring, right?"

I knew I'd forgotten something.

In time, after numerous pay cheques and salmon-wrapped-in-filo-served-with-sauteed-vegetable meals later, she got her ring alright, several in fact, of all different sizes and materials before she had to ask me to stop as the joke had ceased being even slightly funny.

I had found "The One" and I wasn't letting her go.

My Bio

Tommy Paley, or T-Pain as he is often called for perplexing reasons, wrote these words that you are reading at this moment, though he did not invent said words or devise any of the rules for grammar and punctuation being demonstrated (quite poorly) here as he often claims. He wants you, the reader, to sit back and relax and enjoy a nice hot mug of cocoa unless you are like him and hot mugs of cocoa are a constant source of frustration and humiliation. And while you are relaxing, he wants you to not only continue reading these words, but also to make believe that this write up is on the inside back cover of his first published book of hilarious and introspective short stories to be enjoyed by humans and proto-humans alike.  

Tommy, for those who haven’t had the pleasure of being in super-close proximity to him for long, extended periods of time, is a proud, nearsighted, highly (and potentially dangerously) creative family man. So proud, that he once very briefly considered a series of tattoos that would have covered his entire back stating as much; so nearsighted, that he once thought he was sharing his white bedroom with a large collection of quite-lost and oddly two-dimensional polar bears and so creative, that he once wrote a story about how he met his wife using only vowels and exclamation marks. He never shuts up about being a family man to the point that his throat is often quite hoarse (the fact that his throat closely resembles that of an actual horse is purely coincidental). Tommy always wanted to have a family of his own; to hug and hold and call his own while also researching how easy it would be to utilize them for financial gain without feeling too morally decrepit. His family, who came into better focus once he was fitted for glasses, was disappointingly not nearly as blurry as he initially thought, but always supportive, to a fault, of his creativity (albeit while often sighing and rolling their eyes uncontrollably).

Mr. Paley, as his students and closest relatives have been conditioned/brainwashed/pleaded with to refer to him as, spends his days searching for truths, both real and abstract, after devouring a breakfast, both real and abstract, solely comprised of day-old stale bread. Stale bread, according to him, can be used to make a really great bookmark if you are not concerned with totally ruining the book you are reading and getting crumbs everywhere. Once he spent a Thursday evening attempting to literally get crumbs everywhere. Totally unrelated, but the very next morning he started a search for a new set of roommates who weren’t so “sensitive”. Truths, based on his extensive searching each day between 6:30am and 6:35am (which usually involves also attempting not to fall down the stairs while half-asleep), are as elusive as they are valued on the black market. Mr. Paley, went asked to comment, clarified that he has never actually seen the black market with his own eyes as it was “really really dark at the time” (which later got explained because he was wrapped very tightly in his blackout curtain).

T-Pain spends much of his small amount of free time marching to the beat of his own drummer which was always a dream of his when he was but a young, misdirected and freckled boy with absolutely zero ability to keep a beat. A few years ago, he got tired of spending so much time sitting, breathing heavily and staring at the wall that he attempted writing at the same time to give his brain and fingers a chance to work together on a project. His brain and fingers not only grew closer, but they also held a secret staff meeting and passed a motion to buy Tommy out. To call what he feels when writing “joy” would be both accurate and misleading. To call what he writes about “necessary” or “meaningful” or “non-gag inducing” would cause people to wonder if he is just writing his own reviews now. When not writing, he is not.

Mr. P can often be found counselling the leaders of tomorrow during working hours and shepherding wild animals in the evenings, although no proof has been provided and it is really just his word at this point. What sort of has-been deadbeat would go through all the time and effort and allergy medication needed just to invent a lie involving the herding and care of feral animals just to attempt to impress people reading this bio? What sort of deadbeat indeed! Hopefully, by reading this, you can see how funny Mr. P is or at least how desperately hard he is trying to be seen as funny, which should be funny in and of itself, only in a bit of a sad way. If you are smiling reading this, then he has succeeded. If his success, in turn, makes you a tad worried blink twice and then touch your nose with your two pinky fingers at the same time. Help is on its way.

