Addiction.ca

I cannot remember the last Saturday morning when the first thing I did after pouring my coffee wasn’t looking at homes on Realtor.ca.

I like our house.

Sometimes I love it.

Our neighbourhood is fantastic – trails and a park – young families and retirees. A genuine community.

And yet, Realtor.ca beckons. Constantly. Not just on Saturday mornings. The app on my phone means constant checks throughout the week.

Chasing the perfect home. An extra bathroom. A magnificent view. Something more walkable too – schools, stores, coffee-shops – ideally would be just a short stroll away.

The next best thing just around the corner. Because the next home will make everything better. Parenting, life, and work stress will disappear when we add another toilet.

It’s ridiculous of course. Most of us grew up sharing bathrooms, in homes without walk-in closets and jacuzzi tubs. We survived just fine. We didn’t know any different.

I think of my grandparents. Children of the First World War. Young parents themselves during World War II. They suffered. Their infant daughter died soon after birth in the dark autumn of 1944 in occupied Holland. War raged while they mourned and battled for survival, and struggled to raise their surviving daughter. My mother.

Many decades later my grandparents retired to a small bungalow in very small-town Ontario. One bedroom, one bathroom. They took pride in that home. My grandfather spent thousands of hours in his garden. Sometimes I helped him. Today, when I work in our backyard – a sun-drenched property with apple trees, pear trees, and garden boxes which overflow with tomatoes – I think of how much my grandfather would have loved this home. I wish he was alive and bedside me. And I feel guilty for ever thinking about leaving.

Leaving a place my daughter loves, adding a hundred thousand dollars to our mortgage, and an hour a day to my commute, all for the sake of looking outside and seeing the ocean and the mountains.

The draw of that view is powerful. The desire for an extra bathroom is real. So is the reality that the things I want come at a cost. A cost that may not be worth paying.

Still, it’s hard not to look.

Addiction.ca

When Inner Storms Swirl

I’m almost fifty years old and I still seek my parents’ advice. Their wisdom rarely fails me.

Almost fifty. Decisions matter more than ever. When I was thirty, thirty-five, even forty I still felt time and life stretched forward far beyond what I could see. Or imagine.

No longer. Not when I’m just months away from half a century. By the numbers I’m closer to the end than the beginning. Closer to the end of my career. Closer to the end of my life. Fifty sneaks up on you. But 50 is a number that does not lie.

Decisions are supposed to get easier as we age, drawing on maturity and life experience to guide us forward.

Fat chance.

Decisions get harder. There’s more at stake. Less time to play with. Maximizing every moment matters more than ever.

But what does maximizing mean?

For a few days this week it means being by the ocean. In a hotel with big windows and long views. A hotel just a few steps from a sandy beach.

A hotel with one bedroom, one bed, and a four-year-old tossing and turning all night. Maximizing means me getting out of bed when I’m still tired, escaping to the living room, and reading and writing, well before 5 a.m. when it’s too dark to see the ocean, and too cold to be warmed by the fireplace.

And it’s quiet. Quiet helps – helps with making decisions, helps with maximizing.

Quiet does not provide answers. But quiet lets you listen to the inner-voice. To the collected wisdom of friends and family. To the doubts that eat your insides when the path forward isn’t clear.

And it rarely is. Big decisions have big consequences and are rarely straightforward. Big decisions are not a flashing red 99 on a scale of 1 to 100. Big decisions are often 50 – 50. There is no clear right answer. There is no clear wrong answer. When we agonize over these choices, we work to tip the scale – to get to 51. Or higher.

Sometimes we are right. Sometimes we are wrong.

And sometimes we realize that there is no right, and no wrong. That 50-50 means that there is good and bad in whatever path we choose. And those paths often flow from within. Do we seek comfort and contentment – or strive for challenges where growth requires pain?

Maybe the closer I get to 50, the more comfortable I am with 51. With accepting that consequential decisions are made – must be made – when inner storms swirl.

No storms swirled around us this week. The ocean and sky competed for the prize of bluest and most beautiful. The sun warmed everything. Inukshuks lined the shoreline. Parks reverberated with children’s voices and laughter. Ice cream sundaes were devoured. Wine was savoured. Life was relished. Family was maximized.

I got a few days closer to 50. And a lot closer to 51.

A Walk in the Cemetery

I had a few hours of free time this morning. It’s rare for me to be alone, and away from home.

So I went to a cemetery.

A cemetery, near a forest by a church. A beautiful church. An old church.

Smoke from the forest fires raging south of us obscured the sky.

No one else was around.

It was like walking through a P.D. James novel.

Our world feels very obscured. There is no clarity.

Cemeteries provide clarity. Death provides clarity. The on switch is flicked off. 1 becomes 0. Light is dark.

The cemetery was quiet. Peaceful. Tranquil. Mostly grey with splashes of flowers. Immense trees loomed overhead. I saw an infant’s grave. I saw many birth dates far to close to the birthdays of people I love who are still alive. Loved ones I treasure beyond description. The people I do not ever want to lose.

As I write this, our dog is hours away from being euthanized. I’ve written about her in the past. Not always glowingly. But her absence will create a void in my life. In my wife’s life. In my daughter’s life. I will always remember the golden beauty who was with me when I was alone, and lonely, and a little bit scared of what the future held in store. I’ll remember long walks along the beach, stones thrown into the ocean, and hot summer days laying by the water, a book in one hand, and my Maggie beside me.

I’ll remember this day. Some glorious free time with something awful looming. And yet I’m still enjoying myself. A coffee in a café. My laptop in front of me. Nowhere I need to be for 90 whole minutes.

The where I need to be is my daughter’s pre-school. To pick her up. Earlier this week she was terrified before her first day. My wife and I felt her fear. Agonized over it. Needlessly. Because she came home and told us, “I love pre-school.” She asked to go every day. Kids grow up fast.

Today, when I dropped her off, she greeted her teacher with glee, overjoyed to tell her about the new doll her granny bought her. Almost forgetting dad was beside her. Maybe actually forgetting, because I had to ask for a hug and a kiss before she bounded into the classroom. I was so proud of her. And so conscious that my little girl is growing up.

My days often feel very obscured. The smoke of work, the smoke of stress, the smoke of life. Who has time for clarity when life moves a million miles an hour, Covid keeps us from one another, and fires blacken the sky?

Clarity might be unattainable. Or maybe it is does exist, but it is precious because it is both fleeting and hazy. Like a walk in a cemetery on a day filled with both life and death.