Too stubborn to ask

Holy smokes! Looks like writing = reading, thanks team for the little shot of love!

So to me feedback you hear once should be always taken with at least a grain of salt. Feedback you get repeatedly from a variety of sources probably holds a little more weight. When it comes from people who care about you... maybe take that a little more seriously. This has been my last few weeks. At first (until a few hours ago...ok less than that) I took it pretty hard. The last thing I want is for people to notice something is wrong, even worse is for them to worry. I guess I seem to fool myself into thinking I am good at covering up all the cracks and looking shiny on the outside but that facade can be hard to hold up and from time to time people see the gross, insecure, scared, or sad parts we all try to gloss over with bright smiles, quick laughter or what ever else seems to work at the time. I'm not going to lie, the last two years have been ones of constant change, big change. They encompass many of my highest highs and a few of my lowest lows. I've been the best version of myself and the worst. I feel it in  my bones though that the time for change is not over and I have two options, rise and take advantage of all that this great world has to offer me or, slip into what has held me back in the past. It is evident to those who know me best that I am struggling with this. It is good though for me to recognize that I can't hide it and that I have to take steps, ask for help, and play the bigger game.

So thank you kind friends and family for not letting me get away with shit. Thank you to holding me to something far greater than mediocrity and for challenging to strive for something far more than what I often expect of myself. I am sorry for being snappy or defensive when you offer suggestions or ask me to step up. But at the end of the day isn't that what everyone really wants? A moment or so to let go of the mask and to allow yourself to be known to others, fears and vulnerability included? As much as I live in dread that this will result in a very lonesome existence it always tends to work the opposite way, it seems that almost every time these sorts of conversations just turn into a deeper friendship, a greater bond. I think what I am trying to say is that I am really grateful. I am grateful that my friends and family have the courage and or good sense to help me when I am far too stubborn to ask.

Life as we know it.

Ok, here's the deal. I am going to write again and I am going to do it whether I like it or not. I am going to do it because it takes discipline and it is good for me and I love to do it and I have just been lazy and chicken shit as of late.

Life as we know it is strange for an MBA student as I am finding out, both the easy and hard way. Our program is a little exercise in Change Management, something that as a student of Organizational Behaviour I should be perhaps more competent and open to dealing with. This is not always the case. I am a creature of habit, habits that can include adventure, but habits none the less. After a long summer of learning and adapting and trying many new things and learning to see silver linings and opportunities I was ecstatic, giddy even, to be thrust back into student life. I longed for days of jeans and flannel and TOMS. Of 4 hr class days and late starts. Of Thursday night pub nights and Friday morning group meetings and the people... oh the people. I am blessed, as always, to be surrounded by smart, funny, kind, generous and very good looking people in this program and it makes going to campus and holding up in our little building very very easy. The funny thing is, and this happens every 4 months or so for us, everything is subtly different. We are changing gears, slowing down ever so slightly academically and shifting up for getting jobs, moving forward, moving on. We are gearing up for our "real lives".

The funny thing is I have never had this exercise in growing up before. I have lived a life where money and status had always come second to pursuing something that I felt passionately about, that I loved, places with cultures I embraced wholeheartedly and was desperate to be a part of, even at the cost of drastically lower wages than my friends were making. I had worked training teenagers to be leaders, shaping a region's hiring and training practices, inspiring those around me and demanding the same inspiration from them. I lived life where all my worldly possession fit in the back of a navy blue volvo station wagon. I lived with little or no savings in the bank and with a firm belief in pronoia . Things had always worked out in the past and I have always had faith that they would continue to do just that.

With this in mind, a value firmly rooted in my belief system, life as we know it has already started to change. Some classmates have already  moved on, flung far to other sides of the world for the last few months to pursue exchange programs. And we are left behind to finish off with a flourish. Talk has shifted from the spring. Our conversations are no longer so Vancouvercentric, so academically focused. "After Christmas" now drives our ambition.