Finally, and kudos to you for reading this far in the hope that there will be draw prizes upon completion which there definitely will not, in the near future Tommy hopes to complete his vegetarian cookbook to end all vegetarian cookbooks (that’s meant to sound as promising and threatening as it does) entitled “Seriously, Where the F@#& is the Meat?” which will not only contain amazing recipes and hilarious anecdotes involving food, but also instructions on how to appear richer than you really are without resorting to a life of crime done entirely using marionettes. Tommy also plans to continue to write his unique brand of creative non-fiction that, while not helping him achieve the fame and applause and free bags of pre-shredded cheese that other writers of his ilk may crave, give him yet one more reason to get out of bed and put on his socks in the morning. The other is to avoid cold feet.

The Last Beach Day of Summer

There is this moment.

It happens each year.

I find myself standing there.

Looking out at the blue, blue ocean.

Feet sandy.

Hair blowing in the gentle breeze.

The rhythmic crashing of the waves.

My kids are in front of me, laughing and playing in the water.

Pleasing smells of barbecue are in the air.

My wife sitting on our beach chairs, reading, dozing, sipping wine.

Grandma and grandpa having just left for the evening.

The sun has begun its descent as time ticks down on another day in paradise.

And it hits me hard.

This is the last beach day of the summer.

Where has the time gone?

Just weeks before, summer announced its presence.

We were free.

Days upon days upon days we lounged around in the morning.

No rush, nowhere to run off to, no plan.

Then we'd snap into action and pack the picnic basket, grab our suits and hit the beach.

We spent our days swimming, paddling, and building castles.

Skipping rocks, throwing frisbees and playing games.

Not a care in the world.

Everyone is just happy.

As much as I live in the present, I find myself thinking of the past.

Summers are jammed full of moments of deja vu.

It's like we've been here before, in these exact spots, doing these things together.

Only this time our little kids are older and bigger.

"We aren't little anymore," they correct me.

I just want to stay in this moment and ignore reality for a bit longer.

Forever, in fact.

I don't want there to be an end to this, but it will end.

Moments are fleeting.

I know that.

The sunset creeps on us as the weeks go by.

Earlier and earlier it gets darker and darker.

A chill enters the air in the evenings that we haven't felt in a long time.

Autumn is on the horizon.

I'm sad.

Full of melancholy and ice cream.

I'll miss this, this time together.

So much.

With the end of summer, comes long, busy, exhausting days.

Always tired, always rushing, always aware of the time.

Homework to do, things to practice, lessons, and shopping and bells ringing and cars honking.

So little time to just sit.

Or stand in one spot and breathe.

Feet in the sand.

Sun on my back.

We will be reduced to ships passing in the night.

Or some other cliched expression directly implying that we never see each other even though we do.

As I stand there on the beach, on this final day with the seconds ticking down until the final gasp, I don't want to leave.

Leaving means the end.

"'Til next year," a fellow parent calls as they exit.

He's right.

But, I often feel like I'm on borrowed time.

Next year, the kids will be bigger and older.

At some point they won't want to spend their summers dancing in the waves, jumping off the dock, hanging out with their dad.

At some point I'll be older too.

We all will.

And I won't have the still youthful, go go energy on these long days that I feel defines me.

These days will be but memories of those days when the kids were young.

Those amazing, summer days at the beach.

Those days that we felt would never end.

And that one day.

When I stood there, surrounded by my family, enjoying all that was around me, just not wanting to let go.

That final day of the summer.

Back to School

September.

It's that time of year again.

The leaves are turning colour, the air gets colder at night and I'm getting ready to wear nothing but white seeing as Labour Day is almost upon us.

And, it's the final few days before school starts.

Time, predictably, has flown.

Just the other day, I was fleeing leaving school on the final day of work in June, ready to pick up my kids and meet my wife and literally eat some ice cream. The long expanse of summer was in front of me and I almost believed that it would go on forever.

The past two months have been a spectacular combination of lazy mornings, late evenings, throwing frisbees, family barbecues, playing tennis and slow, timeless afternoons flaked out on the sand with the ever present melodic gentle waves providing the soundtrack.

And now? Now, it's about to get real...again.

Soon the alarm clocks will have to be set, checked and double-checked, outfits that don't give others seizures prepared the evening before, and detailed schedules arranged and organized down to the very minute including lessons and activities and appointments that suck up every ounce of free time before rinsing, gurgling and spitting them out.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like I've been here before.

42 times before, to be exact.

For the majority of my years on Earth (plus some of the years when I was stranded on the moon), as summer ends, life in a classroom resumes.

