The day began as most days do--I woke up, the first one awake in a house of three including my father, his girlfriend/fiancée Donna and myself. They had drank more than I the night before and I took the peaceful moments to survey the house and get a glass of water--it is important to hydrate. Returning to my room to entertain myself with a TV show, NHL 2012 video game and a workout I suspected nothing a miss and contemplated what the rare Sunday off might entail. The Thursday prior Mike had suggest playing beach Volleyball but was a surprise no show the evening prior's festivities. Peter Had the day before talked of biking around town--I combined these two, thinking we could bike to the beach and play Volleyball while Peter with his bad shoulder heckles in the sunshine.Erin was in town, as was her newly civil-unioned husband Nathan and we had decided an evening of wholesome boardgames would be a pleasant way to spend the evening--plus she had the camera I was hoping to take with me to Chicago a few weeks later. Stephanie was up from Toronto and we always did our best to meet up when in the same city, although she was spending a day at the spa which left her in a relaxation coma and had family commitments. My own family was split across the country with my father and younger brother, whom had stopped speaking to each other five years earlier, were the only two in town--my attempts to make plans with Mark my younger brother by two years had failed on account of other peoples commitments and our in-effort to work around it. My father and Donna his wife to be were planning an Easter affair for the following Saturday which I had yet to find a plus one for and were having a romantic dinner together which I would purposefully avoid.
There I sat, watched, played and exercised thinking of the day that could be and the day that would likely be--I was doing well at the video game hockey, which comes in handy living in Canada.5-1 New Jersey beat Boston, my 'Be A Pro' scored a hat trick and added an assist to reach 152 points in 52 games and I ventured out from the brightly lit bedroom to find a trail of novelty plastic gummy bunny filled Easter eggs leading from my door down a winding flight of stairs to the kitchen where a chocolate soccer player awaited me. It was a sweet gesture from my kind father that flooded me with childhood warm memories of our house on Vic place, in the small village of Brentwood bay nestled between the provincial capital Victoria and ferry terminal city of Sidney on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
This house, its' powder blue stucco, three foot crawl space, cemented in Basketball hop, two tiered backyard patio and corner of the yard hand made wooden shed is where I lived between January 1990 and January 2002. The place where my innocent naive childish wonder years took place. The patio I had my first kiss to Lisa Foster on, although she was just dating me to get close to my best friend Sebastian. The corner bedroom windows I would look out on summer nights and watch the highest Butchard Gardens fireworks explode over treetops before they grew too tall in later years and where I would genuinely wish upon a star with the silly 'star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may I wish I might have this wish I wish tonight...' rhyme and believed they would come true. The room I got my first television in, it was black and white and lacked cable but if I turned the dial to channel 0 I could, by the odd kind of magic that only existed before the internet, watch and hear exactly what was on my older brother Chris' 16' dial colour television--this came in especially handy during PBS Red Dwarf marathons.
All of these memories and more came flooding back, except slightly tainted. They were treasures of the happened before of my life which can and should not be repeated, however sweet and sincere the intentions of my father were these days are gone--I read too much into a good hearted man's his best intentions and the day took a decidedly different turn. The playful oddity that was this pleasant surprise spelled the beginnings of a disappointment riddled day.
The second most terrifying thing about text messaging is the time between send and receive. Once a message is sent it floats its' way off through wireless space with your words to another and you are left to sit, stand, carry on your day and await the unexpected eventual reply--from my experience this almost always occurs too soon by those you are less interested in the reply of and when you truly dearly yearn, wish and desire an answer it takes an eternity. During this purgatorial existence we are haplessly left to suffer at our own devices--our self-doubt, the second thoughts and the questioning all begin to play a greater role in our consciousness. Little by little they gnaw away at confidence, swagger and moxy. Then the terrifying part happens, the reply. After we are raw and exposed we have to deal with the full force of our own devices--we get an answer. Excitement and curiosity battle with doubt and imagination runs wild--the inner turmoil of the struggle leaves us battered, bruised and prepared for the worst, which never happens.
On that Easter the second most terrifying thing began to happen, text messages went out to no reply--minutes never bother me but hours and days to reply I take as a personal slight. At first it was simply those whom I had made tentative plans with had not messaged me to confirm, but I shrugged this off as early on a family oriented day, although Peter and Mike had few family members in the city, and as such I decided to test the waters by breaking cellphone silence. First replying to genuine wishes of happiness with the same and then to those I had hoped to spend time with that day. With the messages sent away my main concern was occupying myself and avoiding the terror that can accompany this type of message.
I headed outside to sit and write part of my daily birthday present to Laura--26 she turns this year and I decide that my flying to spend it with her was not enough in spite of what she claims; I am selfishly going to see her because my days are better near her. For her 26th I am writing her in a journal for 26 days and getting people around me over the course of these days to send her birthday wishes(at times I can be adorable.) After sitting in the sun writing my gorgeous Chicagoan dream girl I head to the basement to watch the Toronto Blue Jays game with my Dad who is walking his daily 5km's on the treadmill and await the messages that will lead to the filling of my day. The main issue I have is what I could be doing with the day were the replies prompt--I could plan or otherwise productively occupy my time. Instead I awaited the probably apologetic next day excuses and rescheduling, which is disheartening in every sense of the word aside from literally as I still had a heart.
As the golden 15C early spring oddity of a day progresses and the Jays game comes to a close I concede that it is better to do a solo bike ride and scribble in the soon to be setting sunshine than waste a day at home in sweat pants--the one exception to this being if spent with your amazing other in which case it is perfectly acceptable to do 'nothing' together and still go to bed feeling a satisfied sense of achievement. I bike to a secluded spot to sip Johnny Walker Black out of a flask, write until at peace in the fading sun.
Happy Easter.
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