Plus ca change, plus ce la meme chose. I don't speak French, but the gentle sounds of the language seem to take away from the severity of the phrase. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Two years later, I am still sitting by myself and letting Angus and Julia Stone try to make me feel better. Or even empathize. Or something. Just anything, you know?

I am 21 years old and I thought this move had let me grow so much... But the growing brought me more questions, and the biggest right now is that is this what I want for the rest of my life? Should I squander my youth by working to the point of exhaustion or should I work towards something bigger, something better?

And tell me, if there is something bigger and better how am I supposed to know?

I never thought I would be the person to sit in a Starbucks, blogging, but here I am. See, this is the kind of unexpected I speak of! That's a joke. But you know what isn't? Being an assistant manager!

So about three months ago at my store, our assistant manager (who is absolutely phenomenal at her job) got promoted. For three whole (sometimes painstaking) months, I worked towards this position and I FINALLY GOT IT!

Of course, not that I should have expected it, my parents were not happy. They don't understand that you aren't inherently extraordinary. You work towards it, like I am now. All of this life and work experience backed up by my finished degree (when we move back to Kingston!!!!!!) will make my resume look a lot better than being a sheltered little brown girl in search of a smidge of a career.

It is so frustrating to deal with all of this! I can't believe that even after all of these years, they can't cut me some slack. They don't need to, but under the influence of some really wonderful and strong women, I have grown a backbone. I can deal with difficult people and situations. Being here, learning everything that I have, I feel really good. I am a good person and I am intelligent and, and, and, I thought those were the things parents were supposed to be proud of!

Whatever. I'll show them. The same way I got into Queen's, I will finish my degree. I will hopefully one day work in the Aldo head office... Or go wherever life takes me. But I'll show them.

Life is beautiful. It has its ups and downs and it throws you around until you are battered, beaten up and completely defeated; only to prove to you that you are strong. You are able. And you are blessed enough to be alive, to live your life to the fullest. When things take a turn for the worse, you just need to hold on because just past rock bottom, there is a bar with the most wonderful lemon blueberry mojitos you have ever had. And Adam Levine serenades you in that bar, while Ryan Gosling showers you in compliments and David Beckham is the bartender.

But life is strange, it is still strange. Because while life is a million things, it is unpredictable. It is routine yet unfamiliar. Everyone plans - our whole lives, we are raised with dreams of our parents instilled in our hearts. We have our own dreams. We have our own aspirations. So we spend our lives planning how to achieve our goals, stressing over every little detail. But the funny thing is, when the future you've been planning your entire life rolls around, you find yourself somewhere just opposite. 

If life had gone the way it was supposed to when I was sixteen, I would be living in Ottawa, miserably wishing I had left (somewhere, anywhere). And at eighteen, my plan was Queen's University and I was supposed to finish my degree in 2014. And now here I am, in Victoria, in this glorious, beautiful city, with a man who I am incredibly in love with. I'll go back to school - Queen's, in particular - and it will be relatively soon, but for now, I am just in awe of how different things could have been.

I am not regretful of my decisions, nor do I feel sad. I wouldn't say that life has been unfair to me, I think it has been everything that it should have been and more. Perhaps I am nostalgic, or simply completely breath-taken by the way everything has turned out. But whenever I spectate the enigmatic ways of life, the end of one of my favorite short stories comes to mind. 

    "'No,' sobbed Laura. 'It was simply marvellous. But Laurie--' She stopped, she looked at her brother. 'Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood." (The Garden Party, Katherine Mansfield, 1922)


And you never figure out what life is, because it's all it is. It's just life.