Background

About seven years ago now, I arranged a date with an employee of the company I was working with. I was 41yrs old, she was eighteen. Not one to beat around the bush I advised her early on in the evening that my preference was to have a nice meal then to retire to my apartment for ‘seconds’. There in lies the simple beginnings of what has been a life changing relationship - for both of us I suspect.

And just a quick qualifier on what may seem a rather blunt approach to a young lady – The fact is, I have always felt it more gentlemanly to announce my intentions up front rather than circuitously navigate myself to the same (intended) destination.

So anyway, there we were, initiating a covert relationship from the very beginning. Not only were we separated by considerable distance in the first couple of years – her in the North West of Australia and I in Perth - but we had to maintain this air of secrecy from work colleagues, friends and parents..

That wore thin after a couple of years and we decided to ‘come clean’. Jay moved down to Perth so we could give it a proper go… Whilst I stated some fairly clear objectives like; never getting married, wanting to be a professional share trader (not a hospitality/catering manager) and golfing and red wine to remain somewhere close to the top of my priority list, Jay far wiser than I was simply content to trust her gut feelings.

I am not sure exactly where in our journey things began to gel in the sense of a ‘lifetime relationship’. There were certainly times when both of us figured that we’d run our race..

And you know… the more I think about it the less clear it becomes. There is magic that happens in our lives everyday and yet we’re so busy ‘living’ that we let it pass without recognition or acknowledgement. I’m thinking that somewhere along the line my spiritual guide (whatever name you may have for fate or faith), sick & tired of gently nudging me on the shoulder chose a sledge hammer approach instead.. I literally woke up one morning and said to myself, “….you idiot…. you arrogant…!”

Suffice to say that from that small epiphany I set about laying a cunning plan (Baldrick). On Jay’s next visit to Sumbawa – an island in the east of the Indonesian archipelago where I was managing a mining village – we made a slight detour to the paradise island of Lombok. There, in a beautiful seaside resort on an island purpose built in the middle of the swimming pool we sat for a romantic dinner. Jay opened her menu to find my thoughts and proposal neatly written inside…

Given Jay’s answer to the affirmative there has been some conjecture as to how many cocktails and wines I had plied her with prior to dinner.. My response – planning and organising is everything..!!

Courtesy of this grandiose event we had to sit down and make some joint plans. One of the outstanding issues was that of being together, physically. At this particular point in time I was based on a remote island in Indonesia and Jay was working as the Administration Manager on a similar project way down south of Western Australia.

The issue of starting a family also surfaced. Now this is something that I had vaguely wanted to do at various points in my life but had never found quite the right circumstances…

These two issues were qualified by contrasting career momentum – Jay’s was on the up and mine, I had simply lost my mojo, my passion for what I was doing. Allow me a few words of explanation.

There are those select few who find their lifetime passionate pursuit and are lucky enough to call it their career/job. But for most of us the financial pressures that build as we grow older become the boundary fence-line for our ambitions. We may have a suspicion that the dreams within us are achievable but justifiably put them on the back burner in lieu of more pressing commitments/responsibilities.

What I’m trying to say is, I have an inkling that I am not exercising everything that is me. If I look down on my tombstone in years to come to read, ‘Here Lies Kevyn – Pretty Good Catering Manager’, then I may safely figure that I had sold myself short.

Sorry, I digress. The long and short of it is that we decided to start a family. I would return to Australia to be the ‘stay at home dad’ and Jay would continue her blossoming career alongside the dual role of parenting. So there you have it, seven years of impromptu relations culminating in a Master Plan.

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