The year of rapidity: 2022.
2022: a year in which I started learning how to ski; tried ice climbing for the first time; learnt some avalanche safety skills; trained with an adult climbing team; went home to Australia; watched my cousin get married; was reunited with some of my extended family; went on countless hikes; camped a bunch; and did a heck of a lot of shooting.
This year has been as abundant as it has been tumultuous. As the world began to open back up after the pandemic, life began to move extremely fast. It swept me off my feet, and I am looking forward to much-needed time off during the holiday season to be able to catch my breath.
Towards the end of last year, I met a wonderful person. Time with each other felt easy, joyful and free. We grew very close very quickly, and we spent most of the winter getting to know one another. Now, over a year later, it’s as if we’ve known each other half our lives. It feels vulnerable to open myself up to love and connection again. I am learning how hard it is for me to trust, and with that awareness, I am doing the work of learning to trust—not only trusting another with my strengths and vulnerabilities, my hopes and my fears, but also learning to trust myself.
In the spring, I was finally able to return home to Australia to see my family. It rained the whole time, but it was wonderful to be back after nearly 5 years away. It was bittersweet to realise that home didn’t feel like home any more. A couple of weeks after returning from Australia, I was on a plane again—this time to witness my closest cousin get married, off the coast of Vancouver. The ceremony was held in a forest full of maples, on a private property in a remote island where they spent months building and creating everything for their wedding day themselves. We thought of Tita Julie a lot that day, feeling her presence in the forest, and in the sunlight that appeared despite the forecasted rain. It was special to be able to have spent so much of spring with family, after years of being apart.
Then it was summer—a season which, for me, always involves a lot of hiking and camping. I was grateful for the spontaneous weekend camping trips I was able to take this year, as well as our backcountry trip to Skoki. Summer seemed to last forever this year, with warm temperatures gracing us right through to October. We took Autumn on countless hikes to see glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, larches and more, many of which stretched beyond 15km round-trip. It’s been so rewarding to see her grow up.
2022 was my busiest year of bookings as a freelance photographer & graphic designer. I found myself consistently busy with side projects alongside my full-time role as an in-house creative. It’s really exciting to see my career in Canada gaining momentum, and to feel as if I have produced a lot of work I can be proud of. In my early years of moving to Canada, I stepped away from my professional goals in order to better focus on my mental and physical health and gain clarity on what I truly wanted out of my life. It has only been in recent years (since getting permanent residency) that I have started focusing on my career again, and this year, trying to balance the lifestyle I’ve made for myself in Canada as well as my career proved to be a challenge.
I put a lot of pressure on myself to give 110% to everything, always, but it’s an approach that has proven to be unsustainable time and again. After pushing through an extremely busy season at work and a series of rapid changes & challenges in my personal life, I started going through burnout & depression in early fall, from which I am still attempting to recover. So, in these last two weeks of 2022, my focus is to rest and recuperate; to turn towards joy; and to march towards what’s next, hopeful and determined.
