Single Life

Dear blog,

I hope you are not feeling neglected. I have been negligent in fulfilling my New Year’s resolution to write to you more; I have been busy preparing for my Olympic adventure! Please forgive me. I may be taking a blog-hiatus for a few weeks while I live out my bucket list!

There, now that that’s out of the way….

Although I spend a lot of time on this blog venting about all the things that suck about being single (and there is a lot of material on that!) I do, every now and then, try to focus on the advantages that come with this way of life as well. I was recently reminded of one such advantage, when I spontaneously decided to tack on an extra week to my Olympic adventure, and spend some time visiting a friend of mine in Hawaii. Vancouver is already half-way there, and so I figured – why not? I have the means, I have the vacation time, and I have the desire to do it (really, who doesn’t have the desire to go to Hawaii). Sure, there were plenty of reasons I shouldn’t – can I afford to take three more days off work after already taking three weeks? Is there other things that I should be spending/saving my money for? (Even though I got a very good deal on the flight and it was cheap relatively speaking, it still set me back a bit). And logistically, can I pack for three weeks in Vancouver followed by a week in the tropics?

But in taking a page from The Buried Life – who knows where we’ll be tomorrow? Sure I might be able to go to Hawaii another time, but maybe not. So when these kinds of opportunities present themselves, I’m learning that sometimes it’s best to throw caution to the wind a little bit, and just go for it. That’s not to say I agree with spending money frivolously or doing things without considering the consequences, but spontaneity is the spice of life! And I never want to look back and think “What if?” I doubt I’ll get back from Hawaii and wish that I hadn’t decided to spend a relaxing week on the beach. One of my favourite lines from RENT goes: “Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No day but today.”

Of course, being single makes ‘being spontaneous’ a bit easier to execute. No other person’s plans to consider, and no finances to worry about but your own. At the same time, sometimes I find myself questioning whether or not many of the assumptions I made about my life when I was younger, will actually come to fruition – so I feel this need to sometimes act impulsively, for fear that I might lose opportunities and experiences that in the past, I’d foreseen happening under different circumstances. Many of my friends are in the marriage/house-buying/baby-making stage, and travel is a rather low priority at this point in their lives. So, who knows how long I’d have to wait before someone wanted/was willing/was able to take a trip like this with me? I never used to be a spontaneous person, but in the last few years, I’ve started looking at life a bit differently….

I truly believe that the only things certain in life are death and taxes; no point waiting for something that might never happen. “Get busy living, or get busy dying” – as ‘they’ say. And, travel is something that is really important to me; whether it’s a weekend away to someplace I’ve never been to or an overseas trip abroad, I think it’s really important to see life beyond the ‘bubble’ that we live in each day (I have my Contiki experience to thank for that outlook). It’s a big priority for me while I’m still living the single life – I have plenty of time for all the other grown-up stuff. And because I’ve already filled this post with philosophical quotes about life, here’s another one I love: “The world is a book. Those who do not travel, read only a page.”

So, I leave you with the wisest quote of all: Just do it.

The Buried Life

I have never really given much thought to having a formal ‘Bucket List‘ in my life. However, I think everyone has a mental list of things that they’d like to do/experience at some point before they die and for me, going to the Olympics was probably one of the things I’ve had on my unofficial bucket list for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure I even thought I’d get to do it in my own country, and I certainly never dreamed I’d get to participate in the whole thing. It feels great to be able to cross something like this off my ‘unofficial’ list, and now I can’t stop thinking about the things I’m going to want to do next. Again, this is where being single certainly has its advantages – I’m free to explore and act on my bucket list with no one holding me back…

MTV has recently started airing a show called “The Buried Life“, about four university guys who have set out to complete their bucket list of 100 items. For every item they cross of their list, they help a stranger cross something off their list as well. If you haven’t seen this show, and even if you wouldn’t include yourself among the ‘MTV generation’, I seriously recommend checking it out (you can watch the episodes commercial free online – note: this links to MTV Canada). I find it completely inspiring, and it has certainly got me thinking about creating my own official list now that I’ve actually been able to cross something off it. And although going to the Olympics is not that much of an unattainable goal, the sheer happiness of having done something on my list is momentum enough to keep going. As one of the guys says in the first episode: “Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’!”

I looked up why these guys wanted to call their show “The Buried Life” – turns out, it’s because of a poem by the famous poet and critic Matthew Arnold, who I actually spent some time studying in university:

But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course…

Wise words indeed….