'Why I Aught-a': a decade in review

2002:

The year began with a funeral. The first funeral for many of my friends. The only funeral I've ever had for a friend. The most difficult funeral to attend. I would dream a lot of Steph P. in the following weeks and months. Hell, to this day, I still dream of her. In my dreams, she forgave me my sins against her and I was able to stop blaming myself somehow for her death. Some days it worked. Some days? Not so much.

After a year from hell, I started seeing a therapist at the university, who helped me try to sort out the psychological beating I'd taken. Talking helped. Meds helped. Being in school, finding a routine and partying as hard as I could also helped.

Started hanging out with a group of fratboys my then-friend Zach belonged to. Started dating one--a freshman named James. It's funny now to look back at your relationship choices and ask yourself what you were thinking. I'll delve no further into that. Suffice that it was a brief, rather...ridiculous situation.

Luckily, 2002 was a crazy year for getting involved and getting over myself and the problems in my head. I wrote constantly for the Gateway and hung out with the crowd there. They were a complete opposite group from the fratboys, and I loved the dichotomy between the social circles I ran in.

I didn't do as well in school this year, but I was having too much fun to care. Two friends, Bettsy and Jane, came back from trips abroad in 2001-02, and I was stoked to have my friends back with me and having fun. Jane and I stopped being friends in that same year, but it was good to have her back for that while it lasted.

In the summer, I quit my longest-term job ever at the library (3 years, baby!) and started my favourite-ever job working at Jax Bean Stop, a coffee shop in Sherwood Park. It paid shit and was exhausting, but I loved every minute of it. My Kelly and her boyfriend, Gord, would come visit and pick me up after work, after which we'd go hang out, do summer stuff, the usual.

In the fall I traveled to Vancouver with the Gateway and had an opportunity to apply for a position that opened up. I made the choice to focus on school rather than apply to work for the student paper. This would become a turning point for me, making a deliberate choice to pursue my academic writing over journalism. Even now, I vacillate and wonder if perhaps I should have pursued newspaper writing further. And maybe I will. But my life wouldn't be what it is had I made that choice. And I like the way things went for me. Without those choices, I would never have had the 2003 I had--perhaps my favourite year of the decade.