Before and After

 We all have events in our lives that define our chapters. Life is different before and after that moment or that event or that person: the death of a loved one, making a new friend, graduating, moving from the east coast to the west. Sometimes these pages are turned without our even realizing, or they sneak up and knock us off our feet in the middle of living our lives. Sometimes, though, they're meticulously planned: the culmination of months of focus, the acclimation of a goal we set and strive toward with every bit of our being.

The latter was the case in July of 2020. 

In the midst of a global pandemic, my time had come. My life needed change, and I was finally ready to make it. 
But first, one last 'before that happened' mission: show me the Alberta prairie. Show me canola fields and abandoned farm houses, and show me that big. blue. sky.

She happily obliged.

There are things in life you never expected before they happened, and things that you never expected to miss after they're gone. But I've learned that life is not about expectations at all, but about the now, and that the only thing that exists in the past and future are the categories: the before and the after.