Today is my anniversary of moving back to Canada. Six years ago, I packed up my life and got on a plane and moved around the world.
I look back on what’s gone on in the last six years. It feels like its been forever since I left Australia, but it also feels like I left it five minutes ago.
In the past six years, I have had jobs, met people, made new friends, reconnected with old ones. I’ve spent time with my family, lost loved ones. I have fallen in love, fallen out of love and fallen back in love. I’ve bought a house, worked towards a very terrifying, but exciting career path, I joined a band, I went back to school, I established myself within my community.
When I left Australia, I was going through a really terrible point in my life. I had finished uni and didn’t really know what was coming next. I didn’t have a job. My five year relationship was ending. We had been so young when we got together. I was 19, he was 21. I found that you change so much in those five years. I learned so much about who I was and what I wanted in life. And the things I dreamed about and wanted at 19 weren’t the same things I Dreamed about and wanted at 24. He and I didn’t want the same things anymore. It just wasn’t… He just wasn’t.
So when I look back over the last six years, over where I’ve come since then to now, I always reflect a bit of the passage of time. So much can change in a week, a month, six months, six years.
Did I really want to be starting over at 24? No. Fuck that. It was terrifying. But then I look back at it now and wonder why the hell I was so scared.
So let me get preachy here for a minute. We all go through hard times. Sometimes it’s a hard month, sometimes it’s a bad year. Sometimes, it’s a few bad years. But there comes a point when you can look back and go ‘yeah, that was shit.’ But look how far I’ve come. Yeah, there have been some absolute shit times. But that’s helped make who you are today. And let’s be honest, you’re fucking awesome. Look at how you managed those shit times and look at how you’ve kicked ass.
Never be afraid to start over, never be afraid to try again.