My coming of age was during the tech boom. I saw the introduction of home internet - the sound of dial up will forever be recognizable - and was going through high school during the dot com bubble. It was the time of ICQ, MSN Messenger, Napster, LimeWire, Hotmail, Google, and later on, the invention of social media. It shaped the ideas I had of a dream career; I was going to run my own tech startup by the time I was thirty. That didn't happen (and I'm not mad about it).

Two and a half years out of university I found myself wondering, "is this it... is this life for the next forty years?" I was working in the field of ocean automation/robotics as a systems integrator, living without roommates for the first time, driving a new car, and had a bit of cash to enjoy nights out with friends. I had checked off everything on my early list of goals, yet something inside of me felt there had to be more for my life.

One day, driving home from work, I felt particularly lost and unsure about what steps to take next. As I mindlessly flipped through radio stations, a song began playing, and something about it struck me right away. I don't know what it was about that song but it hit me immediately. Hit me hard and gave me all the feels. I looked it up when I got back to my place and found the music video. As I watched, I couldn't hold back the tears. It was clear to me something needed to change. The next week I told my boss I was leaving and we made a plan to wrap the project I was working on. Six months later I hit the road, ready to explore.

I traveled for a year, completed an event marking program, worked for a music festival, worked for startups, went back to an engineering job, moved cities (more than once), switched jobs, went to grad school, dropped out of grad school, lived at a ski hill, became a software dev intern at thirty-seven, went back to grad school again, dropped out again. Always searching. Always longing.

Fast forward to today. Today I'm working remotely in a role that I actually enjoy, at a tech scale-up with a cool culture and great people, in an interesting industry, with plenty of flexibility and time off, and solid compensation. The cherry on top is that the feeling of longing is starting to dissipate. Somebody pinch me.

So have I made it? I think so.

Is there still room for improvement? Of course. Are there still areas for growth, dreams to chase, adventures to explore, all in many aspects of my life? Absolutely. However, right now I am in one of those moments in time that I'd love to hold on to, to freeze the clock so it lingers a bit longer. Because, as we all know, nothing in life is permanent. The good times or the bad times. New opportunities and new challenges will be presented. New highs will rise, new lows will drop.

But let's not think about the future just yet. For now, I'm going to stay in the present and savour it as long as possible.