Pace Fine Arts

A grateful note

We spent the most part of our weekend gardening. Spring in Calgary is a “transformative” time, which means chaotic, unpredictable, and ever changing. I usually transplant my seedlings on the May long weekend, which frosted and hailed this year. As we got everything in the garden bed, and I sat in front of my hubby’s signature grilled steaks, his way of announcing the summer is here and I can expect better cooking from him, I couldn’t help but feeling grateful for the life we are leading.

I’ll let you in a secret. Every year since moving to Canada, after a few months working with depression and therapy, I had three prayers every morning. Over time, not sure when, the three prayers have turned into three thanks

I’m grateful to be in a country (Canada) where I can be who I am, that people see me and appreciate me for the person that I am.
I’m grateful to be with someone who sees me and loves me for who I am, not despite but because.
I’m grateful to work and volunteer in places where I can be who I am authentically and use my skills and experience, and I get recognized and rewarded for my contribution.

I know. Simple stuffs. But also big stuff. Also rather vague. I guess the through-line to “what makes me happy” in life is just simply “be who I am” and be ok with that.

Some days I’m waffling between feeling incredibly grateful for how lucky I am and getting paralyzed with the anxiety that all these amazing things will be taken from me.

Reading “The migrant rain falls in reverse” by Vinh Nguyen feels achingly familiar and therapeutic. We had many parallels, and the stories he weaved of himself, a queer, brown, Vietnamese refugee who is too afraid to take up space and claim happiness because everything could disappear in a moment notice, resonated with me. I know that feeling well. I know how it feels to grow up in post war Vietnam, my grandfather went to re-education camp, two of my uncles boat people themselves, one of my uncles failed to escape and was imprisoned. I know what it was like to arrive in Calgary in the snowy day of winter. I know the feeling of “I don’t want to belong to somewhere. I want somewhere to belong to me”

Every time I garden, I often think of what my good friend in Singapore told me few years ago “Woah, you so uncle now ah?” I chuckled. Because it’s true. It’s even more true now than before. Crossing over to 40s seems like a big profound thing, but it’s also a weird mundane thing. I’m happy with it (I think). I’m uncomfortable in its space. But I’m reminded that growth and comfort do not coexist.

Here’s a real conversation with a gay friend 10-year younger than me

“When you’re in your 40s like me, you’ll need all the help you can get to be relevant in our community.”

“Calm down, you’ve been 40 for like a month. You’re not old, you’re a daddy now. Plus, you’re still hot and most of my friends want to be with a hot daddy”

How did this happen? This aging thing? This daddy thing? (Also I kept getting hit on by 30-year-olds on top of the usual old pervs) Maybe I’m entering my Pedro era (not the Clooney years. I prefer Pedro Pascal over Clooney any days. Latino. Hot. Kind. Trans-ally) He just celebrated his 50th birthday recently. If that’s any indication, it gives me hope for my next 10 years. Anyways enough about Pedro Pascal. I guess what I’m saying is I’m happy and excited about my 40s. My 30s were fucking awesome. And to a certain extent, my anxiety was driven from the fact that I’m afraid my 40s is just gonna be pale in comparison

As I’m writing this, I’m standing in a condo in the heart of downtown Toronto (I’m here for a conference). I wonder often about the “parallel life” and “what could have been” of I have taken a different path. I often wrote about the “straight married man in Asia” path. But there’s another path I often ponder about. When I graduated in Calgary I thought about moving to Toronto or Vancouver: bigger city, less conservative government, more tech and finance companies, more vibrant queer spaces and queer community. Then I met a boy and did the stupid things people do for love.

Sometimes the stupidest things in people eye’s that you can do bring you happiness in a bizarre way that you can only get with hindsight. Moving across the globe with 3 suitcases in the middle of winter was stupid. Dating a not-out Conservative working for the government was stupid. Changing job in the middle of the pandemic was stupid. Encouraging your hubby to stay and work for a politician you dislike was stupid. Not moving and staying in Calgary, again, for love, was stupid. Quitting a stable job in finance without another one line up was stupid. Getting an 8-week-old puppy before Christmas and before a 3-week trip and a massive January layoff was stupid. I don’t know if I will have courage to do the same things if given the choice. But I can say with confidence, is the fact that all these “stupid” decisions have led me here today, to the three prayers of gratefulness in the morning.

