I am officially 29 years old. I've reached the end of a decade and a new one is looming.
I've actually written and re-written what I was going to post here about three times now. I wasn't sure if I should go the lamentation route and bemoan the fact that I've only got one year left of being a 20-something and dwell on the shit I haven't done, or take the "fuck yeah, I'm awesome" path, since I'm kind of feeling both at the moment.
I've done a lot in the past decade. I went to university and got my Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts, which despite it being right up there with Philosophy in the "Bachelor of Unemployment" category, I managed to parley those six years into a wholly satisfying, if not stressful at times, career. One that actually allows me to use pretty much everything I did in school – writing, taking photos and all the editing I did for my classmates.
I took a bus to Whitehorse, Yukon, flew to St. John's, Newfoundland; hopped across the pond to Scotland and spent some time in New York City, San Francisco and Las Vegas. So I did manage to get some travelling in there. Not as much as I would have liked, but that's still pretty good.
I have fallen behind my peers in terms of relationships, though. I'm no where near close to being able to bring my "family" to all those family get-togethers, but you never know what will happen in a year. For now, I have my niece to fill that spot, and she's about the coolest person under two years old that I know. We play Ponies. Ponies are awesome.
I did have a solo art show, but my artistic endeavours have fallen by the wayside lately. It actually makes me sad to think about that. When I was in art school, I had people telling em that I was going to be the ones that "made it." I was edgy, I didn't care who was offended or pissed off by my work, I did it anyways. And it was A-fucking-mazing.
My edge has been worn down, and maybe that comes with being out in the real world and not in the surreal world of the studio and darkroom. But I've got my favourite tool back, and I plan to put this new camera to good use.
I have spent nearly seven of the last ten years as a belly dancer. It's something I took as a way to get myself off-campus at least once a week and has bloomed into something fabulous. I used to be terrified about being on a stage in front of people. Now, I barely blink at the thought of people watching me dance. And I'm pretty damn good at it. No one three-quarter shimmys like me.
And, in the past year, I took a chance on doing something that seemed both wholly exciting and extremely terrifying at the same time. I joined roller derby. And let me tell you, there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not eternally grateful that this sport came here. When I started I could barely stay standing – my ass got up close and personal with the floor more time than I can count. But now, as the one-year derby-versary gets closer, I can say that I've played in two bouts and somehow held my own (sort of) during them. I managed to not seriously injure myself, beyond those two incidents with my knees, but whatevs. I'm going to get better. I'm going to get more confident on my skates and actually start hitting some bitches.
So, yeah. Little lament-y, little fuck yeah-y.
Having a birthday fall on a Sunday sucks balls, so after a savour my delicious pot of Kicking Horse coffee, I'm going to get myself dressed, clean the apartment, go grocery shopping and eat something. Then, I'm going to go for a nice long walk with my new camera and take all sorts of fabulous photographs. Because that's how I roll.
I'll likely do a post of the results sometime this week.
So Happy Birthday to me. Here's to another 29 years at beyond.
Cake and candles,
Ginger.
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