Friends, I’m asking for the most precious gift you can give – your time

6

Those of you who know me know what a mess the last few years have been for me. Everything that could go wrong went wrong and I ended up at one point living on the streets. It was not a good time and it was a real low point, but I’ve managed to sort of get back on my feet.

Now I’m faced with one of the biggest decisions of my life and I’m really struggling with it. I need some help from those who know me well. I hope that you value the friendship that we had enough to invest a few minutes in giving me your honest opinions here. I don’t have a single friend here in London so I’m lost being on my own. Much as I’ve tried these past five years in London, I don’t have a “significant other” to talk to. First time in my life I’ve been alone and the timing could not be worse.

As I see it I have three options; one, to continue to struggle with my business, getting it to the point where I could sell it and improve my options. Realistically that would take probably three years, at which point I will be 68 years old with maybe not a lot of time left. I might mention here that I have doggedly applied for over a thousand jobs with not one response. Not all that surprising, I mean who is going to hire someone so close to retiring at 65? I don’t get to tell them that I went bankrupt and I don’t have a nickel to spare. Retirement is not an option, at least until they put me in a box.

The hardest part of staying here in London is that, first, I loathe this city more than any place I’ve ever lived in my entire life. The people are cold and arrogant. Those who know me really well would find it very hard to believe I was turned down by three different Meet-up groups, all with no explanation as to why. That really hurt and made me angry. I never had that kind of brush-off when I first arrived in Kelowna, in fact, the opposite was true and I soon had a very large group of wonderful friends. The city is dying because of all the employers who’ve closed up shop. Thousands of good paying jobs have been lost over the last couple of years. There’s very little to do here. The rivers and lakes are too polluted to swim in. The ski hill is a joke, more a bump than a hill. Much of the business district is empty stores. Not exactly the place to be optimistic about growing a business in.

The other part of living here breaks my heart. When I first came to this area I held out hope that I would get to see my two children and all the grand kids. My son did make a half-hearted attempt to see me two years ago and that was it. I haven’t seen my beautiful daughter in over twenty years now. She has two kids I’ve never met. My therapist suggested I might well live out my life and die and still have never been in touch with them. But the other two options mean I will never ever see any of them again, and that is a very hard decision to make.

So, option two was to return to the place I love – the Okanagan, but, you know that saying, “you can never go home again”? My life in the valley could not have been any better. I had wonderful friends. I danced my ass off at the Corral and had so many great dance partners. I owned three boats during my time and was out on the water as often as I could be. I water-skied, even learning to slalom. I downhill and cross-country skied. I snowmobiled around Kelowna and Revelstoke with my Dad, my brother and my brother-in-law. My son and daughter came out for the best three weeks of my entire life. I roller-bladed and skated. I even paraglided. My Dad and I went dirt-biking for more than ten years and every single ride was awesome. I played racquetball every week in the winter and I played in the pool league for over ten years. Life was very good.

If I was to return to the Okanagan now, well, first my Mum and Dad are both gone. I am estranged from my brother and sister for very good reasons. I don’t have a boat or a dirt-bike or a snowmobile or skis or a racquet or anything I would need, even if I could do any of those things, which today I can’t. My peripheral neuropathy means I can barely walk, let alone dance or ski. Not going to happen, so my life would just be full of regrets. My friends have all moved on or scattered across the country. Sure, it would be nice to see them again and get in a few hugs, but it would never be the same. Kelowna is also a very expensive place to live so it would be a struggle on my measly pension. More on that in a minute.

Most unfortunately I also hurt some people when my business failed. I went down owing a lot of money and my goal to see the house I gutted and rebuilt over a year and a half fell apart when one of the Westbank Chief’s said in the press that anyone who bought on native land was “stupid”. I ended up with a very beautiful white elephant. Then the “friend” I left living in the place let the snow build-up so much that the roof collapsed. I lost everything and not a lot of people would exactly welcome me back.

The third option, one I have researched to death, partly because of my not so great experience in Panama, is moving to Ecuador. The place I have researched has spring-like weather all year long, so no snow and no humidity. The cost of living is very cheap and there’s a very good chance that my health will improve by eating better and living in the mountain air. The people are friendly and Ecuador is fast becoming the best place for people to move to or retire. I have started building a website, WelcomeToEcuador.ca, which is designed for Canadians looking to visit or move to Ecuador. The government has just increased the tourism budget significantly and there are a lot of opportunities everywhere, especially Real Estate. My dream is to travel around the country on my dirt-bike, taking pictures and writing a blog for the website, plus getting advertising to give me a little extra income.

Here’s the financial differences. When I turn sixty-five I no longer receive ODSP, which right now pays for my meds to the tune of about seven hundred dollars a month; however, I’m told that I will be able to continue to get assistance from the Feds. Right now I am receiving my small CPP, just under five hundred dollars, which I took early to survive. I will then get my OAS, which should be around five hundred as well, but then I also get the GIS because my income is so low, and that will be about four hundred dollars. All tolled it will be about fifteen hundred dollars a month, not enough to live here comfortably because my rent is “geared to income” so they will take about six hundred and fifty dollars in rent, far more than my apartment is worth. If I were to return to the Okanagan I wouldn’t be guaranteed to get any assisted housing, so my rent anywhere is going to be expensive.

The issue with moving to Ecuador is that I am not allowed to receive the GIS if I am out of the country more than six months, so I would lose that. I would be hopeful that I can supplement my income with the website after six months, but there’s no guarantee on that. Without any other income I would be left with about a thousand dollars a month, but my current meds in Ecuador would be about three hundred dollars. The government has just passed a law about a national health care plan which I could join as soon as I am a permanent resident. It’s about seventy dollars a month and covers all prescriptions.

So, if you’ve read this, you are a true friend and I thank you. Please share your honest opinions, good or bad. I’m usually a pretty decisive guy, but this one has me in knots, mostly about my kids. No matter what, that’s the tough part.

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