If I have a chance to go back in time and meet the 18-year-old boy with a one way ticket to Singapore, or meet the 20-year-old young man on his way to Philadelphia in the middle of winter, or the 27-year-old with his life in 3 suit cases arriving in Calgary, I want to thank them all. I want to thank them for their courage, for their fear, and for their resilience and stupid persistence in the hope that better was possible and better was on the horizon.

Better is here now. Here now is good. I’m grateful.

P.S: I promise you I won’t bore you with another post about me being 40 years old again. I might occasionally mention it if some hot 30-year-old hit on me again (a man gotta brag when he feels you, you know) but it won’t be this dull old-man positive self taught routine again.

Meditation upon a dream

I have wild and bizarre dreams often, but I very rarely have vivid dreams. Unlike most of my bizarre adventures, vivid dreams get stuck with me. Be it a conversation with my mother, with my ex, with my “other” self, or with my partner, etc., they linger. These dreams are often conversations, played out in the setting of an arts house movie with surreal, hazy lighting and pretentious dialogue. I ponder their meanings. I wonder what my underlying subconscious brain is telling me. Here’s the one I had last night.

(Dark stage. Dim hazy overall light)

Me to my partner: “Are you going to do the things that you told me you’d do last week?”
Him: “No”
Me: “Will you?”
Him: “When is the absolute deadline for it?”
Me: “April 15th”
Him: “I’ll do it before April 15th”
Me: “That’s not what you told me you’d do”
Him: “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal”

(Lights out. I am now all alone, standing in a spotlight. Other side of the stage, my brother flickers in the flashing lights of the TV, playing his PS5)

I ponder what it means for him (my brother) if I leave this place*.

*This place, at this point in time, feels like this physical space, but also this mental space. This place feels like the state of the world, the state of my relationships, the state of my being. Of being here.

I started to scream. My body is not moving. But I screamed. This rage-filled, anxiety-ridden, desperate scream to the void. I screamed and I screamed.

(Spotlight behind me. I wasn’t looking. A voice came on. My partner’s)

Him: “I had no idea it bothers you this much. Why does it bother you?”

I continued to scream.

I woke up. Not from screaming. I woke up in this weird, surreal way. It was calm and quiet. And I lay there and I could not fall back asleep. And I started to think about the world, and the things that bother me, and what that weird imagery means.

“Why does this bother you?” “Why is this such a big deal?” I asked myself.

In all fairness, and this is important, I have explained this to my partner and to people many times before. It’s not about the act or the deadline itself. It’s about trust. I don’t trust people often. I don’t often ask for help. But when I do and when a commitment is made, I hope, no, I expect, that it will be honored and it will get done. I get paid pretty well for being a Project Manager. I don’t get paid for all this emotional labor for management people and things in my life. So I know why the conversation in the dream bothered me.

But why is this such a big deal now? Maybe in the constant anxiety state of the world (you know, the rise fascism in the US and the threat of sovereignty in Canada), my anxiety made these weird leaps about “If I cannot rely on this person to do a simple thing they said they’d do right now, can I rely on them during a nuclear apocalypse?” I grew up listening to my mother’s story about the Vietnam War, when a day delay or a night delay, or even a few minutes delay, meant you were stuck behind, without your property, thrown into jail, etc. Can I really trust someone who can’t log on to a website and do a few clicks?

And then there’s the imagery about my brother, and this is important.

I wanted to leave. I could have worked harder to leave in December. Maybe I could have worked harder for that opportunity in Vietnam. But I hesitated. “Who is gonna care for my brother?” “How is Mochi going to adapt to the Vietnamese heat and the long flight?” “How is Dan gonna adapt to the Vietnamese environment?” I could have worked harder to leave *this place.

