Life with julia

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the different, changing seasons we have in life, similar to the four seasons we experience in the Northern Hemisphere. With each of the four seasons, you get very different weather patterns depending on what month of the year you’re in, which means you’re often making very different choices in life. Iced coffee in the summer, hot coffee in the winter. It means during one season, you’re donning all the knitwear you own and stepping into your warmest boots. In another season, you’re wishing you could rip off all the clothing you have on because you just can’t seem to cool yourself down. Different seasons. Very different choices and behaviours. I’ve been thinking about how we also move through very different seasons in life. But unlike the weather, we can be in very different seasons of life individually, at the same moment. My season…

In Paris last week, I had the chance to check out the Berthe Weill exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie. She was a female art dealer who made it her mission to champion the new generation of avant-garde artists – Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse, Amadeo Modigliani, just to name a few – by giving them a platform to further their careers. She had been introduced to Pablo Picasso after he had newly arrived in Paris from Barcelona. She immediately began buying his work, and was a huge catalyst for his future success. One of the paintings on display as part of the exhibition was Picasso’s “The Blue Room”, which is a 1901 oil on canvas painting that he painted during his renowned Blue Period. Seeing it hanging on the wall that day instantly stunned me. I distinctly remembered the last time I had seen that same painting in-person, which was…

If I had to pick an adjective to describe my life up until this point, I’d choose the word ‘stable’. It’s not to say that I haven’t seen the world and that I’ve always lived the same type of day, repeatedly. Rather, I’ve gone through a lot of change over the last few years, and I’ve collected a wide breadth of experiences in life. But all those changes have felt, for the most part, stable and calculated; the foundation under my feet always felt sturdy as I was moving through the changes in life. Choosing where to go for school, picking Singapore for my exchange destination, starting my career and transitioning into each new role at work, packing my bags to move to the US for two years – every move in my life felt strategic, like a game of chess where I could see how that move would benefit…

I did my first ever hiking trip earlier this year with two of my old roommates. In 7 days, we covered the Grand Canyon South Rim, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Antelope Canyon, and Horseshoe Bend, averaging 9-10 miles of hiking each day. I fell in love with hiking on the trip; I loved not getting notifications on my phone for the entire hike, I loved the focus on putting one foot in front of the other and staying on the trail, I loved being under the beaming sun for hours. And it goes without saying that I loved the view. There’s something so special about the Type 2 fun – in the moment, it’s exhausting and your muscles might be screaming, but once you’re done, you always feel this intense joy and sense of accomplishment. Since that first hiking trip, I’ve done a few more hikes: one…

I moved back to Toronto two weeks ago, officially concluding my 2-year Cincinnati chapter in life. Kelvin and I were on the road for 12 gruelling hours – him driving a 15’ UHaul truck solo, me driving my Mazda 3 Hatchback solo – and since getting back, it has been non-stop moving and unpacking as I rushed to get my new life set-up. On Monday – just over 3 days since getting back from Cincinnati – we put our progress at 95% done. Aside from a new dining table that we were waiting on and some more miscellaneous sorting, my new apartment was set up. We looked around at the unit and thought about just how impressive that was. A week prior, in Cincinnati, we were seeing friends for dinner and going to the movies. A week ago, I was 100% still in my Cincy life. A week later, I…