I never wanted kids
The life I almost didn't choose.
I remember it like yesterday. I finally had my dream home. After eight months of couch hopping, my wife at the time and I moved into our architectural masterpiece. Something had happened in those eight months for me. We decided to move into our parents’ homes until our new home was ready. At the time we thought it was for practical reasons — her parents’ home was close to her work and my parents’ home was near my business. Perhaps it was foreshadowing a future apart.
It was a gloomy December when we moved in. Instead of joy, I felt dread. The aliveness of the eight months prior brought the realization that this new home was more of a dungeon. I found out I enjoyed our time apart. We saw each other on weekends and it felt like it did when we were dating. Moving into our new home brought back old tensions and grievances. We didn’t fight, but we mostly kept to ourselves, which was easy to do because we had three floors to lead separate lives in. I was living in the ruins of my Paris life, as a ghost of my former self. Within six months, I moved out.
Around that time I met my first mentor, Dr. Bea MacKay. She is a Gestalt therapist my starter wife found to help us with our marriage. She didn’t like her. I did. I asked her what was wrong with her? She said “she is not on my side enough. I thought she was being fair and open. I continued seeing Bea weekly. I finally had someone I could open up to. Years of pent-up hurt, shame, and regret finally had a space to be expressed. Slowly, methodically, we processed emotions that had been kept under lock and key. I slowly became alive again.
It took time to regain the joy of my Paris life. I worked with Bea for stretches of a couple of months at a time, and then lived into my newfound hope for six to eight months, before diving deeper with Bea. I did as one does — dipping a toe at a time into a glacial lake.
I look back at those years between lives and see how they give me the insight, wisdom, and compassion I bring to my work as a mentor. They were not lost years or in-between years. They were tender years of heartbreak. And yet I could not hold back the power of desire for a new life.
It was during this time I decided to take the time to get to know myself. I sat with my coffee alone in the mornings and breathed into life. I met people, I read books that opened my heart and mind. I continued to work with Bea. More importantly I began to dream again. Oh, and I dated. A lot.
And then I met her.
I remember seeing her walk up to us on the day we met. She had a graceful air about her I had never seen before. She was beautiful.
I had never met someone as elegant and lovely as my Kanako. She had a subtle confidence that made her more desirable than any woman I had ever known. She had a wicked sense of humour and she was self-assured. We spent 18 months together. They were the most alive I had felt since I lived in Paris.
And then.
She moved back to Japan.
We met in Kona, Hawaii about three months after she moved back home to embark on her dream of becoming an aromatherapy massage therapist. It was a week of bliss. I remember standing by the ocean when she asked me if I wanted kids.
Immediately God took control of my vocal chords and I said “yes, I do. I want a girl and I want to call her Kona.”
We parted and that was that. She became busier and busier with work and school, and her calls became less frequent.
I panicked. I made a last-minute decision to meet her for four days over Christmas into New Year’s to shore up our relationship.
It was exciting and heartbreaking. I sensed she wanted more, and I had nothing more to give. I came back home defeated.
Then the phone call. January 3rd. I could not handle the uncertainty. I said I think we should break up.
She said “I think so too, and this is it.”
I remember hanging up the phone, gutted.
It was about to commence a six-month journey into darkness I had never known.
Ever.