My Hero's Death

How my hero’s death and not knowing what I wanted to do for a career led me to find unexpected happiness in the most unexpected of places

June 21, 2012 Alexandra Taylor Reply

Quite often I wonder where the future will take me and what forks it will throw in my road of life. As of yet, I quite obviously don’t know. I wish I had been –or were– one of those people with a set life plan. Kind of like my brother; he’s got his own place bought and paid for in Yaletown and he’s only three and a half years older than me. Of course, my brother did once utter to me “Alex, you want to save the world, while I want to exploit it for profit.” He was alluding to his work on oil tankers, where he is a master mariner. My life would have been a lot simpler and probably a lot more content had I had that one calling that everyone supposedly has —  the vocation, as they called it growing up in Catholic school. Is that why I’m agnostic? I’ve flirted with several careers, and none of them seem to really do it for me. To me, it isn’t really about the money at all, but rather doing something I feel is worthwhile and contributes good to the world. I am a strong believer in karma, not the in metaphysical sense, but in the “every action has an equal or great reaction” way.
I wanted to be a social worker, but soon realized that I was much too sensitive to witness tragedy and hardship on a daily basis. So that plan went out the window. I wanted to be an aid worker, but again, the same thing. Then came journalism. I suppose I had a romanticized view of the profession, y’know, as being the guardian of truth and the exposer of all the corruption and ills in society. Through a semester at journalism school, I learned that the media was in bed with  a lot of the power players of scum, and I therefore wanted no part in it. I got the essentials I needed, and I’ve always been quite good at writing (hey, not tooting my own horn.. was just a lonely kid growing up who turned to an old typewriter for company!) and I’ve been trying to make a career for myself ever since. Well, that and in my education in political science. Politics is a passion of mine, as anyone knows, but as much as I hate to say it, I fear that said passion has dwindled with the death of Jack Layton. I am waiting for it to come back; it has, after all, only been less than a year since my life’s hero passed away. Broken hearts take time to heal, but I don’t think all the amount of time in the world could heal this broken heart. There will always be a little something missing, and I know that I am far from alone in feeling that way about his passing and the gaping hole it left in so many of us, and in the very fabric of our nation.
A funny story came out of Jack Layton’s death, though. Not really funny, but a tad ironic. I wouldn’t have gotten involved in the Occupy movement had Jack Layton not died, because with Jack’s death came a determination within me and a commitment to honour his legacy, and I knew Jack would have supported this fight for economic equality and this crusade against greed. I wrote about Occupy Wall Street on my blog

My fridge is a tribute (Photo credit: Alexcentric)

before it spread nationwide and then internationally, and then attended Occupy Vancouver on the Global Day of Action and wrote about that and filmed it, and then continued to cover it, and then when it was time for me to leave for lLorida for three months last winter, I got in contact with various Occupy groups in the area in which I would be staying. And I met some of the greatest friends with whom I am still very much in contact with to this day. One of the greatest people I ever met ended up being a complete stranger who was at a Newt Gingrich rally covering it and protesting the corruption in politics just as I was (I believe that everything American politicians do directly impacts Canadians and the rest of the world, so it is not meddling in another country’s affair’s  – they make it our business!) and we just got to talking and the rest, as they say, is history.
Who would have ever thought that I’d meet someone so wonderful at a protest for someone so awful? In Naples, Florida, so far away from my home. We spent nearly six weeks together before I had to go back home to Vancouver, in March, and then I went to visit him about a month and a half after I left and we stayed with each other attached at the hip for nearly three weeks. Who knows what the future holds for us, but I know that we’ll spend a lot more time attached at the hip sooner rather than later. I was terminally picky with men, and he just happened to fill all of my criteria. I believe meeting someone as caring as him is my karmic reward (sorry for how new-agey that sounds) for putting kindness in the world. Certainly there are people who have taken advantage of my kindness in the past, but not this time. He’s truly kind and that has always been the quality, besides intelligence (which he also possesses!) that I find most attractive in the opposite sex, and it just so happens that intelligence and kindness were what he liked about me as well. It’s nice to feel appreciated by someone I appreciate so much.
I think I’ve embarrassed us both enough now.
And this concludes Part I of my foray into blogging about my personal life.  I thought I’d begin with my happiest memory of the recent year, and work my way from there. And yes, the journalism and writing is still in full force, as is the political activism. I have an event tomorrow night. One day, my friends, I will have a paid career out of this! Until then: enjoy!
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