I turn 23 in two weeks, and I’m so excited to finally see what all those Blink 182 songs have always been about.
Nobody loves you when you’re 23, or at least that’s what Blink 182 told me growing up.
Jokes aside, I’m surprisingly excited for this birthday. Not because of what I have planned for that day, in fact I’ll be spending my birthday driving from Calgary to Estevan, exciting right?
What I think I’m excited for is the milestones that I achieved at 22, and the possible milestones I may achieve at 23.
At 20 years old I was pretty lost. I worked a job that I hated, for people I had nothing in common with, on a path to a life that I never really wanted.
I guess I can’t resent the fact that I was wandering through life at 20, I assume most people are, and it was that feeling of being unsure about where my life was heading that lead me on the path that I’ve been following since.
I’m not sure where exactly this path that I’ve chosen will lead me, but one thing I know for sure, is that it’s extraordinarily better than the path that I was on just three years ago.
The other exciting part of getting older, and finding a path I want to continue following, is that I find myself planning for the future for the first time.
My girlfriend Grace and I have been together coming up on three years, and I think we’re both certain of the fact that we want to spend our lives together. We often spend hours joking with each other about what kids names we like and dislike, and we talk about our future, not my future or hers, but ours…and I think that’s what love is.
Although I don’t think either of us is entirely ready for children just yet, it is definitely something we’re starting to plan for. We’re also planning, to the best of our ability, where we want to go in the future.
We both are adamant that we want to travel and really experience all that life can offer us. We both love the mountains, so at some point we’d love to find ourselves surrounded by them, we both love the ocean, so at some point we would love to live by one, and we both love adventure, so we’re going to spend the rest of our days making our life into one.
I’ve known for quite a few years that I wanted to make writing and photography into a career, even having talked about my passion for writing growing up in past columns. But I’ve still yet to figure out where exactly that passion will lead me.
I’ve fallen in love with being a journalist, I love being constantly informed on what’s going on and where, I love getting to meet new and interesting people and getting the opportunity to share their stories and I love being able to have a voice, and the ability to make a difference in the world.
What I’m not so in love with is the thought of settling down, not yet anyways.
I love Estevan, I’ve only been here two short months but I really find myself feeling at home in the community just as much as I did after being in Calgary for four years. But I’ve yet to figure out how much of my life will be spent here.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have no plans of going anywhere anytime soon. I’d like to spend at least the next five years in Estevan growing and learning everything I can about the industry that I work in, but then what? Will I find myself still in love with the community, unable to tear myself apart from it? Or will the urge for adventure send me somewhere new; I guess that’s just something I’ll have to keep walking the path to find out.
I think I often forget that I’ve just started along my journey. I’m hard on myself to continue striving to be better every day than I was the day before, and to use everyday to further myself down the path that I’ve chosen. But I’m only 22, I’ve got a lot of years left to live, and I don’t have to have everything all figured out right now.
Writing and photography are my passions, but I have other passions that I hope to someday make a part of my career.
Video games have always been a love of mine, and although I grew up in a world where we were told that video games were only a hobby, we now live in a time where that no longer holds true. Video game journalism is something that I hope to eventually be able to say I am involved with, whether that is as a full time career or just something that I do from time to time.
At the end of the day all I know is that I’m happy I decided to make a change. I’m happy that I was self aware enough to know that the path I was on was not the path I was meant to walk for my entire life, and that I put the effort in to choose a life that can continue to make me grow and become more fulfilled day by day.
I’m excited to spend every day of the rest of my life with the woman I love, writing stories and learning about the world, and constantly aiming for the next big thing.
