Where in the world am I today?: Aboard the STAR Princess at the peer in Skagway, AK, USA

I’m a performer. I love being a performer. When I started performing in my teens I jumped at any opportunity to perform. I worked any sunny day I could down in the Byward Market in Ottawa or at Festivals or as special events. I fell in love with the lifestyle of being a performer and with the opportunities it lead to and the financial rewards. I became a work-a-holic because I just LOVED everything about what I was doing and where it was taking me. I didn’t even really think in terms of being a work-a-holic because I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing with my time. It was all good.

Flash forward… 1994 I meet my now wife, 1995 we get engaged, 1996 we get married, 1997 we have our first child 1998 we move into a condo we bought, 1999 we sell the condo and buy a house, 2000 we move into the house and have our second child…

I remember a reoccurring dream I had around this time. It didn’t really matter what I was doing in the dream, at a certain point I became aware that I had bubble gum in my mouth. The flavor was fantastic initially, but after a while the flavor left and as I went to a garbage can to throw out the gum it started to grow in my mouth… What started off as a small piece of gum that I could easily grab between my thumb and forefinger turned into a wad of gum and the harder I tried to get it out of my mouth the bigger it got. Eventually I found myself pulling fistfuls of gum out of my mouth like some sort of never ending mouth coil… I realized after a while that the gum represented the increased responsibilities in my life and that there was seemingly no way to escape the adult choices and associated demands on my time that these choices implied. It sort of scared the crap out of me…

My wife helped me realize that the trick to saving my sanity was to find ways to make everything that had changed a good thing. I’d made my decisions and I had set the wheels in motion to radically change my life from that of a single self-absorbed performer into a husband, home owner, father and all that these new titles and job descriptions meant. Instead of trying run back to the life I used to have, why not dive in head first into all of the wonderful possibilities that were offered in all of the new roles I had assumed.

There is a strength I get from being married that I wouldn’t replace for the world. Sure it requires time and energy and work to keep the relationship healthy and happy, but the work is absolutely worth the effort. Being a home owner is a flood of challenges as well as joys, but I thoroughly enjoy looking around our yard and seeing all of the changes that we’ve done as a result of the sweat equity we’ve poured into the garden and various home improvement projects. My boys are a constant challenge and source of entertainment. Trying to negotiate with an eight year old and eleven year old about the importance of doing homework when I make my living playing does at times seem a bit hypocritical, but I derive so much joy out of watching them succeed and take pride in the work they do.

The picture that accompanies this post sort of sums it all up for me… I set up the camera and let my younger son Owen take the picture for a school project he was doing. The project asked students to pick a family treasure and build a poster board describing it to the rest of the class. My goofy car was the treasure he picked but the picture captured not only my goofy car and me as a juggler, but our house as well and even though my wife and kids aren’t in the picture, the idea of being at home is inseparable with being with the people who make it a home.

Somewhere in the middle of helping him get all of the elements together and laid out on his poster board I looked at all of the crazy choices I’ve made and all of the wonderful things that have come into my life and I thanked my lucky stars that somehow in the midst of the chaos there also seems to be a pretty good balance. I may not be able to move forward with any one project with the speed I once could because my focus is split in so many different directions, but somehow it all works out. The things that really need to get done do get done. The things that I get excited about somehow spill over into other areas of my life and the people around me not only encourage me, but support my choices and fill my life with so much more than what I had when I was that self-absorbed performer guy so many moons ago.

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