When do you recognize your life has moved on to a new phase?

When you get your first job? When your first baby arrives? When you find your first grey hair? When you realize that you’re in the last quarter of your life and your team is down 22-1?

For me, Joe 1.0 was a good thirty years of work and travel and more work to pay for more travel, and buying a house, selling it, building a new one and a near-death experience while on a Greek highway.

Joe 2.0 was a life I began after Margot passed, when my friends rallied to make sure I made it through the hard years, where I tried traveling by myself and found I hated it, and when I eventually found the Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World.

Joe 2.5 was my life as a stepdad and husband and scorekeeper and driving force behind trips to the Grand Canyon, Disney World, and the odd local treasure hunt. From 2013 to just recently, I had the privilege of being there for 5am hockey practices, band concerts, massive Minecraft games, skinned knees, banging pans during covid lockdowns, zip-lining in terror, chaperoning a camping trip, dismantling a backyard pool, and measuring on the wall beside the family room as the boys grew and grew.

I was the family photographer (nay, the family chronicler as I wrote about life as a stepdad). I tried to teach them how to cook, how to play chess, and how to tie and tie. I always tried to find that balance between giving the boys space and making sure I was there when they needed support, companionship or someone to tell them why Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was a disaster.

But time has come for Joe 2.5 to move into Joe 3.0

See, The-Oldest is currently at UBC working on his Music Degree (in Composition). He no longer lives with us and I miss him terribly.

As well, the-Youngest has managed to transform himself into a super cool, super fit16-year-old who spends about 20 of 24 hours a day talking to his friends online, shopping with his friends to get cool socks or going on amazing skiing/mountain biking adventures…with his friends.

Seems I am no longer needed.

Or rather, now that I’m not watching Big Trouble in Little China with The-Oldest or sitting on a baseball park bench praying no one gets a hit since I’m not sure how to record who caught it, who they threw to, then who that person threw to and what position each thrower played in, what to do?

What to do?

Time to become Joe 3.0

But what does that look like?

I’ll tell you next week how it starts.