As beach blankets and sandals are stored, backpacks and pencil cases are dusted off.
As sunscreens and sunburns and the sun itself become but a memory, the rain begins to fall with great regularity.
As life transitions to math homework and spelling tests and notices from parks and playgrounds, courts and surf, it just feels right even when it feels so wrong.

It's the order of things.

It's my personal, life-long order of things.

It's the way.

From Tiny Tots to preschool to elementary to secondary to university to teaching to a masters degree to counselling to having my own kids and wife all decide to strangely go to school as well that I'm choosing to see as a complement, September has meant school.

Aside from a year of travelling, a year of exchange teaching in Australia and that amazing year when I was one, the end of August has always indicated one thing; pencils, books and teacher's mostly really pleasant and encouraging looks aside from those times when I didn't listen and follow instructions and, thus, deserved whatever I got (okay, that was three things...maybe I made a mistake or maybe I was practicing my division skills. Think about it.)

Not that it's all bad. Seasons come and seasons go. To attempt to refute that would be an exercise in futility unless you knew some of my friends. Autumn is my favourite. Mornings are crisp, days are warm and it is easier to sleep in the relative coolness of the breeze. And I enjoy my work, the kids love school and my wife is like a rabid attack dog that rips strangers to threads, only the type that enjoys teaching teenagers about science and math.

And the first week of school is always exciting.

Wheeee!!!

New clothes, new students, new beard (that's an inside joke, that makes much more sense when you look at the place on my face where a beard would traditionally be worn, and even then, it's just not that funny a joke).

The first few weeks fly by as the family literally springs up ready to learn. "We don't miss summer at all," we tell ourselves in unison like an almost-unwatchable family from a completely-unwatchable sitcom. Its all going swimmingly until we speed over a speed bump one particularly tough morning when I get up after a horribly inconsistent sleep that makes the use of the word "sleep" ironic at best.

You know those mornings, where you burn the toast and scald your hand and pack a set of lunches that NO ONE WILL EVER EAT! The kids have magically devolved into immovable, unrouse-able, barbaric, do-not-disturb beings (still cute, though) that will never be able to get up, eat breakfast and look sort-of-presentable within the next 45 minutes. Every moment from the second I wake up at 6:30 until I somehow arrive in my office the second the bell goes to start school is jam-packed with the panic of being late which goes a long ways towards explaining why I frequently spill my lunch.

Afternoons are passed, in a stupor, gazing longingly out the window as a smiling woman goes for a jog, an old man playfully walks his dog and the sun beats down on a seasonably warm day that would easily be mistaken for summer if I wasn't trapped, sweating in my office.

Grrrrr.

Was I ever so dumb to be glad that summer was over? I look at myself in the mirror and decide that, yes, yes I was. I would smack that adorably, sad, dumb look off my face if I wasn't so adorable and dumb.

Gone are the wonderfully laid-back mornings of a few weeks ago.
Gone are those lunchtime debates over "how should we use the next 5 hours today?" "That's right, any way we want!"
Gone is the flexibility and freedom and fiduciary duty (I know, I know - it makes no sense at all here, but I needed a third "F" word to use in this spot and it seemed the "funniest". Don't believe me? You try saying it out loud a few times without laughing. Note: much funnier when wearing a large set of fake eyebrows.)

But, time waits for no one.

You know who else waits for no one? That was an actual question. I really don't know.

I like school, I do. Though if it comes up in court while I'm being attacked by a tall, dark, handsome, legs-for-days and exotic-looking attorney I'll deny all plausibility (always wanted to say that before). But, I do like it.

I've always felt at home in a school, but never enough to actually make it my home, and once back in the flow of the routines and subroutines and sequences of program instructions that perform a specific task that almost make it seem like I'm actually inside of a computer (thank you, Wikipedia!) it's all good. 

It is just so jarring when summer comes crashing to a halt and I have to wear actual shirts with actual sleeves (in the summer, I'm quite anti-sleeve) and shoes and comb my hair every morning!?!? (to be honest, I use my hands to carefully arrange my locks as well as the hairs on my head).

So as I sit here in a cafe on a Friday afternoon I am both aware that I won't have the luxury of doing this again for months, but also that I believe I'm ready for what inevitably comes next.

Summer, it's been good.

We had fun, you and I.

You tickled my toes, wrapped me up in your warm arms, helped my world glow and made me feel young again. I'd call you the father that I never had, but that would make things weird and awkward (especially when I hang out with my actual father who is doing his best, thank you very much. I mean, he's no summer, I'll grant you that, but...I think I'll stop before I go too far).

