I want to live in a city with no friends and family
I want to look out the window on my colour TV.

I live in the city now, a subway ride away from the downtown core. The house itself is literally seconds from the subway station. I share the house with four others, all of whom are still in school; three guys, another girl and me. It is starting to feel very much like home, which is astounding considering I am hardly ever there. The house is upwards of 80 years old; the floor in the hallway next to my bedroom creaks when I walk on it. I worry about it waking up the girl across the hall because I'm on the night shift.

Independence comes with a whole new set of worries. I work the afternoon/evening shift now, starting at 3 p.m. and finishing around 11. I get home just before midnight (it's still a shorter commute than I used to have). My internal clock and I are not on speaking terms. A co-worker started giving me melatonin. I took it four times and am now trying to never take it again. It makes me sleep so soundly that I wake up feeling as though I haven't slept at all. I am only on the night shift because I'm filling in for a full-time employee who is recovering from some sort of surgery. I work alongside two other full-time employees. Together, we cover 16 hours. When the three of them work together, they alternate the shifts every few weeks. But a casual employee such as myself can get stuck with the night shift forever.

It's nice to be employed, of course. Do you know that I was just finishing high school when I first logged on here? Do you have any idea how old that makes me feel? That's not old, of course. There is nothing old about 22. That is, there is nothing old about 22 until you've realized that Joan of Arc accomplished more than I will in my lifetime (I might aspire to great things, but I certainly won't have time to save France) and if I were her, I would have been reduced to ash three years ago.

There's nothing like a martyred French heroine to make you feel insecure. 

This past week marked 11 years since my family moved to Ontario. That means I've spent half my life here. 

It's so easy to get caught up worrying about where your life is going that you miss it as it passes you by. I leave for Europe in just under six months. In fact, in exactly six months, I plan to be in Vienna. I ultimately decided to give Ireland a miss this time, mostly because it is the country I am most likely to return just to see. It will always be there, of course.

I've been stressed out lately. I think it's work-related. My love thinks it's homesickness, which he's astutely reminded me is not really a feeling but a condition. That may be the case, but I'm not really sure. The other thing about moving is the new experience of being asked whether I'm going home for Christmas. I am, of course, but I've given little thought to how much time I'll spend there and when I'll go back to the house I live in.

I threw out my old diaries a while ago. I only mention this because one of them was a black hardcover journal given to me by a friend some years back, when we were first-years in university (freshmen, as some of you call it). The front was adorned with the mother of all Albert Camus quotes: "Live to the point of tears."

I never understood it.

Living to the point of tears may be an emotionally sublime experience. It may also be unpleasant, as it implies crying an awful lot. And frankly, I don't find crying an awful lot to be all that pleasant, even though it happens more often than I'd like to admit. I was always more fond of another quotation that appears in the same line of quotation-driven books, magnets and coffee mugs: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined."

But my dreams, they aren't as empty
as my conscience seems to be.

It took me 20 years to realize that life is about more than whatever job I end up doing. I wish I was more sure of that today, as I work somewhere I've always wanted to work but I'm not sure about the job they have me doing. It was sort of thrust upon me, you see, after they sort of half-asked me whether I was interested in being trained on it. Suddenly, I'm on the night shift until someone else is sufficiently recovered to get back to work. We may be talking six months here. Yes, the money's all right. Yes, I'm a recent university graduate who should be taking what she can get.

Three friends/former co-workers are heading halfway around the world to work at a startup English newspaper in Dubai. They are three of the most adventurous people I've ever met (clearly, otherwise they would not be dropping everything and moving to Dubai). I wish I was that adventurous. The mere fact that I'm going to Europe for two weeks is uncharacteristically adventurous for me. My parents are suitably nervous about it. I don't imagine they would be able to handle me packing up and moving to the other side of the world too well. They were non-plussed about me packing up and moving to the city. They have learned to deal, provided that I call on a regular basis and come home every so often for dinner.

I did, you know, want to pack up and leave town. I was so discouraged after my post-graduation job hunt that I started dreaming about packing up and starting over somewhere else. And do you know what kept me here? Love. It is not that we couldn't handle a long-distance relationship. I know it can be mind-numbingly difficult but we are strong and what we have is strong and I don't doubt that it could work. But given the choice I honestly do not want to be away from him. And he said the same thing.

Love's funny. 

Is this the life I imagined? Did I ever imagine living in a Victorian house with four people, two of whom I don't know very well? Did I imagine working late nights on a job I never expressed any interest in and only tepidly agreed to be trained on because my highers-up seemed to be desperate? Did I ever imagine only getting to the gym twice every two weeks because I wake up on the weekends and I'm just so drained? Did I? 

The truth is that I honestly don't remember what I used to imagine. When I was a kid I wanted to be a variety of different things. I'm not sure I don't want to be any of those things. I'm not sure what I am. I am not even remotely aware of what my dreams were. I used to want to be a journalist, but I am not a reporter. I can write but I am not a reporter.

And somehow that got me a job as a backfill code monkey.

Life, like love, is funny. This is not something I would have imagined. But when I think about it, I do sort of remember the life I always wanted:

• I imagined being a kick ass nerd. (Kick ass is in the eye of the beholder. Check.)
• I imagined owning lots of notebooks. (I love my Moleskine. Check.)
• I imagined owning lots and lots of sweaters. (Never made one, but check.)
• I imagined being in love with someone who accepted me for who I am. (Double-check.)
• I imagined being happy with myself and not caring too much about what others thought about me. (Check on the former. The latter is less true than I'd like to admit.)

I also imagined living in a highrise, but I imagine there's time for that. There's time for a lot of things.

On Saturday I made myself toast with crunchy peanut butter and a cup of tea. One housemate and his girlfriend sat in the living room, writing essays. I settled myself in at the kitchen table next to the window, the sun streaming through and onto that month's Wired.

There's time for a lot of things.