what’s next?
It’s almost 7pm on a Friday night and frankly I am zonked. My sister is back at Toronto Pearson airport after 2 weeks here in Ontario. She’s heading back to BC. I’m dreaming about travelling next Spring and intermittently being overwhelmed at the current state of the world and climate change and my future. A week ago we celebrated my 30th birthday and it was really fun to be with so many people I like who did and didn’t know each other. Lindsey Mack’s word for the month of October (according to her podcast Tarot for the Wild Soul) is Create. And I love that. A few weeks ago I decided I didn’t want to be in school for law and chose to drop out of my courses at York. It was hugely relieving. One of my neighbours (who is basically another grandmother to me) was sitting next to me at my little birthday party and she said she knew I wasn’t 100% about being in school when I told her about it last summer. She knew I wanted to travel. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone but it’s a goal of mine to stay out of Canada for most of the summer. There is so much to see.
Since dropping out of school my time has actually been very full in a completely different way. A celebration of life, more birthdays, yoga classes, working at the cemetery, coffee and catch ups with friends, lots of voice memos. I feel so tired and inspired at the same time. I’m ready for another trip maybe somewhere warm. I’m also wondering if this little corner of the internet is truly where I need to be right now.
Don’t get me wrong - I love being here. But I’ve dabbled with the idea of transitioning to Substack instead of having a sneaky little website all to myself. It’s expensive and really how often am I on here? I’ve wondered about being more active on social media to draw more traffic but the truth is I don’t want to. I would rather put up stickers all over town to draw people to my website than have to keep up an Instagram account. I don’t think I was meant for screen time (was anyone?). More often than not I wish I had a flip phone instead of a smart one.
I do think the podcast is about to make a comeback and that excites me a lot. I think I’ll record on Tuesdays because I was born on a Tuesday and that’s fun. My goal would be to prerecord an entire season and then release them instead of releasing them as I go, but who really knows with my unpredictable little brain? I surprise myself all the time. And I’m honestly really proud of myself for letting go of the school fantasy. A friend said to me, “It’s not too late” after I had apparently decided that it was too late to drop out when all I wanted to do was travel and I wouldn’t stop talking about it. But I think that was the permission I didn’t know I needed.
I’m 30 and I’m working part time and I’m going to go travel in the spring and maybe I feel like more of an artist now than I ever did before. Because why? Because I feel like I’m actually in the driver’s seat and making my own decisions for the first time ever after trying something I thought could be cool and then realizing it wasn’t for me. It’s like I rewrote this internal spiral story where usually I would push through the hard and uncomfortable thing just because I knew it would be good for me - when in reality I know what I want (and what I don’t) and that feels really powerful. Probably more to come when I start recording the podcast again but for now I’m leaving this here!