Let’s break up.
Okay.
We silently stared at each other in the middle of a crowded Mississauga mall, surrounded by the conversations of shoppers strolling by. Three words to end three years together. Truthfully, we had been drifting apart for quite some time. University is an awkward period of volatile growth.
The version I like to tell, though, is that we broke up because she didn’t want to go on my grad trip with me.
A few weeks prior, I had gotten the idea that I wanted to do the Tour du Mont Blanc, a ten-day hike through the European Alps. It would undoubtedly be brutal on my stilt-supported, glute-deficient, city-boy body. My friends said it was crazy. I thought it was a stretch as well, but as I would later learn, my heart is quite stubborn.
I was going.
I ended up taking my sister with me. <br> Last picture: Suffering up a climb with both our bags after she sprained her ankle.
I only recognized this as a repeated pattern later in life:
- Hustling my way into an internship in Silicon Valley, despite poor grades.
- Moving to Vancouver for a job, despite knowing no one there.
- Converting and living in a van after watching a Chris Benchetler film, despite having no carpentry skills.
That dogmatic pursuit is sometimes alienating to others, but there’s also a weightlessness to it. I've built it into a part of my personality. Maybe it was there all along, just waiting to be discovered? I was known as the guy who makes things happen.
With time, I found a close group of friends, and even a girl who - wanted to "go" harder even more than I did! Her name was Sally. We fell in love, got married, and moved into a house together. Everything was going so well.
That is, until Sally tragically passed away in a bike accident in 2024.
Accompanying my crippling grief was the idea that it had all been my fault. I was the one who had wanted to go on that trip, to go on that road. I went first, and I still hold the most stabbing regret for not slowing down on the corner to control her speed. For the first time, I felt that this innate momentum inside me was dangerous.
We're microwaving our clothes because bedbugs don't care if you're sad.
2025 was the toughest year of my life. Adrift on the sea without a breeze. Moments of joy percolated a miserable existence. I worked, I trained, I saw friends. I still had adventures. By most measures, I'd say I was carrying on just fine. Some might even say "great". It was definitely more productive than rotting in a corner, but deep down I knew I was just solo miming the motions of a dance made for two.
Through some irony of fate, my late wife had also lost a partner to a bike accident. His accident shaped her. Unfortunately, she now shapes me. I understand that her infectious enthusiasm and energy wasn’t a product of blissful ignorance, but of a quiet acceptance of the limited time and control we have in our lives. Taking meaningful risks in search of quality over quantity is the only way to fill our vessel. Better a filled cup than an empty basin.
I’m excited for what’s to come, which is far more than I could say a year ago.
Here’s the plan:
- quit my cushy tech job
- ride a bike across Europe, from Turkey to Belgium, over the summer.
- In the winter, I’ll ship out to Japan to teach snowboarding and skiing.
- Write, photograph, and create like never before.
The rest after that? I’ll figure it out.
Is this crazy? Maybe. But that’s what she liked best about me. The wind has shifted, and the sails are full.
Let’s get going.
