This was basically the biggest thing that changed my life. Growing up in a small oil mining city in Northern Canada, I didn’t really think of myself doing absolutely crazy things. I was surrounded by easy six-figure jobs (not such a bad thing) and aside from some small travel plans, didn’t really think much else.
But yet, something kept gnawing at me. Something deep within me said I needed to get out. I needed to explore the possibilities of life and really test myself. As a relatively shy kid with no real plans for life, I didn’t know what to do.
Then one day, I decided that I should move. Not because I didn’t like where I grew up but because I wanted to start fresh. I didn’t want to be held back by the social stigmas I had in the town I grew up in. However, I needed another reason to leave and so I applied and got accepted into college, which was something else I thought I would never do.
Although financially it probably wasn’t a good idea, starting fresh was the best thing I ever did. I decided to move to Calgary, Alberta, a much bigger city 750 kilometres South. Here I would reinvent myself and explore life’s possibilities.
I packed my 1992 Chevrolet Cavalier with clothes and a TV and hit the road for a long 8-hour road trip south. I spent the first couple of nights at one of my parents friends house as I searched high and low for an apartment close to SAIT Polytechnic, the school where I would be studying business for the next two years.
It didn’t take long before I completed yet another goal from my life list – Living in my own apartment.
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