The Ordinary Life of a Torontonian

Feb 12, 2016

Input, Suggestions and, Comments

Help Revise This Open Book That Is My Life

Years: 0–5

Here’s how it all began. I grew up in downtown Toronto, the Cabbagetown / Bleecker neighborhood. Raised by a single struggling mother I was sporadically in touch with my father first the first few years of my life. One the most vivid memories I have of this time was going over to my father with my mother in a taxi, getting gifts and eating dinner. Following dinner I am sent to an upstairs bedroom. Hardheaded even at a young age I snuck out and crawled down a couple steps so I could see the gown ups talk. That’s when out of the blue one of my fathers guests sucker punched my mother. Up the stairs I bolt to the phone in the room: 911. “911, what’s your emergency”, “someone just hit my mom”, “ok, where are you?”, “I don’t know, my dads, please come”. Moments later a little army of police cars arrive and next thing I know I’m in the backseat of a car with my mom talking to a police woman. I fail to remember anything following the backseat of the police car.

For junior kindergarten I attended Jesse Ketchum, which was conveniently located next door to my daycare and just down Bay street from where my mom was temping. Jesse Ketchum as you’ll here’s me continuously refer to was a highlight point in my life; however, for some baffling reason my mom decided to transfer me to a catholic school near St. Clair West for senior kindergarten. Besides payers the only vivid memories I have my time at catholic school was falling ripping the skin off my knee whilst we – the kindergarteners – ran around the school garbage bin for recess.

Though by far the best thing to happen to me during these years was finding my first dog: Pepper. She was tied up to a playground on a cold fall evening. We saw her laying down scared on our way to the store, on our way back she was still there shivering. So we brought her home and put together lost dog posters. A week later, no responses, and a child hell bent on keeping the dog my moms will buckled and Pepper became the glue of our family.

Years: 6–11

These were the prime years of my childhood, memories that I’ll look back on forever. I made friends that I could reunite with years down the road and pickup like it were yesterday. I grew up in an infamously ghetto neighborhood; Bleecker street, while ironically attending elementary school in the heart of Yorkville. I constantly find myself reflecting upon these simpler times. A time when I would’ve considered myself an extrovert, outgoing, outspoken, more importantly in little to no trouble.

The school I attended was great; there were no fights, kids focused on their first girlfriends, and having worry-free fun. It was in the latter part of my grade 7 year when my groups of friends first were introduced to weed, kush / marijuana. A friend had brought some shake to school, after showing us we unanimously agreed we’d go see a movie after we smoked. To this day I’m not sure where we stopped to smoke however, I’m pretty sure it was somewhere in the East York neighbourhood. Anyway, we had gathered around a picnic table where we set up the glass bong and proceeded to smoke. In hindsight sitting in a public park, with 8 kids around the age of 11, smoking weed let alone using a glass bong was a recipe for disaster albeit nothing bad arose. My first time smoking was interesting. While I felt a bit different it wasn’t anything I had expected. It took me some years to put it together but, my mother had been smoking weed around me from day one. Were two or three bong tokes really going to get me that high? I’d probably smoked that daily via second hand. Nevertheless this had began my continuing indulgence.

In addition to my schooling, these years also included yearly trips up to the cottage on Lake Couchiching with the family. To this day I’ll never forget our time there, the memories made and the outdoors lessons I had learned.

Years: 12–17

This began an awkward transitioning phase in my life. No longer was I considered an extrovert rather, I had quickly become an introvert. I no longer ventured outside of my circles of friends and acquaintances I already have. Additionally, I began to scrutinize my currently circles. It soon manifested into dissecting any comment directed my way. I wanted to know what people meant, what they truly meant and how they truly felt.

It was during my last year at Jesse Ketchum that me and my mom decided we wanted to get another dog. After a bit of searching we found a friend of a relative who had puppies and was giving them out away for free. The two of us along with a friend from my moms work went up north for a 2 and a half hour car ride to pick up our newest member of the family Bear. Bear is a husky shepherd mix, incredibly timid and not friendly with any other people. Anyway, back to the main storyline.