And maybe this is why in the dream, I screamed. I screamed because that’s what I really wanted to do. But I can never do it in the real world (because I will look like a lunatic). The spotlight is important. Because it means I will be seen, and I will be heard. Which I feel like I don’t.

So what now?

I don’t know. I tried to meditate and sit with this feeling in the morning.

My real partner: “This version of me in your dream is not real. He doesn’t exist.”

I know that. But a version of that person exists. And the version of me screaming into the void exists.

Just like how I am typing this into the void of the internet now.

O Canada – a tribute

Mochi was not feeling great yesterday so I sat with her on the couch in our living room. This is the view I was staring at for about an hour. It’s our living room, or as we call it, the Canadian room. The room is filled with original Canadian art (some from indigenous artists), Canadian books, and art about Canada (that I made). On the bookshelf, there’s a collection of books called “The World Needs More Canada.” There’s a book I wrote about Canada after 3 years of living in Canada. Above the couch, there are 4 panels of a painting of the Rockies Mountain in 4 seasons. It’s the room we spend the most time in as a family.

People who know me know I’m not the public display of patriotism kinda guy (I’m not a trucker). However, I wear my heart on my sleeves (literally), as demonstrated by the amount of pride T-shirt, the gaming stickers and merch, etc. During Tet, I wear my ao dai and I fill every inch of my house with red packets. During Christmas, you’d see the white woman in me with the decorations and the candles. I am loud about the things that I love. And I am public about the things that I am proud of. Being Canadian is one of those things that I love and I am proud of.

Growing up in communist Vietnam gave me a different perspective about the rollercoaster that we are experiencing right now. My grandfather went to jail after the war. They lost properties. My mother couldn’t pursue higher education. Needless to say, she has a complicated relationship with the government and her identity as Vietnamese. Yet, as China continues to casually threaten our sovereignty, and during the peak of the pandemic, she puts community first and she puts our “collective good” as Vietnamese first. I remember going to the supermarket with my mom, and we would look for “high-quality products made in Vietnam” labels, instead of Chinese ones, which we have a lot of since they are our neighbors. This is where we are, as Canadians. We are certainly not perfect (one of our imperfections is the fact that we focus too much on our imperfections). Our governments are certainly faaaaaar from perfect. But imperfect doesn’t mean meek, weak, or pushover. We might only have 10% of their size in population. We might lose in a fight, sure. But not standing up to bully and cower in cowardice is worse. Be it a global respiratory virus, or a Russian orange agent virus, we will need the united community to fight back.

I was telling Dan yesterday that “Elbow Up” is such a great war cry for us (Good job Mike Myer!). It’s short. It’s sharp. It comes with an action built in. It’s rooted in our shared popular culture and shared national identity. It links to recent events of the US-Canada hockey game. It’s an offense by defense move. But most of all, it’s unique and relateable.

In a quiet moment in my living room with my sick puppy, I thought to myself, somehow, in my life, I have always ended up in places and times of the underdog. Being Vietnamese. Being queer. Being an immigrant. Turns out, being a Canadian now is being an underdog, too. Maybe it’s a sign from the universe. Maybe it’s not me who needs to escape or who needs saving. Maybe I am put here, in these underdog places, so I can offer my gifts, my different perspectives, and my strengths, for the communities and the people who need some support standing up against bullies. It’s hard work, but it must be done.

So, elbow up, Canada. We got this.

A Canadian turned 40 in America

I turned 30 in Vegas (when I first started dating Dan). So I guess it’s fitting that I turned 40 in California (being married to him). It seems like a changing of the season, of a page being turned, or even an entire new book written. I said I loved him on the night of my birthday 10 years ago. I have said it almost every day since. Maybe, just maybe, we have a chance at many more 10 years together, traveling, fighting about directions, teasing about bad weather, and even worse museum obsession. Maybe, just maybe, we can be those old people in love. Gross.

