Something funny is happening to me. I'm all of a sudden deeply intrigued by my surroundings. I have a suspicion that - dear God, no - my English class is actually having an affect on me. It's all those American authors and their damn nature. About how it's silly to want to travel to "find yourself", because the majority of us aren't even familiar with the world around us. Why discover yourself overseas when you can discover yourself right here, right now.

I've been incredibly observant. I stare at trees and they're just so beautiful. Every sound I hear, every person I see, every shadow, leaf, squirrel, even the blocks of cement...this is where I live, I'm here, I've always been here. These things have always been right in front of me and I've never taken the time to really look at them and realize, hey...this is Vancouver. I was downtown a couple of days ago, one of the clear, crisp sunny days. I went to the Rock 101 radio station with two of my friends to pick up a CD one of them had won. It was on the 20th floor of a building, and I realized as I was going up that I don't think I've ever actually been to a 20th floor of any building, ever. This was right downtown, and there was a huge window in the waiting area. J and I looked out the window and I just thought, "holy shit". It was spectacular, seeing it all at once like that. I can't even put it into words what I felt, it was as if I were seeing something for the very first time even though I've always been there. We walked around for a good while, to visit one of our dad's in his towering office building, and inside were a bunch of rich engineers. Engineers with Masters degrees from UBC, people who had done something with their lives, and now they're in the middle of it all, part of rush of downtown business and people and excitment and just...everything. The core of the city, where things are always happening. I thought, this is a part of life that I've never experienced before, never even been exposed to. These are the people who work to make things...well, work.

I got this very distinct feeling that I was very, very young. Foolish me, all this time thinking "I'm 20, I'm so old, and I'm not doing anything with my life". I'm only 20. Sure, this is the time to start doing things, but it's also the time where I start actually stepping out into the world and really seeing it. I feel young, naive, immature, like a little kid being led around by her mommy in the big city, staring up at the shiny buildings and feeling scared of the mass amounts of people walking by me, in front of me, beside me. There are so many people here, they're everywhere, they all have their own lives, their own jobs, their own children. I'm such a small part of this city, and yet it isn't making me feel depressed...it's making me feel the need to be a part of it.

I want to start doing the things I've always wanted to do. Things I thought "that would be sooo cool" but you know, I didn't actually plan on doing them. I assumed I just couldn't, but I really can.

That day I was downtown, I wanted to do everything. I wanted to walk around forever, I wanted to go into every single store, I wanted to discover the parts of town I'd never ever been in. The Downtown Eastside is such an important part of Vancouver, and yet I've probably actually been there maybe twice in my life. Because it's dangerous, it's scary, it's not where kids should be wandering around. It's where you'll get raped - that's what I was always told. Not in those words, but that was the general jist of it - girls don't go down there, ever. I've been to Chinatown once, in Grade 7 on a school trip when we were studying China. Oh, and Cody and I went for a night market type thing one summer night. I'm finding it disturbing that I live here, and I haven't even seen it all. How could I have lived here for twenty years already and never seen it?

I got a taste of this last year, when I "discovered" Main Street (I wrote about it in this entry). I felt alive, like I was suddenly a part of this whole "Vancouver" experience. I lived a sheltered life growing up in the suburb I live in. J even made a comment downtown, when we almost got into 8 car accidents and then ran across the street as if it were our death wish, and then later got momentarily lost..."Yeah, we're from Richmond". I call myself a "city girl", and I am maybe compared to someone from Saskatchewan, but I'm not as smart I was always thought I was. Taking the bus from the mall to Downtown and shopping on Robson for an hour, and then - all by myself! - taking the bus back home isn't so "city girl" anymore. There is so much more out there. I'm such a baby.

Being a baby at this is just part of what's happening to me right now, though, and I'm loving it. I'm seeing it all right now, and I'm old enough to appreciate it. If I'd been exposed to it all when I was 8 years old, I don't know if I'd be having this renewed sense of what it means to be alive, right here, right now. Everything to me is so beautiful, so amazing, so breathtaking. I walk around UBC campus and I cannot even believe the beauty. And so many students are walking to class, to learn something, to do something with their lives, to be exposed to things about our world and society they just never knew...the entire concept just makes me want to cry. It's all so good. Life is good.

<< || >>