For me it is a feeling of surrealism. Like almost everything is as it should be but there is something missing. I hear it in my voice, notice it in my subtle mannerisms. The honesty of it is evident. I am missing my best friend. It is hard to be in a place with out someone that carries so much weight of memory. As strange as it is the halls are fuller than they have been since we started. The class rooms packed with first years, our classes added to with faces we've only just met. It is strange and wonderful at the same time.

With all this in mind I am excited to pursue the next step. New classes, new friends, and life after school. I'll give you a little hint... I am heading to where I said I'd NEVER live. Truly a shift in life as we know it.

Maybe check this out too. It's pretty cool. If you like sweet tunes and maps and such.

Legacy.

It is hard to imagine the legacy you will leave when you are in it. Without hindsight it is next to impossible to understand the impact you have, how you will be remembered when you move on. The olympics always spark this idea in me. I believe that most athletes go into the games with the hopes of medals, personal bests, experiencing what it means to compete on the world stage. Few, I imagine, come into the games with the legacy in mind that they may leave beyond that. It might be years before Captain Sinclair truly understands the impact that she and other ladies will have on Canadian soccer. Memories of Bolt's epic victories will live on, remembered for games decades from now. Our 4x100 relay team leaves the legacy of sportsmanship, and the spark for the next group of young men to know they can compete with the fastest men on the planet. This is why we watch, not so much for the desire to know who won or lost, but for the stories, the impact, the greatness, the legacy.

It has been a year and half almost to the day that I stepped out of the life I thought would push me through my 20s. I was always aware of the legacy I wanted to leave when lululemon was no longer such a part of my life. When I left last February I thought that I had failed that legacy. That I had not lived up to what I had wanted to do there. Today I sat in the sun with 2 of my peers from my time there, two unbelievably talented and powerful women. They spoke to the legacy I left behind. A legacy that was still alive, still strong. Of young women who were taking on stores, who were still with the company, who were doing great things. This warmed my heart and re-instilled the understanding that everything we do can affect what we leave behind. That even when we think we have moved on, left, that our hard work, our good intentions live on.

Did I say too much, did I say enough

I would like to blame my restlessness and inability to find sleep on the fireworks lighting up the night sky hardly a kilometer from where I rest my head. I would like to blame it on the vivid colors I know are exploding over the water and the resulting pops that are almost like the thunderstorms of the praire only with the opposite effect. Sadly it is in part the feeling that I am beginning to recognize as normal. A hesitation that all the choices are the right ones, that the risk is worth it. That they are right. I brush it off during the day. More confident in my future, in my plans. More confident that playing big has paid off thus far and that not doing so has always left me feeling inauthentic and empty.

For some very human feeling the nights are harder, it's easier to question it all, harder to believe that all the pieces are going to fall in place. It's easier to feel alone in this city. Home feels farther away.

In certainty of a long day tomorrow and the uncertainty of " far down the line" I was thrown for a loop. I asked myself, Julia, do you want an adventure tonight or should you try to get some sleep? It seems, funny enough that I have picked neither. In part I believe it is the exhaustion of having to spend too many hours playing a part. I am energized by authenticity and drained by a lack of it. It is true, for those of you who don't know me, I will never be one who plays by all the rules. Tell me "what to do" and if your reason isn't good enough or there is no value in the process or practice for the sake of something good or beautiful, just in an end, I will likely smile, nod and go back to doing exactly what I was doing. It's not for disrespect but it is for a resistance and resilience against doing for the sake of single minded efficiency or streamlining. Sometimes the long way holds merit too.

My restlessness comes from more places than normal and that is it as well. I can't seem to find the calm I normally have. I am back to where I have been, craving more, chomping at the bit with little patience for the in between. It all is a little bit big these days. Life is on the brink of being "real" and for a girl raised on stretchy pants and fleeting crushes real life is both terrifying and spine tinglingly exciting. On one hand I am increasingly nervous I will never discover that niche in the world that is the centre of the venn diagram combining what I am great at, what I am passionate about, and what will pay the bills. I am also hesitant to put words down describing the aching fear that I will move across the country and failing to make a place there, come back west with tail between my legs to the place I started a little more than a year ago. On the other hand everything I've ever wanted is laid out before me, I just have to take the opportunities as just that and have faith that my luck has not run out, nor will it. I must stop thinking this could all be too good to be true.

