2008

I was upset that for my thirtieth birthday, I had not accomplished any significant milestone.

It was easy, with the right coaching, to gorge on dessert at the restaurant my family took me to; though the atmosphere was strained.

Things just weren't the way they were, and silences were longer than they should have been.

The money I had saved was not yet enough for a trip to the UK, but it had not been lost on me that by doing so, it would take even longer to get a mortgage, not that my wages were particularly favourable.

I imagined buying a house at forty, and still paying it off well into the retirement I would never had. My idea of owning my own house with a pet, and going so far as to think of children, made me consider freezing my eggs. There was just not enough time for it all. Even for a trip to the Tough Guy Competition, would require negotiating my work schedule to a degree that would set me on the back foot.

My older brother who now had kids with his wife, and my younger brother who opened a bar in town, remained fixtures of who I should look up to and the standards I should reach. My parents, teaching in me compromise that I hated and prudent savings I tried to practice, had an easy companionship with each other that seemed only to exist in their case.

I felt very old, and when I excused myself from the table to use the ladies', I looked in the mirror and raised my chin that I had not spent all those years partying. I dragged loneliness like a sodden cape, but I would only have been in worse circumstances to indulge. That was what I told myself.

Although my brothers only grew more famous and traveled more, for me, they faded into the backdrop of my life in a way that was not possible before. Life moved on, even with them in it, in a way that cast a divide between those who were growing up and those who weren't.

Everyone was tired. Work was demanding, money was tight, contentment wasn't at the end of a career-long struggle. Some people lost their houses in mortgagee sales, younger people were getting famous, celebrities were spending money in ways that warranted the pages of the gossip rags.

And still the world kept turning.

For some things, I could forgive my family. And for others, I blamed my mom, my dad, my brother and my uncle, and more still. I looked back on time because I was sure I had done something wrong. I thought I was entering my mid life crisis and worried that the future would hit me like a mallet.

I was concerned that for all my effort, the wake up call that had been my weight, would hit again in another form. There were friends like my brother's ex which time had passed too long to reunite.

There were some things which through effort I could not change or fix. And this depressed me.

It would be another two years before I came to a crossroads, for my brother reached out in an unusual gesture, mentioned he was starting a show, asked me to come along.

If I had wanted to prolong a conversation, I would've asked why he asked for me. And because I missed the old days, I did ask.

"Our first ep's goin' to the Tough Guy Competition," he nodded and smirked, "Yeah. You can come along - all expenses paid."

I could not deny the opportunity that this was. I forced the issue.

"You gave me the idea," he grinned, "We're not gonna do the whole thing, just film a couple things. You wanna go right?"

I nodded. It was easier when I was younger to pass up these chances. Now that I was older, I knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth.