Archive for the ‘new discovery’ Category

It’s always tough, realizing that so much time has gone by and you’re nearing the end of an important time in your life – to look back and see that you’ve basically accomplished close to nothing on your big “to-do” during the time until the impending deadline of said to-do list.

I like to look back on the things I’d set to accomplish before my journey started. Usually, I have a to-do list I try and follow to keep me on track but have recently come to realize that sometimes, you just can’t plan everything. Life usually gets in the way. This to-do list I’ve often dictated out probably has about two things checked off and a lot of hopes and new additions. But I can always guarantee that I learn something, as life happens, and I learn from it.

Sometimes I like to revel in how young I am, and then promptly get scared at how fast the time flies and pretty soon it’ll already be time for my 26th birthday. It scares me just thinking about it and I’ve got ten months to go. See? Ten months! That’s already scary because just I felt it was just yesterday that I got a beautiful eight-diamond necklace from my boyfriend in front of my closest friends in Calgary at dinner for my birthday.

It’s been less than two months and already so much has changed at this point. Now I’m lying in my twentieth different bed I’ve been in over the last few weeks realizing I’ve created a habit of playing with the dangling pendant and wondering when and if I’ll ever choose to take it off.

Earlier this evening I opened my notebook and saw the to-do list I’d written on my first flight out of Toronto in October. Even though as I look at it now, not much is checked off, but I’ve done a lot. I didn’t have as much free time as I thought I would because somehow along all the hustle and bustle I realized that life got in the way of my hard-set plans, as it usually does, and I was forced to re-organize.

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t learn anything on this trip, and I’d be lying if I said some parts haven’t been disappointing. My eyes and ears are open to taking the new experiences in while challenging my pre conditioned notions about business life and meeting people and working with strangers who quickly become family when you all meet together so far from regular lives.

I’m not entirely surprised at where I sit right now, alone in a hotel room, writing to myself instead of sending my usual end of the day messages to my person; but I’m a bit surprised it happened so quickly. There is that saying again, however – life happens. And you can’t change things because they don’t fit into your plans. I guess you just learn to deal with them and figure things out as you go along.

swimming around in the baltimore waters

When times seem tough and you don’t seem to have anywhere to go. Just remember, just keep swimming.

disobeying the signs - moncton, new brunswick - february 14th, 2009

There we were, as usual, not listening to what those with less ignorance had told us. Looking at this picture now, six months later, I realize that it’s who I am: a person who disobeys. Why shouldn’t we? Who gets rewarded for colouring inside the lines passed the age of five?

There are times in our lives when we can feel defeated, exhausted and hopeless. It’s these times, that I turn to my past to invigorate the future I know is before me. I have two provinces left on my mission to see every one of this beautiful country (the territories will be added one day when I can properly afford it) and a part of me can’t believe it. I know the Maritimes must be visited once again in the summer months, and I’ll do that and tick off Newfoundland to the last of my east coast journeys as well.

For now, however, I can remember what an amazing time, what an amazing country we live in, and smirk at the memories of people warning me to get out of my trip plans before it was too late: “winter in the Maritimes?! Are you crazy?”

I guess we were.

august 2, 2009 - old beauty

About three weeks after I decided that something in my life needed to change, I decided to take a trip to Regina, Saskatchewan to visit an old friend of mine. The drive from Calgary took about seven hours with my ten month old cat meowing incessantly in the backseat of my car and I loved every minute of it.

Throughout the course of the trip, my friends and I drove around the province and ended up visiting many small towns along the way. Mostly because we got lost, but every wrong turn became a beautiful discovery – like the small junkyard (which was really someone’s deserted backyard) above.

The entire trip was an eye opener. Not only to the beautiful country that I live in, but all the amazing discoveries one can make if you just take a look around. And maybe, take a wrong turn sometimes.