Regrets, I’ve had more than a few

The last few days have been such “dark times” for me that I have lost any sense of reason on what I’m doing. As I said in another post the Canadian government is making me crazy and doing their best to do me in. Over two weeks later, countless emails to anyone who might listen, threats that I can’t take anymore, hours on the phone to the most heartless a-hole I’ve ever had to deal with in my life in the government, and today I’m no better off. I still have not received the pensions that were suspended in error, so I can’t pay my rent and have no money for food. A couple of nice friends offered to loan me a few bucks for food, but I declined their offers because I have no way to pay them back. 

The saddest part of this whole fiasco for me has been the failed belief that when you are in real trouble, considering ending it all, you just need to ask for help. Not true. I have been doing every single thing that I can think of, from launching my fund-raising campaign to appealing to every single person I could think of, from the Prime Minister to the Minister responsible for seniors, to friends and family, to desperate appeals to the CBC and CTV news networks, to gopublic@cbc.ca, but not a single response from anyone. It’s a very sad commentary on my life, and at a time when I am so beyond depressed to boot. It’s enough to push me over the edge. 

Although, as usual, I doubt that anyone will ever read this, if only because not a soul has ever made a comment in the more than ten years that I’ve been maintaining this website. Maybe friends I thought I had, and family, not that I have a lot of those left who give a damn, just don’t care about anyone but themselves. Maybe I’ve somehow wronged people in ways I never knew about. I’ve always considered myself a guy who’s always been pretty easy to get along with and never had any major issues or fights with anyone. Some folks just aren’t that easy to get along with but I’ve always considered it a challenge to win them over. Most folks have described me as a pretty likable guy. Maybe that’s only because I’ve been a bit of a sucker to get the better of, and too often. Some people are just users, like my brother, and they’re done with you when you are done with them. 

This exercise is just trying to retain some degree of sanity and avoid taking the final leap. I’ve been thinking that it’s a good thing I don’t own a gun because it would be far too easy to take that final shot. A crime of passion, I guess, just to relieve all the pain. Anywho, here are some of the regrets of a life well wasted:

  • Absolutely no question right now is what’s happened with my government. They’ve sounded the final death knell by screwing up my pension deposits in the first place, and then making it so much worse doing nothing about it or giving a damn about what they’re doing to me. 
  • Next would be my family. Not so much my birth family because I take no responsibility for my mum and dad passing away as is natural. I do feel bad that my Dad died in my arms, selfishly, because it was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me. I miss him. My mother’s death was more of a relief because, thanks to my sister, my mother’s quality of life was zero. She was racked with inoperable cancer and couldn’t remember squat because of her Alzheimer’s. Just a shell of her former self and a sad way to go. My sister and brother can take sole responsibility for the incredibly stupid things they did. I tried very hard with both of them but they were way beyond hope.

My regrets are not only with what happened with my own family but more so never understanding what happened to have my kids and grand-kids abandon me. My darling daughter encouraged me to stay out west to be with my dying mother and to get out of my failed marriage. I knew she had suffered so badly listening to her mother and I fight all the time and she saw that I was so much happier out west. When I left not for one second did I believe it would be the last time I ever saw her. I never knew why. Over the twenty-four years since numerous friends tried so hard to get in touch with her to explain how hurt I was but that never went anywhere. Only Heather knows why she cut me off, as well as my entire family out west. Her grandpa and grandma loved her so much and they were so hurt when she cut them off along with me. Whatever Heather thinks I did to deserve losing her, what did they do to her? 

It’s the same with my son, Chris. We reconnected briefly way back ten years ago, but then he blocked me on Facebook and ended everything after I just wanted to meet his kids, my grand-kids. Over the years we certainly had more than our fair share of troubles, mostly when his mother and grandmother stuck their noses in where they didn’t belong. Many years ago I reconnected online with his oldest, Danielle, who I had held when she was just a baby and we talked a lot. Then out of the blue, she stopped, I assume because her Dad told her to. A few years ago I found a nice photo of her with her two sisters and posted it to my website, but she threatened to report me if I didn’t remove the photo. No idea to who because it’s my website. 

