It has been more than three weeks since I last posted a blahg. What has happened? Life has happened. Canadian Thanksgiving was in there. I had to take my daughter back to school in Toronto. My son had a medical appointment in Peterborough. I was away in Niagara Falls for my niece’s wedding. Time was very busy and when I sat down to write a blahg, I found I had many other things needed doing.
So all of these raised a few questions for me about what I’m doing and why I’m so busy. There was one question though that I thought needed answering above all others. That question is the subject of this blahg.
HAVE YOU SEEN ME?
I don’t mean the guy to the right with the white hair. 
That guy’s been around for a long time and he seems to be trying to fill in for me. Oh, it’s a nice picture and all but, well, it’s not me. He looks like me around the eyes and the eyebrows are the right colour but he’s certainly not me.
The fellow I’m looking for is a lot younger looking and has dark hair. 
Look at the picture to the left. That’s the guy I’m looking for. Where am I?
This isn’t one of those Where’s Waldo questions. It’s not like you can look at a crowd of people and spot me right away. I’ve gone missing.
That’s me in younger days in my last year of High School. Now, there was a guy’s guy. Look at those sideburns! That white headed guy doesn’t have sideburns. How can you be me without sideburns?
I remember me. I was so sure of everything and fresh with potential and waiting for the world to discover me. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe I went out into the world and was discovered. Now I just want to be rediscovered. Where am I?
Look at this other picture 
a few years later. There’s that unmistakeable dark hair and a faint glimpse at those sideburns. That guy never worried about anything. He never lay awake wondering where his children are or how a bill would get paid or how a blahg was going to get written. Graduating from University, he was ready for anything. What happened to him?
Let’s move a few years on. I look at this picture and I begin to see me fading. 
I see the sideburns beginning to shrink. Those sideburns used to be below the ear. Now look at them, they don’t even reach the bottom of the lobe! Is the woman to blame? That’s my future wife, Jeanette. Did she make me disappear? Look at my arm, I’m wearing a watch for crying out loud! So it starts there. I begin to mark the passage of time. I have appointments and commitments and other things to keep track of. But can you blame the female? He looks pretty willing to me.
So we start a life together. Maybe it’s that word ‘together’. Where’s the individual? Where’s that guy who could go where he wanted and when he wanted and never looked at watches and clocks? It’s not just the sideburns shrinking but that guy’s ability to be him without having to worry about anyone else.
When did I start worrying about others? It couldn’t just be Jeanette’s fault. 
Here’s me, married. Where’s the sideburns? Is that white creeping into the hair or is it the sunlight? It is an outdoor picture, after all. I can’t even see this guy anymore.
So I got married, and I got a job. Oh, I had jobs before I got married. I worked in a restaurant and at a gas station. I worked whatever hours I wanted. But you can’t support a family on that. So I got a real job.
Look at my identification card. 
This was taken barely a year after I was married. Now, I’m a Child Care Worker. I didn’t need a certificate or diploma proving I was one. The advertisement said Bachelor of Arts or equivalent. Hey, I had that. No sideburns, striped shirt, but I look happy enough. I’m making more money than I made as a gas jockey. I still have bangs.
I work in a group-home for a couple of years with “emotionally disturbed adolescents” (that’s what the advertisement said) and I have professional friends and I’m well liked. After a couple of years, I think I’m spinning my wheels with these youth because more of them keep coming. I begin to get unhappy because I think we’re not addressing the underlying issue why there are so many troubled teens. The smile on the identification card fades like the sideburns. I stay with the same organization but I move to their school program and now I’m called a Teacher Therapist. I always wanted to be a Teacher. Jeanette’s a Teacher. (It’s not a competition.) I need a day job now because we’re thinking about children of our own. I can’t work evenings and weekends all the time. I can’t do sleepovers at the home. I have more responsibilities. I’m disappearing further into this married man persona.
Then, Emily is born. 
Jeanette and I have been married for three years. Now it’s no longer me. It’s no longer me or her or us. It’s us plus ad-infinitum. And there’s more white hair!
I keep on teaching and we move to a bigger apartment. My professional friends from the home start to have babies and then there’s play dates. What happened to my play dates? I used to hang out with the guys. Well, I went out once with them. But you get the point! I’m co-joined. I’m still wearing a watch but now I’m carrying around baby pictures.
Emily gets bigger and that white haired guy starts to show up more. 
I’ve completely forgotten about the sideburns. They’re a distant memory…like the dark hair.
Five years with one company is enough. We’re living north of Toronto and I’ve been commuting for three years into the City. All of our real friends are two hours to the east, in Belleville. Goodbye to the city me. I can’t be that guy anymore. I’ve got to move and move on.
We move back to Belleville and are reunited with friends and family. We’re happier. I’m not wearing ties but I begin to change on the inside. I get a job managing a homeless shelter. I begin to be aware of social issues. I’m finally seeing those systemic issues that were producing all of those damaged kids. Other people’s problems are bigger than mine and I care more about the big wide world. I can’t be selfish or petty. Who I am is not important compared to those around me. I’ve got to change the world.
The story goes on from there. I change jobs a couple more times but it’s always on to something that wants me too look away from myself. I’m an anti-poverty activist. I work with mentally challenged adults. 
My son is born and now I’m just a quarter.
Cutbacks start to occur where I work and I’m let go. It doesn’t matter how much you care about the other guy when there’s not enough money in the company to keep you. So now I’m unemployed. I’m needed but they can’t afford to keep me. I look for another opportunity. Someone must need me somewhere. They do or he does. Noah needs me. So I become a stay at home dad.
