Meeting Jason (Chapter One)

The older my son gets, the more he is starting to ask questions about dating. About relationships. About my relationships. And more recently, about the relationship his father and I had. Pearce is 13 years old now but he was only 6 months old when Jason and I split. Outside of pictures and what we tell him, he has no memory of the time we were together. No idea how much we loved each other. No recollection at all of the little family we started together so many years ago.

Having to answer all these questions has been a really interesting process for me. They’ve given me an opportunity to look back on all the wonderful memories I have. All the love that I so openly gave and received. I have been incredibly fortunate to have shared parts of my life with a few really good men.

Pearce has only known the relationship between Jason and I to be a positive one. Despite a couple turbulent years post breakup, we have always kept him away from any negative feelings we may have had towards each other or the situation we were in. We’ve come a very long way since that time and today, we are a solid and united pair when it comes to co-parenting our teenage son.

Still, Pearce has been very curious lately about how we met, how we started dating, how we lived our lives together and why we broke up. So, I’ve started to tell him all about it.

I was only 5 years older than Pearce when I first saw Jason; a few weeks shy of my 19th birthday. Almost 16 years ago today. I was working as a barista at a Starbucks downtown. It was a stand alone Starbucks, with an entrance off the main street, but it also had a separate entrance into the large bookstore it was attached to. If you were serving customers, you were directly facing the up and down escalators in the bookstore.

The holidays were coming and Chapters had just completed their annual seasonal hiring. One December afternoon, I was serving a customer when I noticed this guy getting on the up escalator. I couldn’t look away.

Who the hell is that?

He was taking his uniform vest off as he was going upstairs for his break so I knew he was one of the new hires. I also knew I had to know more. He was tall, slim, blonde and very, very young looking. 15 minutes later, I saw him again, this time coming back down. I asked my co-workers if they knew who he was, but no one did. I saw him a few more times that day but not as often after that. We both worked different shifts, so it was rare that we were on at the same time.

I had just ended a long term relationship a few months prior, and had been casually seeing someone new. I wasn’t looking for anything but there was something about this guy I couldn’t seem to shake. I hadn’t even spoken to him and yet, he affected me in a way no one else had ever been able to.

When one of my friends, who was also a supervisor from the bookstore, came in for coffee, I asked her about him. She told me his name was Jason but had no idea how old he was. I told her that if he was over 19, he was mine! We all laughed.

Jason looked REALLY young. REALLY, REALLY young!!!! He had this adorable little blue eyed, baby face, on a slim 6 foot 3 inch frame. He was straight out of a GAP ad. I had just turned 19 and the whole situation became the centre of a lot of our jokes. Before I even spoke to him, he had earned the nickname “Sandra’s little virgin boyfriend”. I worked alongside many of my really close friends, including my room-mate, and we shared a lot of laughs over my little boy crush. Luckily, it was short lived as he finally started to come in for coffee.

He would blush every time I served him, making me REALLY question his age but also making him that much more adorable. I wanted to squeeze him, he was sooooo freaking gorgeous! I had never been shy but he was too shy to make much conversation with. I needed to get him out of work mode. A bunch of us planned an “I hate Valentine’s Day” drink fest at the pub after work and I made sure he was invited. When I found out he was coming, it confirmed both his single status and that he was old enough to go to the bar!

YES!!!

He was already there by the time I arrived. Every one knew to save me a seat next to him, so that part was easy. I asked him how old he was, just to be certain, he was 19.

YES!

We spent the rest of the night talking, drinking, laughing, playing pool and getting to know each other.

I told him I was moving to British Columbia. He told me he was moving to Montreal. By the end of the night, we knew neither of us was going anywhere. Not yet anyway.

We all said goodnight and went our separate ways. I really liked this Jason guy.

A while later, we were both working and he was going on break. I took my break too and walked with him upstairs. At the top of the escalator, I asked him if he wanted to hang out sometime, just the two of us. He said no.

Asshole!

Ok, so he didn’t really say no. What he said was that he really wanted to but that he just got out of a serious relationship. He didn’t want to ruin what we could have and wanted to make sure he was ready first. Fair enough, I both appreciated that and accepted it. I smiled and told him I’d give him three weeks.