Then his daughter, Mackenzie, found me on Facebook when she was fourteen. She was very upset that her parents had told her that I was dead and not let her make her own decision whether to connect with me or not. We shared quite a few messages back and forth on Facebook then she told me she was coming to Mexico in May for a wedding. She didn’t know where so she was going to let me know so we could maybe finally meet. I was thrilled. Then she stopped talking to me on Messenger. Just recently she posted photos with her friends on Facebook in Puerto Villarta, I assume at the wedding! Hit me like a knife in my heart. So much for wanting to meet me. Just like with Heather I have no clue what happened. Maybe her Dad learned she was talking to me on Facebook and planned to meet me so he put a stop to that. So much hurt from a family I loved more than anything in the world! I think even child molesters get more forgiveness from their families than I ever have, and I never did anything! I gave both my son and daughter unconditional love and busted my buns doing everything I could for them. This is the thanks I get?

The logic of what happened is sure lost on me. Anyone who has heard my story always says it’s my ex-wife’s fault because she was always paranoid that my kids would move out west with me and leave her alone. That was back when they were just kids so people said as soon as they were adults they would get out from under their mother’s skirt and start to think for themselves, realize that I had done nothing and reconnect with me. So much for that idea. Long ago they were free to make their own decisions but nothing changed. I leave this world never having understood why. Nothing more than one of the biggest regrets of my life.

  • Next, still under the relationships heading, would be what happened with the proverbial love of my life, Elba. There was rarely a time in my life when I was more contented and just plain happy than when I was with her and coming back to Mexico to get married and live happily ever after. We had such great plans. It’s said that a man does not fall in love with a woman, rather, he falls in love with how she makes him feel. That was so true with her. My self-worth was never better. She told me over and over how happy I made her and how much she loved me. She always told me how handsome I was when we were going out. People who saw us together always said they never saw two people more in love. She was incredibly gorgeous and sexy. She laughed easily, which I often made her do. We slept together spooned, something I had always dreamed of but never found. I would let her sleep in while I made her coffee. She would wake up and come and hug and kiss me. The perfect start to the day. 

That all came crashing down the day we got back from Canada and she dumped me by text message simply ending our relationship. No explanation why. It came as close to killing me as anything ever has in my life. I felt totally worthless and saw no reason to go on. My dreams had been shattered. I thought of nothing other than swimming out in the lake far enough to not make it back. I cried uncontrollably for days. I was crushed. Now well over a year later I still have no clue why she ended what she had said was the best relationship of her life, as it was mine.

  • To give credit where it’s due, I’ve had no shortage of women in my life and, again, as I’ve described elsewhere on this site. What I didn’t cover was any regrets I have about any of the women I have been involved with, and there are a few. 

For the mother of my other son, Andrew, I regret that I was too young and stupid to get her pregnant but I know she wouldn’t change a thing as far as our son is concerned. He’s a great guy. A wonderful father. Very successful. Another regret is that he didn’t want to have a relationship with his father after I tried to reconnect at his mother’s urging. He has a wonderful family and things might have been different, especially after my other kids and grand-kids abandoned me.

For my wife of twenty-three years, I regret that we also screwed up and you got pregnant, although for me I always knew I would marry you so it was never a big issue for me. Not the same for you. On our wedding night you decided to make me pay for getting you pregnant and that never changed. Although I don’t believe you ever gave me any other choice, I do regret that I wasn’t faithful in our marriage. I desperately needed love, affection, and romance but you would have nothing to do with that. Not until the final day we were together did you confess that you had been a terrible wife and that everything was your fault. Too late for that. I regret that I wasted so many years of our lives trying so hard to make you love me. I figured that if we just had a better car or a better house that you would come around, but that was a total waste. Then when you aborted our third child without even talking to me I finally knew it was over. Someone once asked me if I regretted it for one day after I left? I didn’t. 

I won’t go into the various relationships that I had during our marriage, except to say that I wished any of them had convinced me to leave. They all restored my undying faith in love and convinced me that I wasn’t wrong to want love in my marriage.

After moving out west I had various girlfriends, well, sort of, but none were the love I had been searching for, that is until I met Tracy. She was the first woman I was unconditionally deeply in love with and the first to make me want to get married again. Everything with her was perfect, including the joy of having kids again. Although I do regret writing her the letter about how messy she was, I think the real issue was our age difference. It wasn’t something we ever thought about, but after the weekend she spent with her girlfriends in Kamloops I knew something had changed. When she asked me to leave she did say that she might be making the mistake of her life, but it did nothing to help the hurt I felt after things had been so great between us.

