A Spring Breaker Turns 40

March 19, 2019

When I had eagerly agreed to be part of a spring blogger project, I had not really given much consideration to what I would be writing about. I jumped at the chance to share my thoughts with a broader audience without stopping to think what I could bring to the table that might appeal to people.

I thought about dick and fart jokes, but realised civilized people might be reading this.

I thought about some flowery prose about spring being the dawning of hope and a brighter future. Then I relaised I am just not good at flowery prose.

My inner 12 year old thought about writing about how spring is the flowering of pubescence and brings to mind naughty thoughts. Then I realised, nit every one likes learned discourse on man root and lady blossoms.

All of that thinking got me thinking about how I am old and tired and needed a nap.

When I woke from my nap, I realised I could write about all of those things. It is my intention to weave a tale of a spring break adventure, long ago, in a forgotten time known as college days, and contrast it with my current spring break. After all, I am working at a school, si technically, I get a spring break.

Some years ago, in the spring of 1999, yes I was an adult that year, I crashed a spring break party. It was a caravan of my classmates headed towards florida for the traditional college crazy fest. They had not intended to invite me, and I am reasonably confident the only reason they allowed it was because I was the only one old enough to buy beer in the states.

I was actually ok with that. I had only been off drugs and out of a crazy lifestyle for about a year at that point, and I still craved adventure and excitement. I was still finding it hard to fit in to normal life.

Last week’s march break started worse. I am not going to go in to the details here for the sake of brevity, but if you want to read about it you can check it out here. Suffice to say, by the time sunday rolled around, I was ready for a massive change.

Both my wife and I decided we needed to do something to break up the monotony of existence. I told her I didn’t care what it cost, let’s get on a plane and go somewhere.

1999 me slipped in to the back of a car and off we went. Crossing the border was a harrowing experience. I had neglected to mention to the other students that I had recently been charged and plead no contest to a weapons dangerous charge. I had agreed to go through an adult divergence process, and the crown agreed to drop the charges if I did a few things. I did one of the three things, then fled the jurisdiction.

To be fair, I told them I was going and even phoned them. I said I was in college and trying to make something of myself. To this day, I have no idea what happened because I didn’t show up for my court date. I assume everything turned out, because I was allowed to cross the border.

Plus, I have passed multiple background checks since then, and have not been charged with a crime since.

Anyway, once we crossed the border, it was smooth sailing all the way to florida. We were a bunch of dudes, riding in a cheep car with cranked tunes and not a care in the world.

Last week me had to agree with my wife that the cost was too high and we had too many responsibilities to be able to drop and go like that. We settled on redoing our offices. We could get new furniture and do whatever we wanted short of structural changes.

My first night in florida I drank until I barfed in the sand and then passed out on the balcony. I might have also told one of the guys I wanted to have relations with his sister. She wasn’t there.

After two days of moving my wife’s furniture around her office last week, she settled on just two small placements changes and a new chair. I had to assemble the chair, which was on sale at Staples.

Back to 1999. The second day I spent in the motel room hungover. IHop sucks.

I spent the next three recent days working on polishing my manuscript, which I finished late Thursday night.

1999 me wanted so bad to do something so cool, I wandered around the beach, which was a ten minute walk from the hotel, trying to find a bonfire with half naked ladies at it. Turns out, we were in the wrong part of florida for that sort of thing, and the cool guys ditched me and drove to somewhere better.

Last friday, my wife and I decided to go to Toronto for lunch. We live close enough to the big smoke to be able to skip over there and enjoy a day trip.

On this trip we ended up at the world’s fanciest food court. There was food from around the world. I had a hamburger from a place that had Bobby Flay’s name plastered all over their signage. It was a good burger, probably not worth 25 bucks though.

1999 me was looking at a sad third day in florida. I walked a commercial strip looking for some kind of sovenier I could bring back with me. I ended up in a record store. It seemed odd at the time, as this was that dead time between actual record stores and hipster revival stores.

My wife and I ended up walking through the fashion district and over to my old stomping grounds in China Town. The most memorable point in that journey was coming across a lion statue. This statue had been there when I was a kid. It was a marker of sorts for my friends and I. It sits right on the corner of ST Andrew and Spadina. I remember it well, having seen this particular guardian hundreds of times.

This time was different. It had grafiti on it. Someone had tagged it with black spray paint, possibly more than once. Maybe my friends and I weren’t street enough, tough enough or gangster enough to have tagged it ourselves. It never occured to us to tag it. We tagged a number of signs and walls in that neighbourhood, but never the guardian. It just seemed wrong to us then, and it felt wrong to me last week too.

I bring u the record store because something amazing happened while I was in there twenty years ago. The proprietor had tuned in to the local urban music station, and they were playing a new artist. Eminem. Standing in a place I did not belong, with people I did not know, I found an artist I could relate to. I purchased the Slim Shady LP on cd.

Last Saturday, against my better judgement, I went shopping at Walmart. The trip was unsuccessful, and I found nothing I was looking for.

I met back up with those classmates and we drove home. I insisted we listen to the cd on the way. We had one of those car adaptors that could hook your discman to the tape player in the car. It was a good ride home, though they replaced Eminem with their own music after three plays.

Sunday was houseworks day. I had a headache and had to lie down.

Both of these march breaks have things in common. In 1999 I was a lost soul, looking for a way to belong, trying desperately to fit in with a bunch of people who didnt know shit about shit, and mistook my awkward inability to talk with them as some sort of dorkiness or loserdom.

This year, I am lost in trying to find my way back to a place I feel confortable, while doing the mundane, normal things one does in life.

in 1999 I tried to find comfort in debauchery and abandon. Today, I tried to break out of a rut.

In both cases, I ended up accidentally finding myself some degree of comfort when I wasn’t looking. Then I found Eminem. Now, I found my inner writer. I am much happier for both of those things, even if neither ended with me drunkenly banging fine ladies.

The inspiration for the title can be found below.

Yjis post is presented in conjunction with a bunch of other great bloggers as part of #marchbloggercountdown. Here are the other contributers, make sure to check them out.