One Year (March 17, 2010)

What is a year? You could see it as 365 days, or 8,760 hours; if you want to dig down into real minutia, it is also 525,600 minutes, or 31,536,000 seconds. One year is roughly the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun once (it's not exact, hence the need for leap years). However, a year is much more than that. As I think about the past year in my life, it can be a time in which the very foundation of your life can shift dramatically.

Today, I am one year into what I have called "A Journey of Life". On March 17, 2009, that journey began with a phone call from my Dad, informing me of my mother's passing. What a year it has been. In that time, I learned of the tremendous and expansive influence my Mom had in her community, and of lives she touched. She was a mothering figure to many more than just myself and my brother. It was just her nature. I think it is truly what she was best at. In some ways, she has continued to "mother" me, in ways big and small. I felt her strength of character bolster me as I dealt with my Dad's illness and death later in the year.

Now, one year after her passing from this earthly existence, I am embarking on a new life, facilitated in part by the legacy she and my father have left for me. One of the greatest lessons I learned from my parents over the years is how every dark cloud of adversity carries with it a silver lining, and how important it is to always seek that silver lining. You can either let adversity drag you down and keep you there, or you can gather strength from those tough situations and use it to pull yourself up. For me, the silver lining is my impending move back to British Columbia (where I grew up), and the beginning of my new life there. By re-visiting my past, I have, interestingly enough, found my future. If anyone had suggested to me one year ago that I would be resigning my job and moving across the country in the midst of an economic recession, I would have thought you were nuts! But, here I am; doing just that.

What form this new life will take has yet to be determined. All I know is that I have an inescapable feeling that great and wonderful things await me in this new life, and the harmonious way in which all of the details of this move have worked out so far just reinforces my conviction that I am on the right path.

Right now, my plan is to pursue post-graduate studies at a university in the Kelowna, British Columbia area, but that may change. Already, some of my initial plans regarding my move, which I thought were set in stone, have shifted slightly. I have possibly sold my car (the details have yet to be finalized, so it's not "for sure" yet), so I may not be doing the cross-country drive that this blog was predicated upon. I am continually learning that our human plans are always subject to change, and that we just have to be willing and open to accepting that change. I do not believe in coincidences. Everything happens as it does for a reason, and as part of a larger plan. We just need to be humble enough to accept those changes, and move forward with new plans. When we do, great things happen.

I am, and always will be, grateful beyond words for the love and guidance my parents gave me as I grew up, and throughout my adult life. Humanly, they were always rocks I could grab on to when the currents of my life got too turbulent. Now, to a human sense, I am on my own, and while there is rarely a day or week that goes by without some moment of missing them, I know that I have learned all the lessons I need to learn from them, and am equipped with all that I need to live a life that would make them as proud of me as I am of them. They have done their job; I will continue to do mine.