Following my last year at elementary school, I was accepted into a prestigious high school in North Toronto called North Toronto :). High school began a drastic change in my life. Not only was I about to leave behind friends and memories I cherished so dearly, but I was also in the process of being evicted from the apartment I grew up and loved so much.

Oh the irony, attending a prestigious school whilst at the same point trying to figure out what was happening with my moms finances that we’re being forced out. However, throughout all of the turmoil my mother was still able to; find a place, pack up our things and, move it all on her own while I was at school. At the time my mom moving everything was I expected; but, after moving back into the city recently I have newly found respect for my mom moving us that day. I couldn’t imagine the stress compounded on by both having a child to worry about and a government job.

When we finally got settled in the new neighborhood was a drastic change. Albeit Leslieville was nowhere near as trouble-ridden as where we previously were but, if you mix together a child’s newly found freedom, weed and, kids from the east end of Toronto and something’s bound to happen. But it didn’t, at least not right away.

As I began to make new friends in Leslieville I began losing common interests with some of my old friends, slowly creating distance. To this day I haven’t really been able to peg a reason that lead to my gradual change. The best, educated guess I have at the moment is in an attempt to fit in with a new circle of people I adopted their interests whilst leaving behind my old personal (and later in life professional) interests.

It was in my grade 10 year that I decided that attending a preppy high school was no longer for me. I stood out like a sore thumb, the ghetto kid who we know at some point is going to cause trouble or drop out. I began considering alternative high schools, namely ones in my new neighborhood where new friends attended – when they went to class. However, before I selected a new school, I had a dumbass idea to “go out with a bang” at my current one. Sitting at a buddies house smoking some weed I tossed out the idea of stealing from a few kids at my school as a going away present. All on-board, we decided tomorrow was the day. After the incident we were soon caught and brought to the police station at Yonge and Eglinton beginning the next year of court proceedings.

Remember at this point I’ve completely changed. I’ve left my integrity behind in the hope that I’ll be accepted by this new group of people – so, please forgive me for my decision here. Whilst this was the worst decision I’ve made in my life at the same time it was sobering. I understood the repercussions of my actions and had to come face-to-face with reality that I’m no longer the same son my mother had given up everything for. Instead I’ve become some asshole; however, thankfully following court, my lawyer, the judge, my TDSB counselors and family theoretically slapping me in the back of the head I decided it was time to restore my integrity.

Years: 18-Present

18 was the year I decided to buck up. I’m not sure if it was simply that I was beginning to understand all that my mom had sacrificed raising me or, the fact the dog I had raised for a year while staying at my uncles suddenly passed away. Either way, while grieving for my late dog Nala and witnessing her struggle more than usual while going through some emotional issues hit me hard. I was skipping school, smoking weed and, in no way helping my mother. That was when out of the blue it hit me like a ton of bricks: it was time to look for a job and contribute my share. I may not be able to help with her emotional troubles, but I can surely help with the financial side.

For the past couple years I was writing a blog in my free time to pass the time. Looking back on my early blogging years is quite the laugh. For example, my first blog varied in its coverage sometimes on iOS apps, sometimes my life and, more often search marketing related — it really boiled down to what was on my mind at the time of writing.

It was due to my interest in blogging and correspondingly search marketing that pushed me towards looking for a job in the SEO industry. After sending out a few resumes I was invited to write a test at a recruitment agency that was looking to hire an SEO specialist for a local marketing agency. It was a day after the test that I was called back by the recruitment agency and asked if I could attend an interview with the employer for the next day. I happily obliged. Nervous as could be I made my way up to Markham, Ontario for my first full-time job interview. Things went swell, I wowed the employer with my answer on how to remove a manual action penalty which I believe was the reason for getting a job offer on the spot.