I know there must be countless others, likely armchair dreamers like myself, who see their world in front of them and who are hesitant about the expectation that comes with taking that on. I'm not sure what little push shifts it into action I just know that sometimes writing it down makes the difference.

Like Me.

Sometimes I wonder who else is like me. Who else keeps extensive lists of the mundane and the far flung. Who else aches in their bones knowing there is more to life than ladder climbing and line towing.  Are there others who sit for hours, body functioning at a task, and mind 1000 miles away, a decade beyond. An image piercing their mind of what life will be, will look, will sound, will feel like. An image that is not that which is right in front of them.

I have learned the hard way what I want by learning first what I do not want. I have learned how I live and work best but gaining a clear understanding what prevents me from doing so. Somethings have come more easily and quickly than others. Often I feel like a sculptor, slowly chipping away that which does not serve my greater purpose, each stroke of my chisel getting me closer to the reality I want. There are many imperfections I am more than willing to compromise on, many I am willing to embrace, but there is a sick feeling in my gut that tells me what is a deal breaker. The feeling that no matter how hard to shake sticks to me like burrs in a mat. I will put up with an extensive amount of discomfort, that is what I was trained for. There are deal breakers though. Things I will not bat an eyelash before walking away from. I wonder else who has these lines that once crossed, can never be returned.

The bucket list. Part 1.

My official bucket list is 2 items long. There are a lot of things I want to see and do but these two make the list year after year, the two things I would hate to leave this world without experiencing. They are the things that when I imagine them I get chills and my bones and sinews and heart know what it would feel like. Diverse in their magnitude and in their rarity I am not sure why they  are the only two things I just can't seem to let go of.

Another year has passed and in my extreme youth of 27 I am shocked at what I have already experienced. This year has been more full than most and since I am finally pursuing what I want, what I am meant to do, this year has been more full with the gifts that come when you are on this path. My 26th birthday was one of mixed emotion. I had a year of uncertainty ahead of me, not knowing what Vancouver or school or life would bring. At Stampede I celebrated the unknown by kissing boys and drinking beer and watching horses pull chucks around and around. I cried, a lot, and laughed with beautiful friends. Later in the fall I went back to school with stability of place, piece of mind to stay single, a dedication to learning as much as possible and a fear of someone figuring it out that I wasn't everything my slim resume and mediocre GMAT scores let on. And then everything changed. A year later I have a full and stable heart, no fear of people figuring out "the truth. I have realized that I can be great and not have the strict controls I placed on myself to try to ensure I "stayed out of trouble". Getting into trouble was the best thing I did in my 26th year. Taking risks and letting things work themselves out made the last 12 months remarkable. All I can see is adventure ahead. Instead of praying for the stability of externalities I know that everything around me can shift and I will stay as steady as necessary. I have also reflected that I know where home is but I don't need to be there. I will ever be a girl of prairie skies and rocky peaks and that is where my heart resides but after a long year I know I can live anywhere. I will live anywhere. My roots are deep, they will not be easily pulled up.

So what now. After turning 27 by the lake. What will pull me onto what's next?

I will kiss the Stanley Cup.

I will experience Alaska.

Maybe I will add a few more to the bucket list.

Somethings

Somethings just don't work no matter how much we want them to. We can try everything, draining all the energy we have and yet nothing goes according to plan. Then there are the things that happen agianst all control. We try to fight them sometimes because these things, the right path, are a strong pull and that can scare the crap out of people. These are the things that are meant to happen, the people you are meant to be with, the places you are supposed to live, the challenges you are meant to overcome. That which keeps pulling you by heart strings and deep unwavering faith, that is living your life's true path, those are the things that matter more than your brain will let you believe.