Not a year in review

I've been struggling to compile a year in review for 2012 and a game plan for 2013 for about the last week. It's not that i haven't had the time. I have had more time at my disposal since the 19th of December than I have in what feels like years, and in reality probably is. Part of it is for me that for the last 9 years I have never really felt like January first is the start of my year, February first has always been. At first this was for reasons sad and startling, now for a new and wonderful beginning!

For me this January will be much more of a wrapping up. I'm moving, to somewhere I claimed I never would but have recently fallen in love with. January will be about packing up my tiny apartment in Vancouver, about visiting my local haunts, about spending time with friends I may not see for a while. February will be all sorts of a new beginning. February first means a new home, a new job (fingers crossed), living in a city with some of my dearest friends and the person I like best. February will be all about finding my favourite coffee shops and yoga classes and where I can buy gluten free treats and fresh raspberries. Also where I can buy peonies when the season is right. 

It is hard to think that for the second time under two years everything is changing again. City, apartment, local friends, cheap sushi, and late night 5 cent sour key vendors, for those study nights that just need some nostalgia. But again it is just opportunity. The nice thing of starting at zero is that everything is ahead, ready to be created or taken hold of. It is a scary and wonderful feeling all at once. The kind of invigoration the soul needs once in a while. And yes, I am serial wanderer. Keeping me in one place for more than a handful of months is a task few are willing to take one, I myself am rarely one of them, but this time there is just SO MUCH adventure at my finger tips, I think I will be busy for a while. 

So that's it. 2012 has been a remarkable year. I feel I say that every year and I guess they all are but this was a big one. There have been years in the past where I was asked to step up and I did, years where I was told to step up and given no other option, but this year I can say with certainty  I was surrounded by people who gave me the space and tools and unwavering, if not incredibly humours, support to grow up a bit and get one step closer to the person I am meant to be. For that I am so grateful. 

Best of luck for 2013, may it be every bit as humorous and memorable as you can handle!

The Abyss

There's a question we've all been asked, what feels like a million times, "what are you going to do after the program?" The daunting thing is a lot of us don't know. With jobs market in Vancouver being less than in other parts of the country for strapping young folk with an extra 3 letters behind their names even the question of "what city?" becomes a tricky one to answer. Additionally most companies aren't hiring in december, between outgoing and incoming budgets and holiday breaks many of us will have at least a month to contemplate this. The answer many of us have been giving follows a sigh and usually includes the quintessential MBA answer... well it depends.

The thing is during the last few months it was easier to brush off the answer with the necessity of focusing on more urgent tasks like finishing assignments, exams or surviving the last few weeks of socializing. Last night was somewhat of a turning point. We celebrated with a Gala, the ones of us who were left, not on exchange, some first years, and some wonderful part timers. The topic of the night was as always "what's next." Suddenly there was nothing to hide behind and the uncertainty of my own future was startling. I couldn't even answer what side of the country I would be on and that scared the crap out of me. It felt as if there was a vice around my heart and lungs, I felt paralyzed and short of breath. This evening at just past 11, the advice I was given has finally hit home, a simple lesson in reframing. What I saw as the black abysses of uncertainty, I was reminded, was actually an exciting time of opportunity. The fact that I have no dependants, unless you count my beloved though needy student loan, no mortgage, no car payments, no pets, and only a very hardy bamboo plant to take care of means that the future really should be exciting and my life has a way of working out so I shouldn't be so scared. This was and is WAY harder than it sounds. Or maybe it sounds really hard.

What I find most striking is how quickly we were shoved in the deep end. Literally three days ago we were all doing projects, assignments, or writing exams. It felt like there would be another dozen pub nights just around the corner, we would all have a week off then see each other in class. This is not the case. Some of the best, most inspiring, most intelligent people I have ever met are all heading off in their own directions. There are some I hate to admit that I wont see again and a few that I care deeply about that I wont see for a while. We are all heading off to the next great thing, the reason we started with program in the first place. I guess what I'm getting at is I think we will all be ok. I think all of our little borderline type A personalities could use a month of contemplation and ... relaxation. At the end of the day, no matter how much we hate answering that question right now we are all much more competent than when we started. Many of us have changed everything we thought we would want and want to do in the last 16 months but I have great faith, well now I do anyway, that we just need to keep looking at the opportunities now available to us and be grateful. It is not the abyss.

