Idol Pursuits, Part 1

Another Canadian Idol season has come and gone. The votes have been cast and Eva Avila has been crowned. Like the Idols before her, she’ll go on to be the poster child for luke-warm Canadian star-hood. And with the show’s finale, the deeply-scarred bedpost of reality television receives yet another notch.

But for me, this season will always have special meaning. And it all started months before the first show aired.

But first, you’ll have to bear with me for a bit of back-story. Back in March, I wasn’t doing great. As you might know, my career had derailed a little bit and I was looking for a new direction. After a few months of networking and following up with friends and former co-workers, I landed a job (that I now love) with a great company. I gave notice at my government job and got ready for my next challenge.

My last day with the government was a chilly, overcast spring day. We had a lunch to say goodbye and the usual suspects at work followed that up by planning a few rounds of beers at a (now-closed!) pub called the Gap of Dunloe.

I was equally excited because I knew that I was also meeting up with a friend who I had lost touch with over the years, who we’ll call K. It wasn’t that I had purposely stopped being friends with K or that there was a fight or anything else like that….its was just that same old story of two old friends moving to different cities. We tried, but the emails between us got more and more infrequent as time went by until they dried up almost completely. I’m sure it was more my fault than hers, I’ve never been as good as I could be at that sort of thing. Over the first year, she even sent Christmas cards, and I may have sent one or two back. But the distance took its toll.

I’m not someone who gives up on friends easily. Some people move on, make new friends, and only have a passing interest in the people who used to be a part of their life. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Perfectly understandable; but that’s not me. And something told me that I had to try harder with K. Something told me that I couldn’t give up.

So I called her out of the blue the fall before….and we talked like almost no time had passed. We started emailing again. And in March, she told me she was going to be in town on business and I jumped at the chance to see her again. I didn’t think much of it past that. It was a chance to see a friend and have a few beers, just like old times, and maybe show her around my city a little bit.

When she walked in, everything changed. I can’t explain it, it’s never happened to me before. Even though we’d known each other for years, when she walked in -- it felt like I’d been hit by lightning. It was like the sun had dawned at that very moment and she was ringed in a golden-orange light. I was struck by a need to make cheesy metaphors to describe that sudden feeling. She had changed her hair colour, but otherwise, it was the same K that I remembered from before. But as soon as she smiled and her eyes lit up when she saw me, I was transfixed.

I jabbered on for a while, telling her about my last day at work and introducing her to my friends around the table. They all shot each other knowing looks and diverted their conversation away from us, giving us some space to catch up.

“You never asked me why I was in town for business, did you?” she asked me with a mischievous grin. My mind reeled a little bit as I realized that I hadn’t (and how could I have been so damn shallow?!). My mind reeled even further when she laid her business card on the table in front of me.

It was a Canadian Idol business card.

More in the next instalment….