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!

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.