8 Years

June is always one of those months of reflection for me. The grade 12 students at the Swift Current Comprehensive High School are having their Grad Ceremony this morning. 210 students who have been waiting for this day for 13 years. 210 teens who believe their lives are about to really start. 210 kids who believe they have it all figured out.

It's been 8 years since I was that student. 8 years since I graduated from Smithers Secondary School. I can't believe it's been that long already. It got me thinking though; about what I've done since, where I've come from, and how far I've gone.

I graduated in 2000. I was going to be an actress (cliche, I know) or a translator, and was accepted into UNBC but didn't go, instead moving into my first apartment with Vicky. We had some great times (eating a bucket of Bailey's Hagen Daas ice cream on our un-furnished livingroom floor complaining about our boyfriends), but it didn't last. Neither did my relationship with Chris. I fell in love in 2000, and fell out of love in 2001.

Maureen and I went to England in 2002 for three weeks (one of the most amazing experiences of my life) and when we got back home, Shawn and I moved in together into The Trailer.

Somewhere along the lines there I quit my job in the copy-centre at Interior Stationery (ozone from the copy machines and poor air circulation gave me migraines...should have gone to Workers Comp, but I didn't know any better and didn't have the balls to stick up for myself) and started at Omineca Streetwear where I became very close friends with Denise. I also worked weekends as a bartender at the Twin (an occassionally waitressing in the strip club upstairs, oh what a sordid past I have) where I met so many amazing people, including my twin, Leah.

I had been contemplating going into Radio after doing some live cut-ins on BVLD during Omineca's Grand Opening. I made up my mind to go to BCIT for their radio program during an argument with Shawn about our future and how I wanted to leave Smithers. It went something like this:

Me: "I want to leave Smithers and move to Vancouver"

Shawn: "I don't know if that will happen this year."

Me (split decision): "Well, I'M going to be leaving in September. I'm going to BCIT for radio. With or without you"

Shawn: "You are? That's great!"

(Not the reaction I was hoping for, but then, he never gave me the reactions I wanted)

So I went through the horrible applicaiton process (reference letters, an essay, a written test, a face to face interview, and the waiting and waiting to see if I got in), and got in. Shawn went to Mt Allison in New Brunswick and I packed up our life in the trailer and moved to Burnaby.

I lived in an all-girl dorm in res. There is no reason why 12 girls should EVER live together in one house. But we made the most of it. My first weekend we had a party and one of my roomates got so drunk that I had to hold her hair back while she puked and shrieked for her boyfriend. I learned the RA's were pretty much useless in that situation and that it was a everyone-for-themselves situation. There was another roomate who was psycho about being a vegetarian. She would storm down the stairs if we were cooking bacon and violently open all of the windows in the house, open the doors, and turn on the fan in a snit without saying anything to us, and then stomp back up the stairs. I would give a knowing look to my friend Jess (who was always the one cooking the bacon), and we would go around the house and turn off the fan, close every window and every door and overcook it so it would smell even stronger. Mildly vindictive, but oh well!

Shawn and I tortured each other during the year, broke up twice, got engaged, called it off, and suffered through the torment we inflicted on each other.

My friends at school though, were amazing. Kris, Nick, Jamie, and Britt were such an amazing support to me.

I had planned to live in Res during second year, but Shawn convinced me that we'd live together in an apartment in Van so we wouldn't have to spend another year long-distance. It fell through (shocking). We broke up for the third and final time three days before the big move. Mum (my hero) had a contingency plan figured out, and I ended up camping outside of res to get a room. Sarah, my RA from first year put in a request to have me in her house, and I ended up in Carrier B, where I became friends with Brad.

September was my month of bad decisions, but I learned a lot and pulled out of it relatively unscathed with only a few demons that I've battled over the years.

Mum came to visit me in school which was a riot. I'll never forget sponaneously breaking into song in the living room while watching TV and Kieran staring in shock ("no one would believe me, even if I told them").

Brad and I started dating in November and went through the rest of the school year happily with an extended Spring Break trip to Smithers and Swift Current.

I went to PG for my practicum where I lived with Angela in a sweet little room and board house. I also met Mare. I don't know how it happened, but we bonded faster than I've ever experienced before, and that brief month (filled with Boston Pizza...on the patio, at lunch, in the media room at the court house, etc) was all we needed to cement our friendship.

Next it was off to Rosetown SK with Brad. I lasted 9 months. Then Mare called and told me there was a job in the newsroom in PG. I had been trying to transition into a jock position, but the news job seemed like a foot in the door at least. So I moved in with Mare in PG. She is, bar none, the best roomate I've ever had and even though we only lived together for 4 months, it seems like much longer.

I got my own apartment and kept climbing the ladder in News while Brad and I did the long distance thing. I moved back in February when all of the cards fell into place. Now I'm here, living in a house that we've bought together, I'm the News Director and morning show co-host on Magic 97.

In the past 8 years I've fallen in love three times, fallen out of love twice, packed and unpacked my life 15 times, gotten onto dozens of planes, travelled thousands and thousands of kilometers in this country and overseas, learned to stand up for myself and learned that I'm the one who has to take charge of my life. My happiness is my own responsibility. I've learned that the things I say I will "never" do are the things I usually end up jumping into full-bore.

I've learned that life is what happens when you're making other plans.