We Can't Fight Gravity on a Planet That Insists

Well. This is almost it. Last MBA exam, complete. Last MBA class, finished. Just 3 papers and one presentation between me and the vast unknown.

I'm not sure whether I am in mourning over the passing of something so poignant, so wonderful, so beyond everything I had expected of it, or simply relieved, relieved to have my time and energy my own again (soon). In some ways I am excited for what comes next because for me it may mean new cities and jobs and communities. A whole new life. I am also nervous. Nervous about the compromise I will inevitably have to make to balance having a dream job, money to pay off looming student loans, the relationship I'v been waiting 7 months to be part of, and to be in a city that inspires me. It seems unlikely that I can have it all, and why should I be so lucky? My selfishness is a thirst I can't seem to quench.

With all this being said and done these last few days are something special. I am no longer the girl who nervously entered a program she felt she didn't belong in 16 short months ago. I am no longer the one who refuses to show weakness or vulnerability for fear I may get attached, get close, or worse someone would figure out I was just a girl who sold stretchy pants and had an archaeology degree, that I wasn't cut out for business school. It is not just my confidence that has come leaps and bounds in the last year and a half but also my capacity to get shit done. My skill set and tool box are far greater than they were when I moved to Vancouver and so are the friendships that I have made, or developed. I think by far the greatest change has come from within though. My sense of self is far greater than it has ever been. While no where near perfect, I have a better understanding of my strengths, I am no longer paralyzed by vulnerability, I am open to failure and excited by the opportunities to improve.

I don't believe it is a coincidence that my last class of the program was Leadership. This morning exemplifed what we have learned over the past year and a half. It was a recognition not of who we were but of who we are bound to become. To be honest I think that's what we all need right now. It was lesson in the people we are surrounded by and what we have been for each other. It was also a wonderful opportunity to discover what we would all really do if money, fear, and time were no object.   And we drank prosecco so that was nice.

While it's not quite over yet it is definitely the beginning of the very end and something that may take a little getting used to.  I am sure it will hit home harder as the week goes on and the unknown of what will I do, where will I live, and how will get a tiny bit closer to being figured out. 

Right now.

I feel my current and future life split into 3. The right now, the "holidays" and the beyond, the next great steps. There is always something going on, always change on the horizon but now more than usual it seems to surround me with no great hope of letting up for the foreseeable future. This is both wonderfully excited and paralyzingly terrifying.

The right now is really the next 3 weeks. My wonderful 16 months as a master student is about to end and my mind on the matter is split between a (conscious procrastination and) deliberate excavation of the pile of work due between now and then, and a bittersweet feeling that this is the end of an era, my favourite of my short life thus far. I am caught between trying to take advantage of each moment of socialization with my classmates and MBA family and to getting down to business, organizing and completing my lengthy list of to dos.   To be fair, this is the life section that causes me next to no stress, I am just trying to soak up the learning and love, it is no battle between hard places but just a whole bunch of good that I am trying to soak up and fit all in! God it's been good!

The "holidays" comes in quotations because I also fondly think of it as the in-between, the-job-and-apartment-hunt, the-travel-extravaganza, and the ski-and-eat-all-the-turkey time! It is the funny time between the end of something big and the start of something bigger. Though I tend to dread the frustration of the times "in between", I am looking forward to the down time, the focused but leisurely organize my life time, and the time to gather up my life here in Vancouver and head East. I am particularly looking forward to two weeks of whirlwind European adventure with my favourite human and then loads of family bonding in Nelson. I am not sure what will come of all this free time I am not used to but I do know it will probably be my last for a while so I better take advantage of all of it.

The beyond looms closer and I feel unprepared as I always do before a big leap, as we all must I can imagine. I am stressing about the move, about making a home, finding and connecting with a community, perhaps most importantly finding a job I like and can excel at. Life is about to change dramatically from that of a student, a big fish in a small but very very fun pond, to being one of  more than two and half million people. In a city that I long refused to even step foot in but over the past year have fallen head over heels for. If only it will do the same back. I know this is the right direction and that decisions like these rarely fall at a time in my life where I am finically over prepared, and I seem to be creating a trend of moving to cold places in the dead of winter. This all being said, and nerves aside, I am chomping at the bit to start something new, to nurture the relationships I have with friends and family who I spend far less time with that I would like to. I am excited to start fresh, again.

