New Chapter, Same Story

We live each day of our lives in real time. There is no dress rehearsal, there is no practice round and there are certainly no mulligans. However, there is still tomorrow.

As long as there is breath in our lungs, there is a hope for the future. A future we play the main character in.

Sometimes this takes courage, sometimes people are hurt, sometimes you need to say sorry. Many times there is joy, peace and fulfillment in using wisdom to follow your heart.

All of this requires risk, taking chances and taking responsibility for who you are and the decisions you make.

Since my wife Laurie and I met, we had always talked about and planned to live in Portland, OR. This was the place she grew up and somewhere I could see myself living.

After living near Toronto for almost 7 years together, we finally had everything ready to go and we made the move to Portland.

Because of immigration requirements, Laurie and the kids had to move out first. I ended up having to move out before I could secure any employment. Not ideal to say the least.

I spent 6 month unemployed (except for a bit of side work). As the bread winner of the family, this is not a comfortable or encouraging place to be. This was a very tough time for our family.

I finally found a job that I loved with an offer I could accept. We moved into our own place and settled in. It felt nice to settle down, get into our own routine and have our own space to live in.

But something wasn’t right. Something was missing.

We had such a great community of family, friends and a supportive church community back in Toronto. We lived in community that was family friendly and a great place to raise our children.

Once we settled into life in Portland and were able to survey life as we knew it and could see what life would look like going forward. It was in that time we came to a refreshing conclusion: This is not where we wanted to be, we wanted to raise our family back where we called home.

This wasn’t a popularity contest, or an attempt to run away from a bad situation. This was a realization made after much prayer, thinking, consultation and angst.

So we made the decision that The Jolicoeurs were returning home!

Moving back to the Toronto area is a line we are drawing in the sand, with a resolution of where we want our children to grow up.

We understand that with family all over the continent, we can never live close to everyone. We are not strangers to having to move apart from family we love.

Many times you can’t see what is around the corner or how the decisions you make will impact those around you or the future decisions you will have to make.

In this time of transition, a new door has opened up to follow a desire I have had in my heart for many years. To start my own business and to help service small and medium sized business tackle, embrace and excel in their marketing efforts.