Well, here we are again. Yet another year has passed and as I do every year I reflect on what happened over the last year that affected my life, good or bad. Now that I’m seventy-six, an age I never really thought about reaching, I guess I enjoy a privilege denied to many. Getting old. Every day we lose someone famous, but they were always older than me. Now they’re all younger. Not great. Now that I am this ripe old age though it’s become a time of regrets and not dreams of the future.
As I’ve said before this website is just in case my kids and my grandkids ever wanted to know about me, alive or dead. Despite being abandoned by all of them I never lose hope that they will connect with me before I’m gone. The most difficult part is that I’ve never known why they cut me off. With my own kids it’s been thirty years since my daughter, Heather, spoke to me, and I last saw my son, Christopher, back in London, Ontario in 2009. The last I heard about him was from my dear cousin, Joan, who had heard that he was living in his car. I just want to know that he’s okay. Yes, we had some turbulent times but I always hoped that he would remember what I went through for ten years supporting his hockey. Over thirty years ago I left my marriage and went out west to be with my mother who had been diagnosed with fifth stage melanoma and not given more than six months to live. Heather agreed that my loveless marriage was long over and that I should go to be with my mother before she passed. There were really no thoughts about moving there, but my mother beat the odds and survived many more years. Shortly after I was out west Heather called my parents to ask me to come down for her convocation. Although it was the dead of winter I did travel across the country, taking my life in my hands too many times, only to arrive in Brampton and my ex and her new hubby had hidden Heather away and wouldn’t let me see her. I stayed with Chris for three weeks, never giving up hope that I would see Heather. I drove back to BC in tears. Heather and I had a great relationship and I was so proud of her, so why she cut me off baffles me. Many friends over the years have tried to get her to reconnect with me, but all have failed.
My son has three daughters. Mackenzie connected with me on Messenger when I was living in Mexico and she was so pissed that her parents didn’t let her make her own decision about me. We chatted almost every day and she said she was coming to Puerto Vallarta for a friend’s wedding and she wanted to meet me, but then out of the blue she blocked me on Facebook with no explanation and I got to see the photos she posted about the wedding. Broke my heart. Her older sister, Danielle, got angry with me for posting a photo of the three sisters on my website and demanded I take it down. Maddison, the other sister, I have never had any contact with.
Heather has three children whose names I do not know, other than Joe who was born in 2019. I learned he was born from my cousin and I couldn’t believe that wouldn’t have been shared with me. Obviously none of her kids even know that I exist.
The biggest struggle with all of this is that no one was stronger on family than me. I was the one who organized all the holiday seasons like Christmas and my kids knew they had to be home for Sunday dinners. I supported both of them in everything they did, especially my son with his hockey for ten years. He got signed but then quit and ten years later he blamed me for letting him quit. He was signed first out of more than three hundred kids who tried out and I told him I couldn’t put the skates on. If he had lost his desire to play then there were hundreds of kids to take his place. He ended up smoking and drinking and worked at a Canadian Tire warehouse for barely minimum wage.
Anyway, that’s all ancient history but it still affects my life every day. I am all alone with no family which breaks my heart every day. My health is not great and my biggest fear is dying before I learn what happened with my family. Every Father’s Day, every birthday, and every Christmas I keep hoping that I will hear from any of them.
The passed year has had many challenges, both business wise and personally. For anyone who has followed me you know that I ended up in Belleville, the last place on earth I ever thought I would live, by accident when my friend, Heather, who had worked for me forty years ago, offered me to live in her son’s home which he was renovating and she thought I could help. I was in big trouble in Ecuador when my pensions got screwed up so I had to come back to Canada. Long story with his home but the pellet stove failed and I froze my tail off for five days and ended up at the Salvation Army in full breakdown mode and they got me into the first of my group homes and saved me. When my rent went up a hundred dollars for just a room I again went looking for somewhere with a lower cost of living and found Ajijic, Mexico on Lake Chapala. I put my things in storage and planned to go for the six months my tourist visa allowed just to check it out, but I fell in love with it the day I arrived and the plan changed to being able to live out my life there. Shortly after I arrived I also found the love of my life and got engaged. Getting married meant I had residency so that was awesome! After returning to Belleville and going to the Mexican Embassy in Toronto to still apply, which in hindsight made no sense, but she wanted to visit Canada, when we got back she dumped me by a simple text message. Nearly killed me and, of course, changed my life. I had to return to Canada yet again. Back to Belleville. That was back in 2019.
Having had many adventures, some good, some bad, in Panama, Ecuador and Mexico now I was just waiting to die in Belleville. I couldn’t afford to move anywhere so I had nothing to look forward to. My pensions were at least twenty percent below the poverty level so I couldn’t even afford to renew my passport. I was lucky enough to be living in a geared to income apartment or I would be homeless, so I couldn’t give that up. My dear friend, Annie, in Mexico wanted me to visit her so we made a plan for me to go this February. That was based on me paying five hundred dollars a month off my credit card which I had used to buy my new computer, a payment I had managed to make every month. I started looking for the cheapest flights I could find and would renew my very expensive passport. That all fell apart when I realized that with the flights and the money I would need while I was there it was impossible to pay off my credit card before I went. I do have a Capital One card as well with a four thousand dollar limit and I don’t owe anything on it, but the interest rate is over twenty-five percent so I didn’t want to use that. My dreams of having something to look forward to all collapsed. Annie hasn’t given up on me yet and says I might come next year, but I don’t know if I’ll still be alive.