We started to spend more time together, hanging out during work, and afterwards. We had epic conversations about life, love, work, the future. A week later, he and I went for drinks after work and laughed until the bar closed and we had to leave.

Neither one of us was ready to go our separate ways this time and we started walking in the direction of his place. I could tell he was nervous and that he wanted to say something to me, so I intentionally made him look at me while I smiled at him. He couldn’t stop blushing and he kept trying to look away. I loved it. He was the most adorable thing I had ever seen. Finally, he turned to me.

Jason – “can I ask you a question?”

Me – “Sure”

Jason = “Will you go out with me?”

Me – “nope!”

I laughed. I obviously didn’t mean it but after he so rudely rejected me a week before, I wasn’t going to let him get off that easily. He smiled at me and said “fine!” as he put his headphones on and started to walk away. I sped up ahead of him and pretended like I was going to leave. He grabbed me by my waist and we both laughed. I said “finnneee, I’ll go out with you.”

We walked back to his place and I spent the night with him. We were still holding hands when we woke up the next morning. I checked my phone and saw a few missed calls from my room-mate. She had left a few messages on my voicemail checking to make sure I was still alive. Oops!

Jason got up to go take a shower and I called her to let her know that I was ok. I giggled and told her that I spent the night at J’s and that I was going to marry this one. She laughed and we agreed to hang out and talk about it later.

I knew that day, my life would never be the same.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I remember when I was a child, I’m not sure how old anymore. It must have been somewhere between grades 2 and 6, between 8 and 11 years of age. I used to love reading those “choose your own adventure” novels.

Remember those?

You would start reading the novel just like any other book; at the beginning. You would read it until a certain point and then you’d have to choose the next step. You were given two or three options, usually, and each option changed the direction of the book completely. In a sense, you were writing that book as you went along. You were the author of that story.

Life is like that too; just a series of quick pauses and a few options.

I wish someone had explained that to us as kids. To me. How truly symbolic a “Choose your own Adventure” novel is of a human life. A personal journey. Now THAT would have been a lesson to learn all those years ago.

Perhaps if we had been taught that growing up, we would find ourselves less attached to outcomes and more open to possibilities.

Every novel would start at the beginning, the way everything starts. You couldn’t choose when, where, who, etc, you just had to make choices based on what you were given. The same way we don’t get to choose when we are born, where we live, who our parents are and what we are given, or not given.

You would rush to your first set of options. You knew in advance that you would be given some, but there was no way of knowing what they would be.

Would they lead to travel in faraway lands? Would they help you find love? Friendships? Hidden treasure? Success? You were unsure, but the story was full of possibilities.

Your first set of options were always so exciting.

Some seemed terrifying. Almost too adventurous for your first real choice. You had to test the waters. Get your feet wet before you committed to something so unfamiliar. Some seemed to lead to a sadness that was equally terrifying. Some were happy. Some were strange. It didn’t matter what you chose though, you knew that it was just the first of many.

By the time your next set of options came, you were far more committed to the journey. You started to figure out who the main character was. Maybe you even started to enjoy where that journey was taking you.

The next options took you closer to the end. You knew you had less time for the outcome that you wanted and you started to think more strategically about the choices you were making.

At this point, you may have learned that the most terrifying things led to the most wonderful treasures. Or that what seemed like the happiest paths led to a loss you weren’t prepared for. Sometimes treasures were lost as quickly as they were found.

The only certainty you had was that you had to continue making choices to get to the end. It was the only way. You had started a journey and you had to see it through.

What I learned from reading those “Choose your own adventure” novels is that you didn’t have to like the ending. That it was just a story. A journey. If you didn’t like the ending you chose, you could go back to the turning point and choose again. You could go back as many turning points as you needed to and try a new path.

Sometimes in life, we get so stuck on an ending we don’t like, we forget that we are the authors of this story. That at any moment, we can try again. Pick another path. Rewrite the ending.

The difference between life and a novel is that life only gives you one true ending; death. In the meantime, you get to “choose your own adventure.” The same way you did as a child, so many years ago.