It’s a strange feeling, to be inside America during this iteration of America. America has always been on the more conservative side of North America, but this iteration seems unsettling, chaotic, and outright hostile. On our flight to San Francisco, we watched the tariff being announced in Canada. On the eve of my birthday, we saw Canadians booed the US National anthem. Towards the end of the trip, we see our own Premier repeated false talking points about an imaginary Canada border drug issue just because the president of fake news said it and our “leader” is part of his cult. We drove into part of California that was impacted by the fire and mudslide. It rained the entire week we’re here, in “sunny California”. The ocean is angry. She’s unsettling. The sky is gloomy. It’s this feeling of thread and threat, of the chaotic beauty of steadfast unraveling.

It’s also a strange feeling to redo this trip. 15 years ago, a wide-eyed 25-year-old followed a similar path (in reverse from San Diego to San Francisco and then Yosemite and then a separate trip from la to Vegas and all the Canyon) in a Mazda Miata with a much older man. A lot of conflicting feelings resurfaced. I was so young, so insecure, and so desperately wanting to belong. Back then, the weather was warm and gorgeous. My older date was warm and gorgeous. Yet the sense of rejection and isolation was overwhelming. It’s a constant reminder that I wasn’t wanted, that I wasn’t enough, that my value was only as far as what I can offer to do for others. This time, my family was with me. Dan was with me. My in-laws were with me. Kelly was with me. It’s rainy and cold the whole way. But we had fun. I was made to feel special. I was loved. I even got free ice cream from a restaurant. As I always said, “In America, the weather is warm, but the people are cold. In Canada, the weather is cold, but the people are a lot warmer”. Belonging and home is not a place. It’s the people who love you and celebrate you and welcome you into their lives. And for that, I’m forever grateful.

As we were leaving San Diego, the sun came out. We even saw whales and dolphins. There were even shirtless men on the beach. In a country, and a world, where the climate is changing, the political stability is changing, and the people are constantly changing, it’s an important reminder that the sun will eventually come back. (It might swallow us whole, but I’m choosing to close on a positive note). Humans are resilient. Minorities are resilient. Queer people are resilient. Our communities are resilient. We will find joy. We will celebrate.

I will celebrate. 40. 50. 60. Maybe I can even make it to 70 like that old Vietnamese idiom always says. Until then, I’m glad the festivities are over, and I’ll be back home in with comfortable bed, with my neurotic puppy, and with our renewed sense of pride and privilege to be a Canadian.

30s in 30

Ah, my sweet 40. Here it is. (I know, it feels like I’ve been talking about it since forever ago). I was talking to my ex-coworker/mentor the other day and we agreed that the reason why I am so anxious/restless is that my 30s were so fucking awesome that it will be hard to beat. It is scary to enter another decade of my life; older (with weaker knees, thinner hair, and slower brain prowess) and hopefully wiser this time. Maybe it’s a good time to also look back and celebrate some of the highlights of the past 10 years.

10 biggest achievements

Graduated with an MSc in Software Engineering
Came out to my parents, came out at work, came out everywhere really. Met and started dating someone special
Got engaged and got married (to the same special person above)
Bought a house. Made it a home.
Became a VP of Software Engineering (after restarting my career almost from the ground up in Canada)
Became a Canadian citizen
Made a road trip across Canada from the West coast (Vancouver) to the East coast (Halifax-PEI)
Wrote a book about said trip, and self-published it
Traveled to many many countries and places
Took 10k+ photos, painted lots of paintings, and participated in at least 10 art shows (some award-winning, some good sales, some work are featured in commercials)

10 biggest changes

Moved to Canada (with 3 pieces of luggage and no connections in Calgary)
Had an orthodontist to straighten my overcrowded teeth. Got fine. Got more confident.
Became so much more politically aware and opinionated about politics
Got a license. Had a car. Could drive places. (Still hate driving).
Became a green thumb (I used to kill cacti). Realized that everything is a skill and because I’m an overachiever if I want to learn a skill, I’d fucking be great at it.
Could afford to buy Lego. In fact, bought way too many Legos. (Also bought a PS5, a gaming computer, etc. things that are generally unattainable for a poor Vietnamese kid growing up)
Started to spend money to save time (cleaning services, delivery, electricians, moving, etc.)
Had a dog. Became one of those North American “pet people”
Became too old for the old perv (old men >50s stopped hitting on me) and somehow entered the Clooney age (men in their late 20s-early 30s started hitting on me)
Went to therapy (Still going). Became too old to be bullied by conformance. Stopped giving a shit about some inner critics and imposter syndrome bs about myself.