The intention was to stay at home for a year. This would help Jeanette out as she was only supply-teaching now after having the baby. She started to pick up more long term contracts while I was at home. Emily needed me too. She would be starting school in a year so I could spend more time with her and help her get ready. No more time for me. We move from renting an apartment to renting a house. We live in the country. We have two cats.
A year goes by. Emily goes off to school every other day. It’s just Noah and me. He has naps and I try to write. Bryan, Steve and I start a radio sketch comedy show called “Dead From The Neck Up”. (click on image for larger picture) 
We get written up. Once in a local newspaper. Once by the Station Manager who suspends us for a week for making fun of the Mayor’s hair. Who knew she was on the board of the radio station? I can only get to the studio when Jeanette’s home. Sometime she’s not and I have to reschedule…a lot. It’s a brilliant show but nobody’s listening. We’re off the air. I write a book, “False Ducks”, based somewhat on our radio show career. Nobody wants to publish it. Two years have gone by. Three years have gone by.
I start to volunteer on a Board for a Social Planning Council. I’m still trying to keep tuned to all of the issues that will help me change the world if I can find a babysitter. Nobody wants to be the Board President so I volunteer. I get to go to meetings out of town sometimes. More professional colleagues. A fourth year has gone by and I’m still at home. Volunteering doesn’t pay the bills. I’m a torn person. I’m never alone. Children need me. My wife needs me. I need me but can’t find the time to find myself. By now, I begin to see I’m lost.
A friend gets me a job with construction. I hate it. Long hours and I’m not at home much. Jeanette is off for the summer but I hardly get to see her. Fourteen hour days but I’m making some money. I’m far from the world issues I need to address. It lasts for two months. Unemployed again. Jeanette is pregnant again. When did I find the time?
I’m still Board President but I help to write a proposal that will create funding for two positions to address quality of life issues. I quit the Board, after 4 years, and become an employee of the agency. 
Abbie is born. I’m now one fifth.
I don’t know when it started to happen but Jeanette and I started to leave the picture. I mean it. Where are the pictures of Jeanette and I? Are we always behind the camera? Am I in the picture but crowded out of the frame? I’m no longer front and center. I’m not even side by side.
I’m working next as a Community Developer and setting my own schedule so I can put Emily & Noah on the school bus and be there when they get home after school. Abbie goes to my mother during the day. I have a vasectomy. I know, too much information but Jeanette convinces me it’s the right thing to do. Something else to miss. The job is good and I create reports and programs to deal with hunger and poverty and housing. Professionally, this is as good as it gets. Three more years go by.
Funding runs out and I’m unemployed again…but not for long. Other professionals want me for short term contracts so I work organizing an environmental conference on waste and waste reduction. Then it’s on to another homelessness project and another stellar report that goes nowhere. Funding dries up again and I’m unemployed once more. I count it all up and I’ve had ten jobs in 17 years. Now it all stops. I’m at home with Abbie and she’s getting ready to go off to school. Jeanette is working full-time. It’s more than I can say. We buy a house.
Somewhere in there I worry about not writing. It’s been more than ten years since I wrote “False Ducks”. I have written many short stories and poems. Maybe it’s time to collect them all. 
So I write a novella, “Proof For Believing” and collect every Christmas item I’ve ever written, scrape together some money, and self publish. The cover is beautiful and Emily, who’s 16 by this time, designs the cover. It’s a labour of love. It sells 20 copies. There’s more in boxes in my closet. I put so much into it that more goes missing from me.
I go back to work. It’s been two years since my last job and people keep promising me contracts but the funding falls through. I go to work in a Call Center troubleshooting Internet connectivity for Time-Warner Road Runner. I’ve always been good at computers and I need the money. I excel and become one of the top employees. I’m out of the non-profit sector. I do volunteer work as a Board Member for a day care agency. I spend five years as Board President. I push for advocacy related issues. We win some battles but then I lose the fight. Some Board members want to go in a different direction, the wrong direction, and I’m pushed out. The agency struggles but that’s not my problem anymore. I tried. I’m sick of trying. You have to pick the battles you think you can win. I can’t win.
I have to take a leave of absence from work because I hurt my shoulder. A year later and two surgeries pass and I go back to work. Road Runner has gone to the Philippines and I go over to Hewlett Packard. More training and starting from the bottom. Six months pass and I’m now the number one agent on the contract. I hate it. It’s not about the customer. It’s about making money for the company. Customer service is suffering and I’m the only one who seems to care. I quit. Twelve jobs and 22 years later. Bits and pieces of me given away at every place I’ve ever worked. The hair is white…I tell people it’s transparent.
Two years on and now I’m writing this Blahg. I had a short contract working the Census this past summer. Lucky 13. Still unemployed. What’s next? The children are all grown. 
Emily’s in University, Noah’s off next year. More pieces of who I am are leaving. What’s left of me?
Sometimes I get a glimpse of where’ I’ve gone. Sometimes I’m behind those eyes looking at me in the mirror or in my children’s faces. But it’s a fleeting glimpse and then he’s gone. Where am I?
So what’s the purpose of this particular blahg? Why all the questions about who I am or where I am when the story is laid out there to read? That’s it, to read…like a map. This blahg is a road map for me. It helps me to see what I’ve done and how to find all of the pieces to me. I may not be in some of the pictures but if I look closely, I can see me. This is the story of a life. The road map of a road trip. The only question I guess I really should be asking is what direction do I take next? That’s the one that needs answering.
Any suggestions? Any answers? Let me know.
(For more about “Dead From The Neck Up”, “False Ducks” and “Proof For Believing”, check out my website: www.falseducks.com