Take it easy summer.

You deserve a break, until next year.

I can't wait.

I Used to Be The Healthy Guy

I used to be the healthy guy.

You remember that guy – watched what I ate, didn’t smoke, rarely drank and was always exercising.

Not that I was the only person like that, but I remember routinely standing out as different, whether at work, at social events, at parties or even among fellow athletes I competed with and against.

At work I’d always receive comments about how healthy my lunch was and conversations typically revolved around how no one else had time for exercise what with their busy schedules and how nice it must be for me to stay fit when the rest of them had absolutely no time.

At social events, others would be devouring excessive amounts of chicken wings or meatballs or pork ribs all the while sounding completely shocked that someone could survive or exist in this day and age who ate a mostly vegetarian diet (I’m a proud pescetarian, to be exact). The fact that my parents didn't let me eat sugar (not totally true, but not completely false either) and that I was the only one who didn't want the hamburgers being served at a dinner event stunned my friends.

At parties, if I went at all, I was the “lightweight”, the designated driver, the one who had to get up early for a tournament or a workout the next morning which meant for long evenings of nursing a few drinks while others drank and smoked as if there was no tomorrow. Not that I didn't partake, but partying had to fit into the rest of my life and not the other way around.

Not that I was an angel (no one has ever made that comparison) – I had, and continue to have, my vices – chocolate, cheese, and ice cream to name three and, back in my earlier days, I consumed an incredible amount of carbs (almost as if they were soon to be going out of style, which they did). And not that all others were unhealthy, hard-partying gluttons, but I definitely made a name for myself as the healthy guy.

And, I won’t lie, I loved that distinction.

Sure it was frustrating walking up to a buffet at a tournament and seeing only meat dishes. And sure it was annoying having only one option on a menu (fish and chips) at many restaurants. And sure it wasn’t fun being made to feel weird or odd or different for the choices I was making that, in my mind, weren’t that weird or odd or different. It was exhausting to always have to explain to others why I didn’t eat meat and why I, alone, didn’t eat or drink the overly processed or high in sugar or salt foods and beverages that everyone else seemed to be enjoying. Again, not that I didn’t indulge, but I was the healthy guy.

Back then, and to this day, I believed in balance and that everything in moderation was always better than some sort of crazy diet. I always felt that totally depriving myself of something I loved wasn’t the answer. So although I seemed that there was so much I didn't eat and that I exercised a lot, I really felt that I was striking a great balance and I was happy.

But, times they are a changin’. Gone are the days where living a healthy lifestyle is considered unique. These days seemingly everyone is paying a lot more attention to living well. This is a great development. It is exciting to see friends and acquaintances become fitter and happier. It is great to show up at a potluck dinner and be able to sample almost everything without a guilty conscience. It is wonderful to see parks and playgrounds and beaches packed full of people running around and enjoying the West Coast lifestyle.

But, in my mind, the news isn’t all good. Everywhere I go, I see people who are downright fanatical about diet and exercise. I feel that there is so much more of a focus right now on healthy eating and living than ever before in my 45 year lifetime (my memory is a little hazy of my first few years). There is so much focus that I would describe what we are experiencing as not completely healthy. Everywhere you turn, we are being inundated with more and more and more about how to be as healthy as humanly possible. I personally find it tough being a healthy guy in these health-crazed times in which we live. It’s no longer satisfactory to just be healthy as the pressure is on to leave no stone unturned, to eliminate every “evil” vice and to be doing crunches in your spare time.

Because if you aren't, you know the person next to you is and they are tweeting about it.

So many people are watching with super-vigilant detail exactly what they put in their body, monitoring every step, counting every calorie (“there are no free calories” a very thin lady at work said to me the other day while eating her lunch of celery sticks and baby carrots), weighing themselves daily, and using Apps to obsessively track all exercise. Again, many of those things are great, if approached with a somewhat relaxed nature, but the obsession I see and hear on a daily basis is starting to mess with me and I won't stand for that, not on my watch.

And yet, these others seem really happy.

They do.

Happier, in fact, than they have seemed in years. They are lighter, wearing slimmer clothes, demonstrating a boost in self-image and basking in all of the positive comments they justifiably receive on a regular basis. They do look good in that shirt. And, yes, they are literally glowing. And I am happy for them, I am. But, it is starting to drive me crazy. Where conversations around the lunch table used to avoid the topics of exercise and diet as if they were taboo, those topics now infiltrate every single social interaction to the point where it makes me want to scream.