7 biggest challenges

A really tough period of depression in 2012-2014.
The economy’s downturn just as I finished my master’s degree in 2015, and the ridiculousness of the “Canadian experience,” which hinders me from getting jobs relevant to my experience.
Challenges with immigration. The system is not built for people like us, and it’s getting worse with the current political climate.
The pandemic (duh!).
Tried to adopt a child and decided to change course. See number 4 above.
General lack of mentorship, leadership, or “people like me” in my industry and my career. (Unlike popular belief, it’s not fun to be “the pioneer” or “paving the way” for others).
My general tendency is to be impacted by anxiety, insomnia, and depression.

3 wishes for my 40s

Less struggles. Please. Just. Generally. Less struggles.
Be more comfortable and have more wisdom and grace in my own skin, with my aging and where I am at in my life and my career.
Preferably no World War 3 and the Climate crisis doesn’t destroy us (at least in the next 10 years)

New year resolution

As I pulled up to the gym’s parking lot, a few thoughts came to mind. First, parking. “Where the hell am I going to park, with the resolution crowd coming to the gym today?” Lucky for me, I go to a neighborhood community gym (and it is snowing today), so, aside from a few gym dude bros, most of the people here are regulars and older folks.

I mean, say what you will about the resolution crowd. I have a lot of profound respect for older people (late millennials, like myself) wanting to work on their fitness journey and their health, as long as they don’t take up my parking spot and the few machines that I actually use. Everyone is on their journey, and the perk of being in a community center / non-gay gym is that the people actually look normal (and you can feel kinda like the hottie)

I know. I know. People go to the gym to work out and not compare or check other people out. Counterpoint: have you talked to a gay lately?

As my 40s are drawing closer and closer, I found myself a lot more self-conscious about stuff. Mostly aging. I do have an advantage with my Vietnamese genetics, so I won’t really get big (I’ve been the same weight since 2015, pandemic and all). I’m more worried about going bald and my receding hairline. But then I looked at all my friends who have kids, and I’m like “We’re ok”

People who know me know that I don’t believe in resolutions. If I want to do something I do it right away. if I want to buy something I buy it right away. I set destination and learning goals throughout the year and I do my best to hit them. With 2024 being a rather difficult year, some months my goals were simply just “Get out of bed”, “Go to work”, and “Don’t complain today”.

So, here we are. 2025. Let’s hope and aim for a better, kinder, more meaningful year of loving ourselves, loving our neighbors, and loving our communities.

And to all my insecurities and all my anxiety about turning 40, I’d say

The nostalgia mindfuck

Maybe nostalgia is really the side effect of aging. I have found myself reminiscing and going back into wild bizarre habits and (sometime false) romantic fantasies of the past.

I have spent a fair bit of time (and disposable income) on fountain pens and ink lately. Also writing in ridiculously elaborate cursive. I can’t say I have ever had beautiful hand writing or particularly enjoy ink pens. I used them throughout primary school and the mess it made, the times it ran out of ink in the middle on an exams, or the weird ink blothches on my school uniform when I had them in my pockets. And here we are. They were saying something about the 30 years effect of nostalgia. This might be it. Or it is jsut my brain finding a new obsession to fill the giant void that my anxiety is creating about aging, about my career, and my life. I am human after all. I guess I should be glad that it’s not cross fit or becoming vegan or a social media influencer.

