This time last year, I was somewhere in Europe, either on my last day in Berlin or my first day in Amsterdam. I had just graduated from university and was on a two-month-long Europe trip with four mates from Business School.
This time two years ago, I was interning at a law office in Toronto, working for possibly the most irresponsible lawyer in existence. I had taken the job reluctantly after a stressful and fruitless summer recruiting season after my first year in Business School.
This time three years ago, I was working in the IT department of the university, staying in University Town the whole summer. That was the summer I briefly dated a Vietnamese-Chinese engineering student, who I later abandoned for better company in the form of rich, spoiled Chinese international students/party animals. It was the summer I started smoking, the summer I almost died in a street race, and the summer that I spent too many late-late nights out at karaoke.
This time four years ago, I was partying with a blend of university friends and high school friends. Forgotten weekends in Toronto blurred into underage clubbing in University Town.
This time five years ago, I was driving down the coast of California, somewhere between San Francisco and San Diego. I had just graduated high school and was looking forward to moving away from home in the fall.
This time right now, I’m getting ready to go out on a Friday night with my friends in Singapore. They have a VIP room booked and all I hope is that I wake up alive tomorrow. In two days I’ll be flying off to Kuala Lumpur, in seven days I’ll be back in Singapore, and in nine days I’ll be flying off to Tokyo.
If anyone told me five years ago that life could take me to so many different places in such a short time, that I would meet so many new people and have such vastly different experiences, I would never have believed them. But now, I can believe anything. Because life is truly unpredictable, and everything could change in an instant. You just have to know how to enjoy the ride.
I completely, totally, 100% agree with your last paragraph. Life is crazy unpredictable and the decisions that seem to be the least “important” are often the ones that change your life. I’m tempted to do a post like this now
Ditto here.
It’s really freaky to think about the past in terms of all the places we’ve seen and been… Funny that, I recently wrote a poem called Wanderlust.
Those must have been some crazy 5 years for you – so many different people, and so many different places. Reading your post makes me want to reflect back on my past 5 years as well
Wow, you’ve done a lot in the past 5 years! That’s awesome that you’ve been to so many different places. I agree; life really is unpredictable. Just have to take things as they come and enjoy it as much as you can