Jan 15: The Day I Needed a Rhythm

On December 8, 2025, I got my Class 5 driver’s licence back.

It sounds small to some people, but it was huge to me. Driving has always been one of the ways I decompress. Road trips. Back roads. Heading out to hike or camp. Movement has always been part of how I stay okay.

For almost six weeks, I felt like I had a piece of my life back.

Then January 15 happened.

That day, I drove into Calgary for a follow-up appointment at Foothills Hospital—the same place that saved my life after my accident in July. The appointment went well. The doctor seemed happy with my progress.

I skipped lunch, had supper at my sister’s place where my mom was staying, and later walked over to visit my separated wife and our five-year-old boy.

It was a good visit. Normal, even.

I left around 7 p.m. to drive home, on a route I’d driven a hundred times. Somewhere along the way, I got briefly turned around and realized I’d mixed up which road I was on. I corrected it, found the highway again, and remember most of the drive back toward my neighbourhood.

But the last couple of minutes are gone.

My next memory is waking up in an ambulance.

Back at Foothills, I was told I’d had my first seizure and that my licence would need to be suspended again—three to six months at minimum, here in Alberta. I took an Uber back to Cochrane at 4 a.m. on January 16, feeling crushed.

I’d been started on an anti-seizure medication called levetiracetam, which may also be contributing to the heaviness and low mood that followed.

A few days later, on January 19, I had my truck towed back to my place after paying an eye-watering $1,100 for a four-kilometre tow. When I finally saw it, the damage was clear. The front bumper, grille, and AC radiator were all hit.

Not long after, a neighbour yelled at me, “Don’t fucking talk to me,” after I said hello.

In a following conversation, I learned that during the seizure my truck had rolled into the car of a neighbour across the street. When people came to the scene, they assumed I had been drinking and driving.

I have no memory of this, but I’ve since seen a video taken by a neighbour. I wasn’t making much sense. To them, it looked like proof.

They also told me they “knew” my licence had been suspended after my July accident—apparently because the RCMP officer on scene had said so.

I showed them the government letter dated December 8 that clearly reissued my licence. I also sent it to an RCMP officer who later contacted me. He confirmed that my licence did not show as suspended in the system at the time of the accident.

In the days that followed, I called the government and had my licence suspended again myself. Not because anyone forced me to—but because the thought that this could have happened with my five-year-old in the truck hit me all at once.

That panic was real.

And it made something simple, and permanent, click into place:
I won’t drive again until I’m as sure as possible that this can’t happen again.

Once the adrenaline wore off, the sadness showed up.

Losing my licence isn’t just about transportation. It’s the loss of independence. It’s the loss of the one thing that always helped me regulate—getting out of town, heading for the foothills, taking a back road, finding quiet. It’s realizing I can’t just “go” when my head gets loud.

And it’s the guilt and fear that comes with being a dad who can’t take chances.

So I did what I always do when life punches a hole in the routine: I built something.

I put my focus into Rocky Mountain Rhythm. Not as a distraction, but as a way to keep moving when I couldn’t move the way I normally would. I poured that energy into the website—writing, refining, building pages, shaping what the brand actually stands for.

Something steady.
Something real.
Something that reminds people that rhythm matters most when life gets shaken.