Let’s Do This Thing

SO, WHAT AM I DOING?

Today, instead of signing up for university classes or buying towels or selling outdoorsy clothing, I am headed west on Part One of my gap year adventures. At 10:00 tonight I am hopping on a train from Toronto to Jasper. From Jasper I’ll be headed for Vancouver, and from there to Victoria and Tofino, not necessarily in that order, but with the goal of being home at the start of October. 

WHY AM I DOING THIS?

To make my parents cry. 

Kidding. When I was twelve, I saw a movie called One Week, which for those of you who haven’t seen it (and I expect you to go watch it immediately) involves a man who is diagnosed with cancer riding a motorcycle across Canada. It is a stunningly gorgeous, national love letter of a film, and twelve year old me decided that, not only is Canada pretty beautiful and great, but also that the day I graduated from high school I would buy a used motorcycle and ride off into the sunset, preferably wearing my prom dress for dramatic effect. So I got a job at a mini-putt course. 

Every summer and many, many weekends since then have been spent saving up for that trip, first handing out putters, then driving golf carts, then selling outdoors gear, and my dreams for it have evolved over time. My wild, adventurous, summer-long sea-to-sea road trip turned into a more international affair (that would be Part Two- Costa Rica) lasting the whole year between high school and university. And I put the motorcycle idea in my someday box, ’cause I still fall off my bike all the time. But lots of people have lots of dreams when they’re twelve, so why am I doing this?

“It’s only by stepping out of your life and your world that you can see what you most deeply care about and find a home.” 

-Pico Iyer

I am taking a gap year because since age four my life has been largely dictated by a seemingly endless string of supposed-to’s. I’ve spent a lot of time doing what everybody thought I should be doing, which was not always what I thought I should be doing, but I figured it was more important if the grown-ups said it was.

Working hard to get the grades to go to school to get a job to buy a house to get married to have kids to make more money to send those kids to school- it’s the hamster wheel of life. And I want a break, a year to be unabashedly selfish and hop off the spinning wheel for a while. I want the space and the freedom to read and think and make things and wander. I want to do something wild. I want to go back to school with that sense of pure existence to hold on to and remind me that there are bigger things, and I am so, so grateful to have had the opportunities that are allowing me to do so and for all the people who have my back. I want to have stories to tell. I want to go on an adventure. Well congrats, twelve-year-old me, here we go!

Posted by Kelsea in Uncategorized Tags: part one