everday is a new chance

I came out here with nothing. Sitting in the throat drying, eye-stinging confines of the Edmonton airports smokers lounge this thought hit me. I was already in a sufficient amount of emotional entanglement from tearing through Douglas Couplands Hey Nostradamus! and now I had this on the brain. My parents offered to buy me a book so I could occupy myself during the obvious airport waiting periods. I chose a Coupland book; hold on to Vancouver as long as the journey permits. I could’ve selected City of Glass and shown the people here some pretty pictures but I didn’t. I wanted street names.

You can start over. It’s going to be so good for you. I’m really jealous man. All the standard good luck salutations were thrown at me left, right, and, center from relative and friends alike. Now that I’m here I cannot help but wonder if I am living up to these bon voyage banalities. Sure the girls on my floor love me for my O.C. recitation skills and the guys from New Brunswick down the hall are eager to educate me on the merits of Chris Farely. Sure I’ve gotten laid. But am I really doing as well as I should be?

This brand of paralyzing self-doubt is covered territory. Should I have stayed in Vancouver? I had enough friends to accommodate any penchant, be it dive bars or mountain ranges. I had a solid foundation both socially and scholastically. And now I have nothing, clean slate and all.

This is not to say being foundation-less is without benefits. There are fewer commitments to other people, giving me the freedom to wander from Black Sheep viewing to volunteering at the Halifax Pop Explosion as I wish. Still, this type of freedom is a little unsettling. The onus, more than ever, is on me and I am a little frightened by it.