Off to Panama. There I found Magaly. Only regret with her was when I had no choice but to go back to Canada. Back to Toronto, then London, with Denise. My only regret with her was when she decided to fly to Ottawa to spend the weekend with yet another guy she met on the internet. No surprise there. I do miss her daughter, Emily, who was the daughter I had lost with Heather. Then it was off to Ecuador, still trying to find that elusive place that I could afford to live. Met Patricia. Although I had regrets when I had to go back to Canada, it became clear that Patricia was more interested in money than me. 

Then here in Mexico where I met Elba, and I have gone into that under an earlier regret. 

  • Next would come my business, if I can even call it that. When you haven’t earned a single dime after two years of working all day, every day to build the best website you’ve ever created, well, that’s not exactly a business. Long before I even considered coming to Mexico I did a lot of research on the websites that were here for Lakeside. I learned that some of them had ulterior motives, like selling Real Estate and others were just plain bad, but there were no local sites for the various communities around the lake. I started with Ajijic and built what I thought was the best site I’ve ever built, and I have built a lot of sites. In addition to features like a local Business Directory, a Restaurant Guide, a Health Care Guide, a Hotel, B&B and House Rentals section, a Real Estate section, an Events Calendar, tons of information for both tourists and locals, like Immigration, and a list of all the local clubs and organizations, I added a number of free features to attract visitors to the site, like FREE Classifieds, FREE Forums, and a FREE Dating page. It was a site I was very proud of and I honestly believed it would attract a lot of visitors and advertisers, but I was so very wrong. My expectations were minimal and reasonable. I knew that I would lose the GIS (Guaranteed Income Supplement) pension after six months out of Canada, about five hundred dollars Canadian, so that is what I needed to replace with income from the websites. Didn’t happen. Not a dime. A huge regret. The same city portal concept, far less advanced, had worked well in both Panama and Ecuador. Still no clue why it didn’t work here in Mexico. 

Another huge confusion was trying to hire someone to work with me calling on prospective clients. Although my Spanish had certainly improved, it wasn’t good enough to call on clients. At this point I’d interviewed seven women who sounded interested. One spent three hours with me going over the website and she understood English well enough, but I never heard from her again. Just recently I spoke with a Samantha who worked at Walmart, making the usual pathetic three hundred pesos a day. Her English was really good and she understood the concept perfectly. She agreed to come to my place the following Monday to discuss things in more detail. She never showed up. I always believed that if I could just find someone professional who understood what relationship selling was that they would make a lot of money and I would make enough to survive. Never happened here in Mexico.  

  • Next would be the many, many business ideas I have come up with over many years, going all the way back to BASIC, Best Available Service In Canada. It was one of the few businesses that had not been franchised or absorbed by a big national company. Bookkeeping. My background in accounting, including moving companies from manual systems to computer based systems, plus my education, plus my experience with clients who had major issues with their bookkeepers, told me that a nation franchised organization of bookkeepers would work great. Never got passed the concept stage. 

Years and years ago I carried around a file folder called Business Ideas, chock full of everything I could think of. I even had a professional graphic done of The Future Shoppe, long before that company ever existed. The concept was to feature all the latest products from around the world. No shortage of those, ever. Although expensive I wished that I had registered the name before The Future Shop got started, Maybe I would have made some money. It was the same with Canada Lift, the name I came up with on the plane on the way to negotiate with NYK to get national distributorship for their forklifts, which we got. Years later after the Bank of Nova Scotia had sent us into bankruptcy and we lost everything I learned that Coca-Cola had wanted to get the name Canada Lift for a new soft drink.. Again. Not registered so didn’t make a dime. 

Out of all the ideas I’ve had, all of which went nowhere, maybe because people have always told me that I am ahead of my time, was my invention of what we call The Cloud today. Yes, many years ago I put a group together of a commercial landlord and construction company, Al Stober Construction, an ISP, SILK Internet, a company called BIG PIPE to provide access to the internet backbone, and the computer company that I worked for, Northern Computer, to build a server farm in the lower level of Stober’s new tower providing shared access to business. It all fell apart when an assistant to Bill Gates at Microsoft said they would NEVER allow pay-per-use access to their software, plus every client who had access to our servers would require duplicate licenses for everything. The slogan for the company, InTouch Networks, was access anywhere, anytime, on any device.  Long after Microsoft killed the whole project I got an email about their new Office 365, including their new slogan offering access anywhere, anytime, on any device. They were very lucky I couldn’t afford a high profile lawyer. 

When people learn what I’ve been through they often comment that they don’t know how I’ve survived and why I’m still around. More than once I’ve agreed. 

    

                        

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