WELL, THAT WAS FUN: A DECADE IN REVIEW
Always a sucker for an arbitrary moment of significance, I thought it would be fun to look back at the past decade as we turn our calendars over to the 2020s. And I have to say, it was not too shabby. Read on for a year-by-year recap of my personal best of the 2010s.
2010
I feel like 2010 was a pretty significant year for me. After grappling with a lot of big life questions in my early 20s, I hit 25, embraced my inner millennial, and decided to basically blow up my life. I closed down a business I had owned for 5 years, took my meager savings (and my credit cards) and set off to spend a summer in Europe. It was the quintessential “basic b sets off to find herself through travel” moment but hey, it worked. I had the time of my life, proved to myself I was capable of more than I thought I was, and came home more than broke and ready to change up my life. I decided it was time to take risks and go after what I really wanted instead of checking the standard life accomplishments off my list.
Major highlights from the year:
- I closed my salon and gained an incredible amount of freedom
- I spent a summer backpacking through Europe, including spending 2 weeks on my own abroad for the first time. I only had a few embarrassing moments… a couple of which you can read about here and here
- That fall, my parents and I planted 2 acres of Haskap berry bushes in one of my first attempts at trying something different
2011
As my mission of do-what-you-want-and-not-what-you’re-supposed-to-do carried over from 2010, I decided to start university classes in 2011. This came nearly 10 years after I had graduated high school but going to university and earning a degree was something I had always wanted to do. So, rather than being rational and taking training in a high-demand field, I decided to major in what interested me – International Studies. Right off the bat, I LOVED being back in school and learning again.
Major highlights from the year:
- I started university and had to learn how to learn all over again
- We traveled to Mexico with a group of friends and got a taste of resort life
- I ran my first (and so far only) half marathon
2012
Seriously, what even happened in 2012? I think I was still working and going to school part time but I have very little recollection of what was happening in my life in general.
Major highlights from the year:
- We traveled to Belize with Mark’s mom and had some awesome experiences like exploring caves, floating rivers, and climbing Mayan ruins
- I recruited my nephew to my running habit and we ran our first 5K together
2013
2013 is in the same boat as 2012 – I don’t even know what happened. More work. More School. It’s all kind of a blur.
Major highlights from the year:
- We traveled to St. Lucia and stayed at the cutest little rental property where we enjoyed days of snorkeling, hunting for waterfalls, and enjoying a quiet beach in a secluded cove
- Mark decided to impulse buy a boat (because why not?) and started us down the path that would lead us to fully embrace #lakelife
- I ran another 5K with my nephew
2014
This was a bit of a bigger year for me. Up until this point, I had been working part time and taking mostly online classes, but in 2014 I decided to quit work and go to school full time. This meant spending a significant amount of time in Saskatoon and making the hour+ trip back and forth to home multiple times a week. This was also the year that Juno entered our lives which certainly shook things up a bit. Despite the craziness, I managed to get a couple trips in and continue my annual running events with my nephew.
Major highlights from the year:
- Juno came barreling into our lives
- We traveled to Honduras where we took our PADI certification, hiked to a waterfall, and broke into a grocery store
- I ran a 5K and a 10K with my nephew
- I traveled to Montreal, Toronto and Niagara Falls (also with my nephew), where he talked me into riding bikes through the streets of Montreal, standing on the glass floor of the CN Tower, and a few other things that the scaredy cat in me was a little reluctant to do.
2015
2015 brought more of the “new normal” that was our life with Juno, full time school, and being away from home a lot. Our travels kept us a little closer to home than usual and we didn’t make any international trips that year. For the most part, it was a lot of highway driving and gorging myself on popcorn while studying.
Major highlights from the year:
- Traveled to British Columbia for some family time
- Ran the 5K Foam Fest with my nephew
- Took in the Calgary Stampede for the first time
2016
2016 somewhat unintentionally became the “year of the north” for us as Mark talked me into the idea of him buying a cabin on a lake in Northern Manitoba. A place that had truly become one of my favourite spots to be. We also traveled to the Yukon and Alaska that year. As someone who was constantly dreaming about her next tropical vacation, this was an unexpectedly pleasant change for me. This was also the year that I FINALLY completed my university credits nearly seven years after I started my first class.
Major highlights from the year:
- We bought the cabin and made plenty of trips back and forth that summer
- We traveled to the Yukon and Alaska where we road tripped, hiked, explored, and spent 5 days on the Chilkoot Trail.