I have not gone to the theater to watch Wicked the movie (I know. Bad gay). I love it that a new generation is discovering Wicked and falling in love with the music and the story of a misunderstoof woman of color (while ignoring mostly the racist sexist political undertone of the spectacles). For me, I think I still remember being 21 years old, see Wicked from a farthest top right audience corner with a last minute cheap ticket as a student, being mesmerized by the music, by the Broadway perfection, and most vividly, tearing up during “I’m not that girl”. I know, weird. Who would have thought I was gay. A song about a green girl with hidden potential and overlooked love, why would it have been so resonating?

There was a headhunter from Singapore / Vietnam who reached out for a CTO role in a company in Vietnam. And for a while, it was a nice fantasy. I do miss being connected and being surrounded by people I know. I do miss the food, the warmth, the sunshine, and all of the connectedness my culture and (some of) my people provide. (Don’t worry, I turned the job down). But for a moment, it was nice. It was nice to feel like I would have arrived, that things would have fallen into a full circle moment. Of course, I have promptly ignored all my struggles and all the past challenges I had, just for the context of this fantasy. Nostalgia does that to you. And then the fact that I am gay and I left the country for a reason and the last time I came back to attempt to “contribute” and to achieve this full circle moment, I fell flat on my face. I can’t remember a time in my life where there wasn’t “struggle”. I wish it was easier. I do. I wish for a simpler life. Maybe if I was straight, married to a Vietnamese woman, kids, job, retirement, monkhood. That was the plan / the fantasy at one point. Nostalgia brings me back to that often. The “what if” life. I know it wouldn’t be simple or easy. But it’s tempting. Maybe next life.

I had some death in my peripheral lately. A good friend’s mother passed. A secondary school teacher passed. It makes me think a lot about my grandma. It makes me think a lot about death, and aging, and legacy, and the romance of death. I remember vivid afternoons of playing card games with my grandma. I remember reading Buddhist sutras to her while she was in pain (I was ten). I remember writing (more like copying) sutras onto papers and folding into cranes as prayers for her. I remember writing short stories and diary entries about death, about missing her, and about all my pre-teen angst and isolation. All with ink pens.

I couldn’t help but wonder, when I am gone, what is the nostalgia / legacy effect I am gonna create?

“No good deeds go unpunished” came to mind.

In honor of the lives we would have never lived

I’ve been thinking a lot. It’s what happens when you wake up at 5 a.m. and your brain refuses to let you go back to sleep. It’s a lonely place. In the lonely hours. And when I ran out of things to worry about, the state of the world, my work, my career, our marriage, our mortgage, etc. I ponder the lives I would have lived, well, more so the lives I would have never lived.

I want to start by saying I am extremely privileged, and I know that. I want you to know you don’t have to remind me that I have my home, my house, my family, my job, and I live in a safe country. I know all that. It can be an incredibly lonely place when your confidants and the people you trust constantly dismiss you and your worries as “being dramatic” or “being ungrateful”.

I am grateful. But gratefulness doesn’t negate you from aspiring to make things better, to change things, and to improve things. It’s like telling an immigrant who pointed out challenges and flaws in the system “if Canada is so bad, why don’t you go back to where you came from”. Leaving a toxic place doesn’t mean giving up. “I’ve seen this movie before. You hate a place and you talk about it and then you run away and escape to somewhere else”. As if it was wrong? As if it was cowardice to uproot all your lives, pack it in 3 suitcases, and move 12000 km away?

I mean. If I had been straight and if I had stayed in Vietnam, I would have a wife, kids, and a career that is 5 years ahead of where I am now.

I know it’s not helpful to fantasize about a life that is not ours to lead, one that is far away in a distant parallel universe that we are not allowed to access. I know it’s not productive to stay in a place of grief, for a life that we would have never had anyway because of who we are and the cards we are dealt. I know that. But grieving is a funny process, and grieving for a person with anxiety is an even weirder process. And thanks to the reactions from my close ones, it’s an incredibly isolating and lonely process, too.

