Write Your Story

I’m in Mexico. Why? Because of stupidity, hockey and out of control Canadian dentists that’s why.

Telling this story is like crossing the street outside my hotel. It’s madness! Ducking, bobbing and weaving in and out, horns blaring, barely avoiding being blindsided, creamed and bowled over…even when I successfully Frogger (remember that game?) my way across, I’m left out of breath with a pounding heart uttering some truly noteworthy profanity.

Oh my god Rik, that sounds AB-SOLUTE-LY horrific. (that last sentence sounds best with a heavy British accent) What heinous turn of events could have brought you to such a mad intersection in life?

Bloody glad you asked, dear reader. It was hockey…hockey brought me to this Mexican crossroads. Like many young Canadian hockey playing lads…I discarded my amateurish facemask as soon as I turned 18 years of age so I could look and feel like my heroes on the TV. Having done one of the stupidest things I could, I promptly took a puck in the mouth that knocked out a bunch of my teeth. Now 25 years later one of the posts came loose. I wandered into a dentist office in Victoria and was stunned to discover I’d need a bone graft and implant. Equally shocking was the price tag…$4-5,000.00 to repair one frigging tooth!

But hockey and raw Canadian stupidity alone didn’t bring me to Mexico. Canadian dentists gone wild charging staggering sums of money also played a part. And while Girls Gone Wild plays to a certain indiscriminate demographic, Dentists Gone Wild is just psychotic. Even with flights, hotels and meals factored in, I’m still coming in at ½ price to get the work done in Mexico.

What I’ve discovered over the years is life is never just one thing. Hockey + stupidity + mad dentists…they’re all moving parts in this little indie docu-drama.

Now I have to confess that out-of-control Canadian dentistry isn’t the point of this story. We write our own stories and then tell them to ourselves and to others, and sometimes, we end up believing all kinds of fiction and fantasy are fact. My youthful stupidity might have got this ball rolling, but it’s my ability as an adult to adapt and consider previously unknown solutions that brought the game to Mexico. We don’t really know what we’re capable of until we’re forced to sink or swim.

So today after a long and bloody two hour procedure I staggered out into the hot sun and started the trek back to my hotel. Of course I had to stop off at a pharmacy along the way with prescriptions in hand, and awkwardly hurdle the language barrier with my frozen tongue and mouthful of gauze.

 

ANYWAY…tonight I looked out my window and saw the ocean. And I wanted to walk there. It looked fairly straightforward. If I could just bob and weave my way through the insane traffic circle outside the hotel, make it to the line of taxis located at 3:00.  and continue on to the road I saw at 12:00…it seemed to lead directly to the water.

When I reached the water I found myself surrounded by Mexican families. All around me were people enjoying the invaluable pleasure of being with those they love. Across the harbour, lining the horizon was the spectacle of Cancun tourism…where I envision mad throngs of Canadian dentists roaming from the Hard Rock to the Hilton doling out the largesse of their fat stacks.

I sat down I wrote in the sand…

Here at the end of a road. In a land not my own. I found my way. It is my story.

Rik Leaf is a world traveler, slam poet, songwriter, storyteller and author of Four Homeless Millionaires – How One Family Found Riches By Leaving Everything Behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Write Your Story appeared first on Rik Leaf.