COMPLETED. A university student. A professional hockey player. They've proved they can be friends. Can they be more?
Although they're both in their early twenties and living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, their lives couldn't be more different. Cami...
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I wish I could say that my defining characteristic is that I'm so beautiful that I was scouted at an airport when I was fourteen to model in Milan, or that I'm so charitable that I spend my weekends making sandwiches and handing them out to the homeless. I'm neither of those things, but what I am is early, all the time, for everything.
Doctor's appointments? I'm in one of the plasticky, cushiony chairs thirty minutes before I'm called.
Lectures? My laptop is opened to a fresh Word document fifteen minutes before the professor opens her mouth.
Family functions? Only five minutes before the start time, because the less small talk I can get away with, the better.
The irony isn't lost on me, then, that the one time I really, really want to get somewhere early, I'm late.
It wasn't even that I was late, it was just that the bus came early. By two minutes, to be exact.
With my bus tracking app open on the phone I was carrying in my hand, I knew that my speed walk was cutting it close, but I expected to make it on time. When I saw the bus whoosh by the empty stop one hundred feet in front of me, I pretty much just stopped walking. I had fourteen minutes and forty-eight seconds until the next bus came and was only a minute away from the stop - what was the rush?
As annoying as it was to sit on that small uncomfortable bench, it was probably a blessing in disguise, actually. Those fifteen or so minutes seemed like the first time in the past few weeks that I was able to slow down. Until that moment, my life had been a stressful series of deadlines and due dates. It was the second day in December and my grad school applications were due in three days. I worked tirelessly, writing and rewriting and re-rewriting my personal statements until the first draft and final draft shared only three words in common. My email stayed open on my laptop as I refreshed constantly to see if my professors submitted my reference letters. After a few reminder emails, they were all in. Just as I was about to submit my applications, I had a mini freak out that lasted for five minutes. Were these the right schools for me to apply to? Should I have applied to more? Should I have even applied at all?
Forget it.
I told that little voice to shut the hell up and pressed submit. Done. Done. And done. That made it official. This time next year, I was going to be in either Winnipeg or Toronto or Vancouver. I didn't know which location was my ideal one, but I'd cross that bridge when I'm offered a spot. If I'm offered a spot.
Getting my grad school applications submitted felt like I had finally put down a boulder I was carrying around for months, only for me to pick up a different but equally heavy one, because I still had this school year, this semester in particular, to finish.
Classes finished this Thursday and I have two exams in the second and third week of December.