“What is grief, if not unexpressed love?” (Andrew Garfield and many others)

What is this grief, if not an unshared sadness of a life I could have had if only I was braver, smarter, better, or different? I can’t tell anyone that I had to pass on the opportunity of a lifetime to be a CTO of a tech scale-up company. I can’t tell anyone that I feel anxious, scared, and helpless in the place that I live in (because that would be over dramatic, liberal-tear-ridden anxiety). I can’t tell anyone that I feel unfulfilled, isolated, and alone, because that would be ungrateful.

So what is it then? And how is it then? Can I express this built-up lump in my chest, pounding away in my brain in the quiet hours of the mornings?

Instead, I shut up and go to work in the morning and be an inspiring leader, a positive force, and help us remain focused on our mission to deliver values in our Agile software development process.

Maybe. Just maybe. The life I miss most of all, and the life I mourned for most of all, is the life where I am loved and taken care of, regardless of what and how much I can do for other people, but simply because of who I am.

The Gratitude vs Anxiety Conundrum

My prayers to the universe get more confusing by the day. The world that I live in is complex, messy, imperfect, and at times utterly overwhelming.

I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for my family, my friends, and the safe and peaceful country and welcoming community that I live in.

Yet, at the same time, I could not help but wonder. “What if I wasn’t gay? What if I was white? What if my parents were upper middle class, or not Vietnamese? Could I have gotten further than I have now? Would I move faster in my life if I wasn’t set back by my immigration, by my background?”

I am grateful for my career. I am grateful to have met Jeffrey, Elise, Gerard, Sean, Nav, and countless other mentors who have helped me shape a career that is unique to me. I am grateful for the opportunities that have come my way.

Yet, at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder, how far could I have come without my baggage of a queer brown immigrant? A CEO asked me casually over conversation “Why didn’t you apply for that CTO role? Sounded like it was up your alley.” – “I did throw my hat in the ring, actually. They wanted someone with more… I guess … gravitas.” I know. Gravitas. As my HR friend put it “Because you are not a pompous arrogant asshole, babe”

I am grateful as I am getting older. Forty. In a few months. I still think the 30s were the best decade of my life (so far). I am proud of the man I’ve become. I am proud of my accomplishments. I am mostly thankful for having made enough money to afford my mental health care, my therapy, and my Lego (among other frivolous expenses).

Yet, as the window of the “Forty under forty” title drastically closes (my coworkers got it a few years back), I couldn’t help but wonder, “What more could I have done? How much harder must I have worked so the world notices?”

I am grateful. I am grateful for my peace, my privileges, and my ability to afford mortgage groceries, and gas. Yet, as the world burns and quickly descends into fascism around us, is that gratefulness selfish?

Life’s hard. Maybe I’ll go lie down and curl up a little.

Read this on the internet: “To ensure you don’t cram up from curling up on 8the floor for too long, get up and scream like a banshee out of your windows for 5 minutes every hour”

Feeling thankful

Just like the first snowfall, Thanksgiving comes much earlier in Canada than in the US. The timing is appropriate, too, I think, as the Fall is a great time to reflect and be thankful for the things we have in the first half of the year.

2024 has been a weird whirlwind year. Many things have happened. Puppy. Career changes. Hot boys summer. Life came at us fast and furious, and I had to admit, there was no shortage of moments of anxiety and self-doubt about the future.

That’s why, this year, I am extra thankful. I am thankful for the life I had/I am having. I am thankful for my love, my friends, my co-workers (old and new), and Canada (flawed and all). I am thankful for my health, for my stability, and for the peace and kindness we get to experience here.

As I inch ever so closer to the big 4-0, I couldn’t help but be more reflective than usual. The past 20 years have been hard. There were so many heartbreaks. I broke some hearts, too. The wake of a nomad trail from Vietnam to Singapore to the US and finally here, in Canada, was never easy. But I am thankful.

I do prefer an easier life (who wouldn’t?), but in the absence of that, I am thankful for the resiliency that I possess and the loving support of those I came across in my life.

So, happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving, friends. I didn’t name names because you know who you are (and yes, that includes you Marcus Lane) and there are so many of you. Know that I am thankful, and I love all of you.