33

   It was 33 years ago today at about 7:40pm at Campbell River General Hospital that I took my first breath of air, and all these years later I'm happy to still be breathing. I've got to say my 30's have been good to me so far.

   I've done more with my life in the first 3 years of my 30's than I ever did with the last 5 years of my 20's.

   I changed careers. I spent pretty much all of my 20's bouncing from one customer service job to another. I even did a 4 year stand at a call centre for a big American cell phone company and lived to tell about it - though I still cringe every time I see one of their commercials on TV. While I learned a lot from each of those jobs and made many, many great friends along the way, none of those jobs turned out to be as rewarding as I initially hoped they would be and often left me feeling like something was missing in my life. So, I left that industry right before my 30th birthday, took some special training and safety courses, and now I have a very rewarding job in the trades that I actually feel happy telling people about. (Trust me, that call centre had such a bad reputation that when I told people where I worked they would look at me as though I just told them I had a terminal illness and tell me they were sorry to hear that. It's true!)

   I moved home. Growing up my family often moved back and forth from BC to Alberta and I've actually spent most of my life in Alberta, but BC was always home to me. My wife is also from BC, and after about 9 years of living in Edmonton we both started feeling really homesick. So, in 2007 we packed all of our worldly possessions into a U-Haul truck, bid tearful goodbyes to our friends, and headed back over the mountains. We may not be living in my hometown of Campbell River, but Victoria is only a 3 hour drive down the Island. It's so much nicer to be closer to our families and, let's face it; the winters out here are so much milder than they were back in Edmonton. My job has given me the opportunity to work on so many different projects around Victoria that I really feel like I've become a part of this city. "I painted that!"

   I got married. Sure my wife and I have been a couple since meeting in high school and that was centuries ago, but in 2008 we decided to make it official by tying the knot in a beautiful and intimate barefoot-on-the-beach ceremony in Oahu, Hawaii. It was the happiest day of my life. Actually it was the happiest week of my life. I consider myself a pretty lucky guy to have someone like her in my life and to this day wonder what I did to be worthy of such an amazing woman.

   So what's next for my 30's? Well I don't really know for sure, but if the next 7 years are anything like the last 3 years I can imagine there will be some big changes. One thing I can say is that my wife and I are planning on becoming home owners and not just renters, so let's hope that happens. Other than that? Well the future is wide open.

   Before I go, I'd like to give a special greeting to my very good friend Jennifer who is also celebrating her birthday today. We've known each other for a few years now (four-five?) and in that time I've come to think of her as one of the nicest people I know. It's amazing how comfortable we are talking with each other about practically anything and our online chats on MSN can and will usually go off in all different directions. Maybe I should start saving them and posting them as blogs... So to my friend Jennifer, have yourself a very happy birthday and I hope you get spoiled rotten. You deserve it!

Now I'm going to go enjoy my day. Have a great day, my friends!

The Wandering Oak