when you get up&over it&over them.

My name? Not important. What is, however, notable is that I am in my mid-twenties, and a recent survivor of the often talked about ‘quarter life crisis’. The hump-years of my life were successfully conquered without the purchase of a motorcycle (that is reserved for middle-aged males), or a revolving door of men (it didn’t revolve, so to speak, though I refuse to deny it’s existence). Luckily, I am here; still living, still breathing, and perhaps with more ease than ever before.

I’ve partaken in week-long benders, and have both celebrated and suffered for them. I’ve paid thousands of dollars for an education that seemed fruitless while slaving away at my dead-end, small town job. I’ve cried over student loans and broken hearts. It’s the typical story of a twenty-something, and though it may bore you to tears, I’m going to tell you mine.

I was born in the eighties to a loving mother and a useless father (who, to this day, seems to think your children are a mistake if they aren’t in the NHL or playing Carnegie Hall). Before I was old enough to talk, my parents moved from mainland Canada to an island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean; a cold, rural nightmare at the worst of times, a quiet place of solitude during the best. I was a literary enthusiast from birth, a forced musician from the time I was toddler. I loved to read and write, and was quite good at it. I hated to play the piano, though I was even better at that for at least a decade. Piano lessons went out the window one fall afternoon when I was a sophomore (I threw my books down a man-hole and never showed up to another class again). My father was furious, and I am certain still resents me for it. However, I was graduating soon, and with an incredible GPA; there was a light at the end of my pristine tunnel.

The drunken blur that was my 2 years of university are going to remain just that; a blemish amongst others on the overall face of my twenties. Having my first taste of freedom following 18 years of living under the rule of a father I liken to Hitler himself, I vowed I would never again reside under his roof. The city, however, defeated me in the end, and I returned to the hole-in-the-wall my parents call ‘home’ with thousands in debt and zero in pride.

What followed was several years of searching for something. Booze, boys, drugs, musicians, plane and bus tickets; anything to fill the ever present and inexplicable void in my young life. I had adventures others my age could only dream of, and met people I could not have imagined, at 18, I would ever come to know. I’ve heard music that returned to me a love I’d forgotten I had for sound and words. I’ve fallen in love, and I’ve fallen down. I’ve woken up wondering if it was possible to feel so content in my life, and fallen asleep wishing my eyes would never open again.

What matters is that I lived it. Every single moment in my life, success and failure, has lead me to this moment; finishing my final weeks in that small-town job that I’ve grown to tolerate instead of despise. In July, I decided I was going on my final adventure before settling into a life of monotony and living with my parents. Two weeks in England later, I was in love with a country every bit as beautiful as my British Grandmother described it, and a boy so wonderful I find myself smiling at the mere thought of him.

It has been six months since what I had declared my ‘final adventure’, and that is where this blog will begin; my relocation to another country and another life entirely. I’ll piss and moan about customs, luggage limits, and trying to find time to work out in the midst of packing until I arrive there, I’m certain. After that? Who knows.
Wait… perhaps I’m not quite so boring after all.