I should've graduated university this year, but I didn't.

I graduated high school in 2011, meaning that I would've just completed my final year of university this spring.

At 18, I had a plan that had two paths, two options, and two very different potential outcomes: I was either going to attend an internship at UrbanPromise Toronto, or I was going to attend York University to study French.
Comparable to many 11 year olds waiting to get their letter from Hogwarts, I waited for my acceptance letter to university. While I waited, many of my friends received the letters that came in the big envelopes, you know, the ones that spell out 'Congratulations' right on the front cover? Yes that was what I was waiting for...Eventually, I got envelopes too - they were just much smaller.
Good thing I had Plan B, right?

Well, to my knowledge, Plan B is still out there somewhere...it just wasn't the plan B for me.

Somewhere in the middle of my applications to UrbanPromise, I came to the conclusion that I should go back to high school for my victory lap; a second chance to get better marks and try the whole university thing again. After a tumultuous year of adventure and trial, I made it to the end of June with an acceptance letter and a small package of confetti from Brock University.  I knew very little about the process and even less about what I was getting myself into, but it all worked out and two months later I moved into my dorm and set sail on the beginning of what I thought would be my next four years.

Eight months passed, and I'm not sure I had ever been so miserable. The moment I realized maybe this wasn't for me, I was on the phone with my friend Sara expressing my feelings of inadequacy between sobs. She reassured me I'd be okay, and that I could in fact handle the mess I had made. I made it to the end of first year, unsure if the uni life was what I wanted but based on the friends that helped me move back to Brantford that summer, I knew that no matter what I was anything but alone.

I spent that summer soul-searching and summer studenting for Freedom House; which is essentially the same thing - believe me, at 2am serving burgers, your true self comes out whether you want it to happen or not.

I decided to give university a second try that fall...let me just put it this way for you: if you'd like to know how to blow $9,000 very quickly, I learned how that year!

I fell, and hard. But I'm not any less of a person for it, and I've no less potential as a result.

I think if I could leave you with anything, it would be to remember that plans change - you change. But life goes on, and there's always something better coming up, most of the time you just don't know it.

I'm back in school now, studying social work -- a subject matter I should've been studying from the very start. And maybe would have been if I had just followed my heart. Because quite frankly, as cheesy as that sounds, those things you like have been put inside of you for a reason.

I may not have learned the easy way, but I learned in the end that what we think are the best laid plans aren't always best, and the biggest chances we take may leave us flat on our face. One way or the other though, I hope we're brave enough to try.


I should've graduated university this year, but I didn't -- and that's okay.