I’m 18, without a high school diploma, I’ve just been hired for a job I enjoy that pays 40K, offers sick days and, was accompanied by awesome coworkers. What could go wrong? For most people, nothing. For me, a lot. After about 6 months I began to get tired, I was thrown into handling 40+ clients from their day-to-day inquiries to pitching to new clients. I lobbied my boss to try and hire another SEO specialist to split some of the work. What I received instead was temporary interns that couldn’t keep up, followed by the hiring of a manager / sales rep to oversee my division. This rubbed me the wrong way, rather than helping ease some of my workload I received a manager and the promise of new / more work. A couple weeks later still unnerved by this I decided to quit. In hindsight, I regret this more than almost anything decision I’ve made in my life. My boss was great, he took me under his wing, taught me how to sell, improved my knowledge of SEO and introduced me to contacts I’ll keep to this date. He’s one of the people in my life that went above and beyond their call of duty — in fact, he went out on a limb hiring me and for me to quit over what I would now call an ego issue is beyond justification.

Following my time at the agency in Markham, ON I was coincidentally approached by an individual on LinkedIn who had started his own marketing agency in Hamilton, ON along with his brother. I met them for conversation and later accepted their job offer. Here’s the interesting part, one of the interns from my time at the agency in Markham, ON had grown up with the brother of this agency in Hamilton, ON and provided a nice reference for me — one of the reasons the brothers were keen on acquiring me.

However, 3 months in I received a personal referral for some work that would pay me more than double what I was making in Hamilton, ON. Furthermore, even though I had sent the initial proposal to the referral under the Hamilton, ON agency banner the referral stressed on 3 different occasions I should consider branching out on my own. I obliged and thus started my foray into my own agency.

Not much after I started my agency my mom had once again managed to fall into arrears. This time I was able to help out, as such I found us a place out in Aurora, ON and would be paying the bills until she was back on her feet. Aurora I loved! It was quite, the dogs had room to run and more importantly I had an extra room that was turned into my office. Other than the spats every now and again with my mother things were ideal.

Ideal until I began to change, until I let the money get to my head, until 6+ months of paying all the bills began to bug me. I was making good money, I was supporting my mother, supporting myself and running my own business — my ego was huge. Honestly, I’m surprised I could fit my head through the door the size it had swelled to.

Just after my lease was up in Aurora the owner of the townhouse had decided to put it up on the market. I had chatted with the real estate agent and her mortgage broker friend and would’ve been able to purchase at 5% but, didn’t have the down payment on hand. Because I couldn’t purchase and the place could be sold at any time I began to look for either another townhouse in the same complex or, to move back into Toronto. Coincidentally, I was offered at full time gig with the first referral that started by business and I was more than happy to accept — thus making sure I’d be moving back to Toronto.

It was around this time that my mom’s disability claim came in and she was offering to pay me back a fraction of what I had covered for her over the past year. She paid and was off to Barbados for 6 months, leaving me to my own devices to pack up and move. The move wasn’t great. I left things behind like childhood work and ended up having to pay for a storage unit as my mom did not find herself a place before leaving for vacation. So now I’m back in Toronto, starting to work full-time again, completely on my own and, paying for a storage unit with no end in sight.

The new job was great. Things went well for the first 4 months until I was to take over more responsibilities of the little brother who was previously doing the marketing. This, was what caused friction leading to my departure. I’m not one to play office politics, the way I look at it is we’re all here for the same reason to see the company succeed by doing our jobs. However, as I’ve come to learn some people are more concerned with how they’re perceived than the work they produce. For example, in the first month of entering the USA market with a marketing budget of $5,000 I made the company over $15,000 but, for some reason was not acceptable for the little brother. Mind you they had 0 sales and 0 market presence before this launch. All things considered I think it was a great start that showed potential if things stayed the course. And now I’m here. Out of work, applying for social assistance, looking for work, trying to pay my bills, and restart my professional and personal life learning from my previous mistakes.

Oh! I almost forgot to introduce you to the newest member of the family. Albeit she’s been with me for 3 years now I still consider her a pup. Internet meet Foxy, Foxy, internet.

I invite you to join me on this journey, to help me stay on the right course, call me out, question me, lead me, this writing is for both of us. For you to kill time with and to help me become a better person.

While things may seem jumbled into one long post I doubt you’ll finish reading I assure you that as we go on each significant moment in my life will be scrutinized individually. Stay tuned and thank you in advance for your support!