Messy Minded Momma

The date is February 28, 2010.

My friends are at the bar day drinking, while I’m at home with my parents watching the Canada vs. USA men’s ice hockey game during the Vancouver Olympics. It’s a Sunday, I have work the next morning, and I fully intend on staying home.

But my friends keep calling, begging me to come celebrate Canada winning gold over the U.S. At first, I hesitate. Then I hear my mom’s voice in my head: “You never know who you’re going to meet.” So, I call my friends back and tell them I’m on my way, just waiting on a taxi.

I’m wearing my favourite pair of jeans, my dad’s oversized hockey long sleeve, and my hair is pulled back into a ponytail. It’s freezing outside, and I’ve officially entered the phase of life where warmth and comfort matter more than fashion. Besides, it’s a Sunday. Everyone at the bar is probably already drunk and not paying attention to me anyway.

That’s when I meet him. My ex-boyfriend.

I’m 21 years old, and he’s about to turn 23. He has tattoos covering half his body, spacers in his ears the size of toonies, tighter jeans than me, and dark mysterious eyes that immediately make me nervous.

He was a “bad boy” in every stereotypical sense of the word, and completely different from anyone I had dated before. Our relationship happened fast. It was exciting because it was unfamiliar.

He was a true downtown boy, while I was the good suburban girl. None of my previous boyfriends had tattoos, and he was covered in them. He listened to heavy metal, skateboarded, snowboarded, and played drums in his band like he was Travis Barker in training. We were opposites in almost every way.

Kesha’s Your Love Is My Drug, Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream, Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance, and Young Money’s BedRock became the soundtrack to the beginning of our relationship.

His wardrobe consisted of high-top sneakers, skinny jeans, cutoff jorts (jean shorts) he made himself, deep V-neck T-shirts, trucker hats, basketball jerseys, and muscle shirts.

And now, somehow, here we are 16 years later. It’s the summer of 2026, and my almost 5-year-old son is unintentionally reminding me of my ex-boyfriend.

Long gone are the days when Mommy could pick out cute, matching outfits. My son is deep into his independence era choosing his own clothes, insisting on muscle shirts daily, and wearing a backwards hat with his little curls poking out underneath the brim.

Even his build reminds me of him a little. Tall and lean, sitting around the 85th percentile for height and the 5th percentile for weight, him at 6% body fat back then.

Sometimes I look at my son and laugh because I genuinely think he’s the cutest human being on earth… while simultaneously realizing he reminds me of a 2010 hipster-punk drummer. But maybe that’s the strange thing about motherhood. You spend years trying to shape your child into their own little person, only to realize pieces of your past quietly show back up anyway. Thankfully, this time around, the backwards hats and muscle shirts belong to a little boy who still wants bedtime stories and asks to sleep beside me at night.