my life in 2018

2018 is going to be a scary year.

Two years ago I was also existing in a state of unknown and then I ended up getting married and moving across the country in the span of a few months. Now I am not getting married again this year, but who knows, that cross country move may happen again.

What is also scary is that for the first time in 20 years I am not going back to school. I must admit, school is a safe place for me. I know what I am doing and what is expected of me. Now in four months I am expected to be out in the real world and I am terrified. I like being in control and I like knowing what my life is going to look like and at the moment I have no idea.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am so ready to be done with school. There are officially 82 days left of the semester and then that’s it. No more papers, no more essays, no more long, convoluted readings that I finish and wonder why I had to read it. But as much as I want out, I am scared to jump into something new.

I remember writing once, on a blog that has long since been forgotten, that I am good at saying hello to new parts of my life, but bad at saying goodbye. I can definitely say that I have evolved since then as my perspective is now completely the opposite. I am ready to say goodbye to school (with my masters degree in hand), but the new is so unknown and out of focus that I don’t have anything yet to say hello to.

Living in Ontario for the past year and a half (with a small break in the middle for Alberta) has been wonderful. I have made lots of friends, found a community of people I love to be with, and embraced living on the opposite side of the country, but a large part of my heart will always be in the west. I love the mountains, I love the ocean, I love the people and places that are part of my life there and I would love to go back one day, but I don’t know if that day can be now.

It is scary looking at job applications that come out and knowing that I need to start applying, that I am qualified now for the job of my dreams and now I just need to work up the courage to take it. A part of me is scared I am going to fail, that all of this hard work has been for nothing and that nothing will come of those dreams.

But what I won’t? That is what keeps me going in this time of stress and anxiety, of final classes and applications, and of that feared idea of networking. Becoming a librarian has been a dream of mine for almost 8 years now, a dream I have never stopped working towards and I am not going to stop now.

So where is 2018 going to take me? I have no freaking idea and I am not too sure how I feel about that. Will I stay in Ontario, move back to BC, maybe go to a brand new province, I have no clue. All I know is that everything is going to be okay, no matter what happens it will be a good year and a year of growth, new beginnings, and new endings.