- I completed my university classes (though I wouldn’t officially convocate until 2017)
- I started this blog at the very tail end of the year
2017
2017 brought a major shift in lifestyle as I went back to work after completing university. I enjoyed being at home more but also remember putting a lot of pressure on myself to figure out what came next. I spent a lot of time learning about blogging and tried my best to settle into a routine. I really started to embrace my love of the outdoors and focused a lot on how to work more of that into my life. It was also the year of solo adventures for me, as I did my first backpacking trip alone and traveled to Mexico alone.
Major highlights from the year:
- I had a paper published in the U of S Undergraduate Research Journal
- I became an ambassador for Hike Like a Woman
- I traveled to Mexico solo where I met up with an old friend from my 2010 Europe trip, swam in cenotes, and explored ruins.
- I officially convocated with Honours
- We got a lot more time in at the cabin
- I completed my first solo backpacking trip in Kananaskis
- I started my second website, Women Who Paddle
2018
2018 was shaping up to be a pretty great year for us. I had lots of adventures planned and I had fallen into a fairly comfortable routine of working part time and working on my websites from home the rest of the time. In April, a routine checkup at the vet threw a major kink in our plans as they discovered a heart murmur in Juno. What we hoped was a harmless condition quickly turned serious and after multiple vet visits and tests, we learned that Juno had advanced Dilated Cardiomyopathy and Chronic Heart Failure. She deteriorated quickly and only six weeks after that initial appointment, we found ourselves making the decision to end her suffering. By this point, Juno and I had become a pretty inseparable duo and I took it hard. While we still managed to fit in some great experiences, the year was soured by her loss.
Major highlights from the year:
- We spent three days paddling the Chief Whitecap Waterway on the South Saskatchewan River
- After agreeing that we would wait to get another dog, we couldn’t stand the quiet house and welcomed Izzie into the family just a couple of months after losing Juno
- I did a backpacking trip with family in Kananaskis
- More cabin time
- My article on backpacking solo was named a Finalist in the Best Adventure Travel Story category of the Outdoor Media Summit Awards
- I won a Scholarship for the Engage storytelling course through HMI’s Share Better Stories initiative
2019
2019 was a bit of a whirlwind year for us. I changed jobs, we added puppy number two to the mix, I traveled a bit, I landed my first freelance writing gig, and we moved. I ended the year feeling quite content and am excited to see what 2020 and beyond will bring.
Major highlights from the year:
- We decided we wanted Izzie to have a playmate and thought we’d get the puppy stage over with, so we welcomed Gus to the family
- I traveled to Palm Springs with a friend where we hiked in Joshua Tree National Park, wandered the streets, and tried our best to test out every restaurant in the city
- I had an article published in Impact Magazine
- We spent two weeks living the #vanlife with two puppies. We road tripped across Western Canada, spent some quality time with family, and backpacked a section of the Sunshine Coast Trail
- We moved from our house in town to an acreage
Since I have a horrible memory and an even worse habit of not journaling consistently, I’ve likely missed a lot of important things from the 2010s here. This list is mostly based off of whatever made it onto my Facebook feed and into my photo archives. Because of that, this is also very much a highlight reel of the decade, rather than a reflection of what an average day looked like.
This recap may make it look like all I do is travel, write, run 5Ks, and acquire puppies – but please know that there were plenty of boring days, tough decisions, self-doubt, uncertainty, missed opportunities, tears, fear, and anxiety thrown in there as well. I suppose that comes with the territory in any stage of life, but I suspect even more so since this decade covered the second half of my 20s and first half of my 30s (did you know that having a quarter-life crisis is, like, a thing now?).
Anyways, I still wanted to share this because
a) how often do we really take time to look back and reflect on where we thought we were going and where we actually went, and
b) it gives a little perspective as we move into the next decade and a reminder that all those days and decisions add up to so much more than the sum of their parts.
I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunities and adventures that I’ve been lucky enough to have. Overall, it was a great decade.
So what’s next? I think one of the biggest lessons I learned this past decade was that you can’t plan, scheme, and control your way through life. Setting goals and making plans are important, but we rarely end up where we think we’re going. Allowing room for the unexpected and letting ourselves go off-course every now and then are just as crucial.
I have no idea what the next decade will bring but I suspect it will include a lot of things I couldn’t dream up right now even if I tried.
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