A year. Have I said that already? Cuz if I haven't, I've sure been thinking it for the past 35 days. That's 55 weeks, after you take out the 2 I spent in the States over Christmas and New Year's. Fifty-five 7 day weeks. Insane. A year.

What have I done in the past year? Don't I still haunt these same places? I have come full circle with the earth, my position to the sun now aligning with old activities and spaces. A year.

Like I felt in college, life back home must be on hold. People can do too much in one year, they can't be different, otherwise, what am I going to know when I get back? My sister Hannah is turning 22 in less than 3 weeks - she's going to graduate college before I get back and I left her in the middle of it. The weight of that age is staggering and it just took the wind out of me. Twenty-two is an adult's age.

I guess if we want to talk numbers, I'm 33% through my life expectancy. I only get double of what I've seen, and maybe a lot less depending on how I go.

Or maybe more. I could live to see 3 centuries. I'd have to be 117 to do it. Wasn't there this guy who just died who claimed to be in his 130s?

I'm decided to drop difference jibing. It ain't funny no more. Nobody appreciates it. Nobody who's traveled anyway. Difference jibing is only funny to those who have never left their insulating nest of ethnocentrism, most often found married to those who never leave their hometowns. I'm not saying that all people who stay home are like this, just that it's easy to stay comfortable and laugh at what's different when home and the people who are just like you are all you ever know. I've realized that now after a year of response from pointing out differences. It don't make a bit of difference if you call it soda or pop, read or yomu, ketchup or kechyapu - I just don't care anymore. We're all talking about the same thing anyway.

And Canada doesn't suck.

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