These transitions are inevitable though, and what make us young and vibrant and intelligent. Change and personal growth are crucial and the end of something comfortable must happen to make space for the new and bold, this is always the case. So the only comfort one can take is to make the most of the process and perhaps gain perspective where possible. This of course is easier said than done. It always is.

Thank you.

A year ago today I was embarking on the most hungover 8 hour drive of my life. It had been a weekend to remember, Thanksgivings have a tendency of being like that the last few years. I had swam in Kootenay lake (freezing), ate very well, and caught up with friends. I closed the book on one part of my life and opened another, that thanksgiving weekend is in fact the reason why my favourite iPhone contact ends in a question mark. This year has been dramatically different. In fact I just finished my "Thanksgiving Feast": a bowl of pasta with a spicy homemade sauce, a bottle of (GF) beer, and episode of trash TV before hitting my tiny laptop running with projects and exams to get finished. But I have gotten used to my life being flung far and wide and those who mean the most to me, my family live scattered across more time zones than I would like to acknowledge. That being said, yesterday was a very un-Alberta thanksgiving Sunday, spent with my favourite tiny family on a boat in the sun and then with my surrogate family, those who have seen me at my worst and hopefully at my best as well, my classmates, in our ugly sweaters.  So tonight, being physically alone on Thanksgiving Monday isn't as unnerving as it might have been twelve months ago.

With all this what I am thankful for this year is mostly new and wonderfully exciting. I am thankful for all my new friends/MBA family, who I would not have survived the last year without. I am grateful for the Kerrigan sense of adventure which leaves us scattered across this country, and me on my way to Spain in 4 short days. I am grateful for the challenges of this past year that have proved to me, finally, that I can really do it all. I am grateful beyond words for skype, facetime, Facebook chat, email, and international texting plans and would be THE MOST grateful if flights we just a little (lot) cheaper. I am thankful for 10 hour power dates and long walks home from Gastown. I am grateful that Jay still works... please Volvo gods, keep up the good work. I am grateful for my 'old' friends who have stuck with me through this all. Most of all I am very thankful for all the opportunities just over the horizon. For jobs yet to be secured, for wintery moves, for new lives, for adventure.

Thank you.

Photo Credit: Teresa Edgar

Photo Credit: Peter Edgar

Photo Credit: Skye Lee

The light at the corner of Davie and Granville

I haven't been taking pictures as of late. I didn't notice until I was walking home from the grocery store today. There is a spot at the corner of Davie and Granville that if you look one direction it is all sunset and abyss over the bridge. If you look the opposite, it is urbanity then mountains. Of all the random, inconspicuous, non-beautiful places in the city this one is my favourite. The light is almost incomprehensible and as I stopped before crossing, I was vividly reminded I was missing something. The lens. The way in which i used to view my hold world. This must change. Tomorrow, and the days going forward, my camera comes with me everywhere. 

And just like that, it's Fall again

And just like that it's fall again. I've felt it seeping into my bones for a while now but today she made herself know to all. While some dread the end of the summer I am happy for the weather to cool down (I am a prairie girl of course) and for it to be the season for hot tea, cozy sweaters and high boots.

Fall and I have been trying to coordinate for a while but today as I FINALLY settled into school work and long hours at my little second hand desk she decided it was time too, filling the Vancouver sky with grey and rain and an unmistakable chill. For me this comes at the end of a summer that felt like a blur. Surgery, recovery, trips across the country to ease the distance and longing in my heart. New beginnings, new friends, long office days and short summer nights. Excitement and exhaustion. Fall is a welcome reprieve and one last go at this MBA program I am so very fond of!

Fall also means the begging of the end for all I've become used to over the last year and that's ok too, as it makes room for new beginnings and all that comes with growing up a little. But not too quickly as there are still wonderful adventures coming up like a little trip across the pond in October and 3 months of debauchery!

So with all this in mind I apologize to all you Vancouverites who mourn the end of the ever too short summer as I excitedly dig out my favorite fall clothes!