Day One - The Backstory

The BackStory

7 months ago, I started working out with a friend, via Zoom, who is a personal trainer. We'll see how this goes...

5 months ago, I turned 50. The time of life where youth is far in the rear view mirror.

Today, I start a new journey in discovering the joys and sorrows of living the second part of my life.

The first part of my life, after growing up in a privileged yet average household, I began the journey into self-actualization -- meaning, a conscious effort to discover who I am, who I would become, and who I will become.

In my 20s I hitchhiked around, performing music in venues and street corners as a singer-songwriter, lugging my guitar along with my tent and backpack. In those years, I dabbled in psychedelics, usually alone in the wilderness, and opening my mind to possibilities that were not apparent in the usual steps of school, job, house, and family - Though, there is nothing wrong with these things, and I now have all of them, they were not at the forefront in my young dreams of how I wanted to live. I kept thinking there must be something more!

Once I returned from this lengthy trip, I met a man 20 years my senior who manipulated me into a couple years of emotional/mental and finally physical abuse. He was a poet who had an amazing talent which I was drawn into. However, I did escape - literally hitchhiking out of an isolated cabin in the woods to get away from him (thankfully, I had already experienced hitchhiking and was not afraid to do it again). My family helped me detach from him, as he tried to manipulate them into thinking there was something wrong with me. Maybe there was something wrong with me, but that's the scourge of many young people's view of themselves - more the thinking there's something wrong than anything actually being wrong.

I started a career in the music business, taking courses in music engineering and artist development before jumping that ship and just playing/recording the music I created.

Over the next years, with a wonderful new boyfriend and loads of artist friends, I continued to discover myself through Buddhism, New Age development, various philosophies and the common ground in all religions - There was still a part of me that was somewhat tortured and dissatisfied with how humans seem to walk around completely disconnected to life and reality - just going through the motions, replaceable parts travelling on the conveyor belt of life.

Just after I turned 30, I left my boyfriend, sold everything I owned and travelled to Denmark where my brother lives, to try my hand at being a troubadour. That lasted less than a year, once I understood the long hours, little pay and the barrage of popular song requests people would yell out for me to play in crowded bars while I was playing my own songs. It was a devastating realization, talking to musicians in their 40s, 50s and 60s who had been touring and performing for years, only to end up bitter, couch surfing, and unable to do anything else.

I came back to Canada and had to get a 'real' job. At this point, I felt defeated and simply went to work as a teller at a bank in the arty part of Toronto, while the musicians I knew came in to deposit money from their gigs and contracts, sniggering at my lame lot as a failed musician. However, I did learn some things about dealing with money and credit. I was still performing a couple nights a week, partying for the most part, and going to work completely hungover. At this time, I was in the process of making my 3rd record.

Then, I met my current partner at a local joint, who also worked at a bank and was one who had gone through the motions of school, job, house and family, before leaving it behind, also dissatisfied with his lot, but doing the best he could with what he knew. We were an unlikely match, and I think that's why it works.

Soon after, I got pregnant. We decided to drop everything and move north to try our hand at something entirely new, we didn't even know what, we just left. I did go back to finish the last album and have a CD release party, but I was no longer interested in the business of music - it's basically just sales anyway. Writing grants to continue playing/recording, non-stop touring and endless self-promotion... meh.

For about 5 years, we were moving along nicely, starting a small business and raising our 3 young children - Then our house burned to the ground; I and my children nearly lost our lives, we lost it all, including 3 cherished pets. It was then I knew I'd have to invoke the lessons I'd learned in my 20s and 30s. Becoming still and focused on rebuilding with a new sense of purpose, yet with a detachment that allows for things to roll off my back, not getting too stuck on anything, as I had devastatingly learned - it's all temporary. Being present, living in the now, is really all there is.

My children are now 10-14 years old, with their own dreams and needs (we're in a pandemic, which has been difficult for all of us to say the least). We own a lovely property, continue to run our small business (when it's not locked down!) and enjoy our time here.

The past few years, my father has moved in with us so I am sandwiched between taking care of the children and taking care of him. I have become tired with weight gain, joint pain and boredom stemming from a lack of energy - diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I started thinking well, this is it, time to accept the denouement of existence...

But, again returning to my roots of becoming a life well-lived, I shook off the defeatist attitude and wholeheartedly believe that 'old age' does not have to look like the usual steps of retreating into decay, societal invisibility and 'uselessness'. If this pandemic has revealed anything, it's the complete disregard for elderly people, a constant onslaught of youth-focused living, systemic discrimination, and public penchant for ableism. 

Elderhood has been lost. It is time to bring it back, with a gentle vitality and lived wisdom. New Becomings. I can't wait to share the possibilities and the contemporary reality of it.