Throughout the day, every day, I hear people saying the following statements that a few years ago I never heard:

“I need to get my steps in”

“I’ll have a couple but only because I went to the gym this morning”

“No thanks, no carbs for me today”

“I’ll pass – my weigh in is tomorrow morning”

“I’m really watching my calories”

“I’m just starting another cleanse.”

Gone are the days where I can enjoy my lunch (usually quite healthy) without feeling assaulted by their comments regarding the new diet, the new food items being excluded, the new self-imposed restrictions when it comes to eating. And on those days I bring some leftover pizza (I know! Gasp! I still eat pizza!) I am aware of all of the looks I get that fall into two categories: doe-eyed longing and head-shaking disapproval.

Not that I’m being competitive, but wherever I turn someone else is eating supposedly healthier than I am and that causes me to stop and think and question my choices. Am I doing all I can do to be healthy? Could/should I attempt to lose weight? Is giving in to my food desires still okay? Do I look good in my shirt? It is so hard not to dwell on these thoughts as these topics are on a constant endless reel-to-reel playing each day.

Everywhere I look someone new has recently stopped eating gluten or dairy or sugar or rice or potatoes or fruit with a high glycemic index or highly acidic foods or anything processed in anyway and so on and so on and so on. Nothing is safe anymore! That’s right, you heard me! Even you kale and broccoli and spinach – watch out, you could be next! No food is perfect. There is something wrong with everything. 

Wherever I turn someone else is exercising harder and more frequently than I am and that causes me to stop and think and wonder if I am doing enough. Everyone one and their dog is “hitting the gym” on a daily basis or going to a boot camp or walking everywhere or tracking workouts on a detailed spreadsheet that is linked on all of their devices. Taking a day off? What’s wrong with you? Going home to sit on the couch when you could be doing crunches or lunges or burpees? Why do a 30 minute jog when you could do two hours of cardio followed by another hour of weights followed by a bike ride home followed by squats all evening in front of the TV? Tired? Too bad! Drop and give me twenty if you want your flax seed, dairy-free, grain-free organic smoothie.

In case you can’t tell, I don’t agree with this heightened sensitivity as a society at all. Yes, we should eat well and be healthy, and yes, we should be active and care about fitness, but I see so many people developing what seems like mental health issues of obsessiveness and compulsion and anxiety regarding food and exercise. And, while comfortable and confident with who I am (mostly most of the time), it is just so hard on my own mental health to be surrounded by people who are constantly consumed with their own health.

Now I know that I am seen by others as a bit of an exercise fanatic and I know I am seen by others as someone who really watches what they eat, and I am both of those things. But I also believe that I have discovered a happy balance in life, where I can exercise a few days a week and totally kick back on the others. Where I balance my own activities, with activities for my family and where I use my free time to exercise as well as write, cook and read. Where I can enjoy veggies and greens and wild fish and then melt cheese all over some noodles, enjoy some homemade chocolate chip cookies and devour a bagel covered with cream cheese and smoked salmon.

A colleague once said a very telling thing that I believe captures this entire crazed times we are in. He said “nothing tastes as a good as skinny feels.” Yes it feels good to look good and to be able to stand confidently and proudly in front of a mirror or a room of people or on the beach (don't bring a mirror to the beach, people will stare). But, the goal shouldn’t be skinny; the goal should be healthy. And one shouldn’t be forcing themselves to exercise and denying themselves food items because they are leading too crazed an existence because they believe that is the path towards health.

There are fine lines in life – many of them – and there are some really important ones here. Mental health is as important as physical health. Eating what you love is as important as eating well. Exercise is as important as allowing your body to rest. Moderation is the goal, not exclusion.

I used to be the healthy guy. 

The different one with the weird eating habits who was always off to a workout. I’m still that same guy (albeit, an older, more wrinkled version), but the world has changed around me. I no longer stand out, and that is great – the changes to society are so positive up to a point. I just don’t love the extreme focus on being as healthy as humanly possible all the time and I hate that it makes me second guess what I'm doing. I don't think it's entirely healthy and it sort of drives me crazy. I hope that things will correct back to a happy, middle ground at some point soon where we can have our cake and eat it too (and go to the gym tomorrow).