The night that changed my life
by Jean-Marc Bouchard
In January 2004, when I was 42 years old, I spent my first night in an empty two-bedroom apartment I’d just rented. The place had no furniture, no oven, no table, no couch. At three o’clock in the morning, I was alone and freezing in my sleeping bag.
How could I know this old hot-water heating system was not able to do its job when the temperature fell below minus 20 degrees centigrade outside? It was minus 34C that night. Shivering inside my sleeping bag, I wore my winter coat, my hat, my pants, my boots and my gloves. My breath was making smoke.
My mind filled with a million questions: What’s wrong with me? What is inside of me that puts me in that position at 42 years old? Why is this happening a second time? (Same thing happened at age 35.) Why did I accept the unacceptable? And so on.
I put my life on the table. All options were open. Should I commit suicide? I wasn’t able do that to my mother and my daughter. Should I quit my job and go back to the small town of my childhood? And to do what there? Could I face my childhood memories there? Should I start over in a new country?
These thoughts repeated themselves again and again that night.
At last I realized that I could not let myself get any lower. Any lower would put me out in the street, and I knew I could never accept living on the street. So, I said to myself, the only thing that can happen is that life must get better.
But there was one big question left: What had lead me there, for the second time in my life? I decided to address whatever was in me that had put me into that situation not once, but twice.
Already, just by making that choice, I was feeling better. I was full of hope. I knew the worst was already behind me. I decided to stand up and go forward.
After that night, I went to see a psychologist. He explained to me simple things, like the fear of unknown being so big for humans that we go back to the known again and again — even if the known is really unhealthy, even if the unknown is healthy.
This was a big realization to me. I joined a therapy group for men who have been sexually abused in their childhood. The group was so deeply healing that I joined the organization’s governing council. This work put me in contact with other men’s groups, which in 2006 led me through a brochure to MKP. I attended the NWTA in october 2006, two years after that night that changed my life.
I have taken quantum steps in my journey. I am now a man equal to all other men. I am not feeling inferior anymore. The shame has vanished. I recently met the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. I am happy and grateful.
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Jean-Marc Bouchard has been a piano man for more than 20 years. Ten years ago he changed his career, and he is now responsible of licensing courses in the Canadian brokerage industry. He also is the editor of the Canada East MKP community newsletter. |
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