So personally it’s been another year of living alone. I am a hopeless romantic so I never give up but ever finding someone here doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Women here don’t want to date. They won’t even go for coffee. I’m a decent guy who just wants to share my life with someone. I loathe being alone with no one to talk to. I do have some good lady friends but friends is all they want. I did have hope with a lady I’ve known for reasons who said I was top of her list if she decided to date. Then when I went to a dance at the Legion she was sitting on someone’s lap. Broke my heart. Then they broke up and I had hope again, but then they got back together.
Business wise it’s been a very frustrating year. Back in the day I used to make decent money for designing a site, but partly thanks to AI my plan has been reduced to only $129 and I do a lot more work for it. I research domain names, register the domain, build a basic three page website and host it for a year for free, and do any maintenance. That being said, I’ve had four clients last year who paid me the $129 but then after I had built far more than a basic site just ignored me on my questions to finish their sites properly. For one client I had done more than two thousand dollars of work but then he refused to pay me, so I dropped it. Two other clients also paid me the basic fee and I built sites far more than basic ones for them. Both were businesses whose high season was the spring but they ignored me. I left one site up although not complete and brought the other one down. The most recent client was a referral from my computer guy so I wanted to make him very happy. I designed a logo for him, something I normally charge two hundred dollars for, but spent hours doing his for free. Then after I had spent hundreds of dollars more and told him we had to come to some arrangement on paying me he said he would take the site over himself. I warned him that it takes years to learn WordPress and because I was giving him full access to his website I would no longer be responsible for it. I explained the situation to my computer guy and he said he understood perfectly and that I had made the right decision.
I think another thing I experienced last year was what I have referred to as the death of customer service, which has gotten even worse. Big companies, especially those in the cell phone market, have now merged into giant monopolies that have destroyed customer service. Rogers in particular has never had enough agents to handle their customers. If you go into their online chat you will be more than a hundredth in line and wait forever, only to get an agent who doesn’t have a clue. Same with phoning them. As a website designer for decades and in other countries as well I’ve had numerous hosting companies. Many previously independent companies with good support have now been bought up by some huge conglomerate and customer service is by agents in some foreign country who are poorly paid, poorly trained and barely understand English. Impossible to deal with. I am now with a company called InMotionHosting who are the worst one I’ve ever dealt with. I have detailed issues some thirteen times now, but they keep either getting blank emails from me or ones that are missing all my replies. They don’t maintain threads on issues so the agents keep asking me the same questions over and over again. Also because I deal with numerous companies for what are called plugins I often need support from them, but, again, no response. It’s all about “Show Me the Money” now. Nobody cares about their clients anymore. Even when you phone someone you go through the press this number over and over again process and never reach a real person. It’s the same with our government. I called Service Canada when my pensions got screwed up, waited an hour and a half, only to get “I don’t know” to my question. Same with my local MP when I complained. Useless!
Trying to find some good about last year? Well, my computer guy did get me a really good deal on a new computer which I desperately needed, plus he upgraded my old Dell computer and sold it for me, which helped me to pay down my credit card a little. Now that I have qualified for Belleville mobility I was able to attend all the Concerts In the Park last summer because there are no regular buses there. We had great weather with no rain for all of them and great bands. Lots of dancing. There were also some good, some not so good concerts downtown, like the Blues Festival, which was awesome and the Caribbean Festival which was disappointing. The downtown area continues to deteriorate with half the main street empty and an ongoing drug problem, to which our mayor said, “Just don’t come downtown”. How would you like to own a business downtown and hear that?
On the health front things are not good. My undiagnosed balance issue is getting worse. There are days when I bounce around off the walls of my apartment. I’ve told my nurse practitioner that the way I will die is to fall over in the shower, hit my head and be gone. Nobody will discover me until the smell. My buddy, Keith, is my executor and he won’t be pleased. I have asked him to do a post on my Facebook letting folks know I’m gone, but I doubt anybody cares. I remember going to the funeral of my dear friend, Kathleen Fraser, and the church was packed. I won’t have any service but I doubt more than a few would show up anyway. Keith and I are still dealing with the issue of what to do with my body. For years I signed my driver’s license to donate my body to medical science, but this is no longer possible. The U of T wanted a fortune to transfer my body from here to Toronto. I’ll be gone so I won’t care but I don’t want Keith to have any issues.
New Years resolutions? I think it’s time to quit smoking again, although I am worried about the weight gain, again. When I quit for six months before I gained seventy pounds and weighed an absurd two hundred and forty pounds! Now after Ozempic I’m down to around one forty so I could use some weight but I don’t want to ever be that heavy again. The problem when you quit smoking, at least for me, was that you get your taste buds back and everything tastes so good. I opened the fridge in the morning and never stopped eating all day. I never had any withdrawal issues though. Given that I am old and diabetic I really should quit smoking to avoid strike three.
For most of last year I also wrote my Kindle eBook, basically summarizing everything on this website. I only wrote it for my family but I doubt they care or would buy my book. I’m close to finishing it so it will be published soon. Hopefully before I die.
I also bought an air fryer on sale about four months ago but I haven’t used it yet, so French fries in it are next. I also have some small repairs to my wall and a cabinet that Keith put together for me so that will get done. Wherever I have lived for any length of time I’ve always moved everything around jus to refresh it, but now that I’ve lived here almost five years I wish I could do that here but it’s impossible. Everything is in the only place it works.
Okay, my ramblings have come to an end.