This Strange Thing Called Life: The Real Journey Was The 500 Sunrises I Ignored Along The Way

Well, well, well… here we are again. Time for a quick update on my wildly fascinating life. Please, try to contain your excitement.

Let’s rewind to the golden era of 2020—when the world lost its mind, and we all collectively decided that baking bread and panic-buying toilet paper were legitimate hobbies.

While some were perfecting their banana bread recipes, I was out walking my neighborhood. Obsessively. Obviously.

Why, you ask? Three solid reasons:

1. To stretch the legs during the time of quarantine and remote work. Because sitting for 12 hours straight is apparently “bad.”

   
   

2. To ensure I was a finely tuned ninja—at one with my body—ready to sense the dreaded disease before it sensed me.

   
   

3. To keep this temple (aka my body) in top-tier condition, so that if the virus did dare challenge me, my immune system (already held together with sheer willpower and duct tape) would obliterate it.

   
   

Anyway, thankfully I caught nothing. Not even the flu. Because I was basically a hermit with a Fitbit addiction.

And because I don’t do things halfway, walking became my entire personality. 6 km in the morning. 6 km in the afternoon. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. For FOUR. FREAKING. YEARS. Rain? Shine? Polar vortex? Didn’t matter. I was out there, bundled like an arctic explorer, while my ever-helpful (read: nosy) friends and neighbours chimed in with, “Are you okay? This isn’t normal.” Wow, thanks, Sharon, I had no idea my obsessive tendencies were showing.

Then, a few minutes ago, I discovered hiking. And naturally, the inevitable happened: boredom. Turns out, trudging the same loop in a zombie-like trance for four years gets a bit stale. So, I did what any adventure-seeker would do—went full epic quest mode. New places! New experiences! Blah, blah, blah.

Unfortunately, as I have repeatedly (and at this point, borderline aggressively) pointed out—I’m still shackled to a job like some kind of responsible adult. Disrespectful. Rude. Truly criminal.

So my grand escapades are cruelly confined to weekends, while mid-week, I begrudgingly drag myself around the block for a single, uninspired pity lap..... Maybe.

And now, we arrive at the real reason for this blog—yes, there’s an actual point to all this. After years of casually stomping past them in a half-conscious haze, I’ve finally realized (during my one surprisingly productive lap) that the sunrises in my own neighborhood are insanely beautiful. Like, 500+ missed opportunities for jaw-dropping shots I could’ve captured with my barely competent photography skills.

Sure, it’s probably because the suburbs are more polluted, but still—insanely beautiful? Yes.

But no. Instead, I spent the last year convinced that I had to scale mountains and almost sleep on literal rocks just to witness a sunrise. Because that makes total sense.

Anyway, I’m sure there’s some profound, life-altering theory that fits this whole mess perfectly.

A theory, a meme, a quote—something to tie this absurd little predicament into a perfectly gift-wrapped package of wisdom from which we shall all emerge enlightened.

Because I imagine the lesson here is something poetic—like “Don’t ignore the beauty right under your nose.” But, naturally, all I’ve managed to come up with is “I should be paid to be at one with nature and write snarky blogs.”

And if that fails? No problem—I’ll just live off the land. Who needs a stable income when I can hunt my own breakfast and negotiate rent with a meerkat? (Pretty sure that’s how the whole “off the grid” thing works.)

So, if you’ve got anything more profound than my wild delusions, drop it in the comments—because I’ve been carrying this blog like a one-person moving crew, and frankly, it’s time you freeloaders did some heavy lifting.