Dedicated to Tram: As Time Goes By

This post, my avid readers, is dedicated to my friend Tram Nguyen. (Yes Tram, after all this time I can still spell your name without any hesitation!) She's heading back to the big city today and even as we parted ways, I could tell she's having some trouble with the prospect to returning to the heartless, faceless metropolis. I'm writing here to tell her (and subsequently you all who have ventured to my site for a read) why she's going to be okay and give some insight to what she can do to get out of this rut.

Tram, you're going to be just fine. I cannot repeat it enough. You've gone further and accomplished far more than you think you have and you should be very, very proud. You live in one of the most beautiful (and might I add, extremely earth-friendly) capitals of the world and I want you to be sure you're experiencing all of it's glory. On the flip side, make sure Calgary is experiencing YOU. That's right, YOU, glorious, beautiful you! Getting out into the city and being involved in the community, it's cliche but it's resoundingly true. Even if it's something small like taking a stroll in a park and picking up a couple pieces of trash, it COUNTS. And you're the kind of person that feels great when the things you accomplish count. Feel great! You deserve it!

And I know you're really feeling like you haven't connected with anyone down there. I'm here to tell you that it's perfectly FINE. We're nearly 21 years old! We have successfully survived the social Everest that was High School and have emerged better, brighter and more beautiful the other side! Having accomplished being teenagers in society's institutionalized playpen, we have earned the freedom to enjoy and experience life WITHOUT having to report to teachers, parents or even friends. Let me clarify that last bit: We aren't bound to our playpen friends anymore. In school, we experience a psychological need to hold on to our friends because (as Garth has always taught us) we feel that our friends reflect who we are, that our identity cannot possibly be anything else if we didn't have them. While this has a lot of truth to it, the immature us takes this a step too far, hence that sense of loss, confusion and misdirection that young people feel the first few years out of high school. Thusly, what often takes an older, wiser member of society (or a lucky and insightful friend ala Me) to point out is this: Give yourself a chance to live, and to live on your own. Test the waters. Taste the wine. Insert appropriate cliche here, whatever you want, bottom line is: This is YOUR time!

To finish I'll recite what is quickly becoming one of my favourite quotes:

"It takes a lot of courage to let go of the familiar and seemingly secure to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting; For in movement there is life, and in change there is power." -Alan Cohen

Tram, no matter where you go, be it up here in Yellowknife or down in Calgary, as time goes by, change will come. Welcome it, embrace it. Letting go of the "familiar and seemingly secure" is inevitable, but that certainly doesn't mean you are to forget all of it. Move. Live. And remember, you'll always have friends to pull you down if you fly too close to the sun.

~Vickie