amateur cartography

I’m sorry in advance.

I have to say this. I hate when people ask me, “so what do you do?” What do I say? I do nothing, I have no job, I haven’t graduated from college and due to an unfortunate landlord, I also live at home. Sound pretty lousy right off the bat. I often find myself jealous, envious, really, of every one of you out there that wakes up at 6 and goes to work everyday. All of you with your degrees, your great jobs, nice homes, just being put together and only a few years older than me. It is probably one of my biggest causes of anxiety, and I’ve even told you before, most of you give me a complex. Well, I’ve thought about it a lot lately, and I realized that, why do I even care? Not to knock you off of your horse or anything, but honestly, if I died tomorrow, I would have nothing bad to say about my life.

I’ve fucked up, trust me on this, I’ve fucked up my life more than you would ever believe, but I had fun. I did the normal high school life, I was a three sport athlete, honor roll, a cheerleader, was in all of the geeky clubs, and had a ton of friends, it was great. I went to a four year university right after, had a steady boyfriend, played college sports against very well known schools, and lived with friends that I had known since I was 5. Then things changed, whatever, things change. My boyfriend of two years hit me, we broke up, I started stressing out, and school got hard. I met this guy through someone telling me about the Chico Snow Club. I didn’t do anything in “the snow”, I had only been around snow once in my life. This guy introduced me to snowboarding and it changed my life. For the next two years, I didn’t go longer than two weeks without snowboarding, even in the summers. I made friends through snowboarding that you wouldn’t believe. It led to road trips all over the place, dropping out of college, moving in with some guys in Reno, and then taking off for the coldest place on the west coast, Truckee (continental United States). I’ve known what it’s like to be snowed into my house, what it’s like to hide from bears, have Olympians make me breakfast, meet people from around the world, learn bits Norwegian and Swedish to communicate with the people always flying across the world to sleep on our couch. I’ve met amazing people, and I’ve done amazing things. I’ve snapped both of my arms in half at work and still finished my double shift. I’ve been paid to snowboard. I’ve convinced people to move to California who still live in Truckee, and I haven’t talked to in months.

I moved to South Lake Tahoe and studied photography. What better place to take photos than Lake Tahoe? I’ve had teachers who hold photography jobs that are so awesome you have some of their photos in your house, trust me on this. I’ve built a darkroom in my backyard in a shack that was supposed to be used for wood. I’ve had a bear rip the wall of my shack off, and had to nail it back up only for the bear to come back the next day. I’ve lived in –20 degree winters for 3 years without a heater. I’ve had my toilet freeze solid. I’ve flooded my house and ice skated on my flood-frozen floors. After breaking too many bones, too many concussions and too many swollen knees, I settled down with snowboarding. I wanted to be apart of it still, so I got a job running the emergency room at the ski resort. I held a job at 20 that had only been held by people twice my age. I still went snowboarding everyday. I lived in a small one bedroom house with a big fat bear that sat on my porch every night eating my neighbor’s trash. I’ve put on art shows and film festivals. I’ve fostered animals, worked on ambulances, driven to Washington just to stop at all of the skate parks, drove to Mexico one night for fun, and puked off chairlifts. Most of all, I have had the most fun I believe I could’ve had in the past 5 years.
If I died tomorrow, sure I don’t have a degree, sure I’ve never had a “career”, but I can at least say that my life has been an adventure that most people I meet these days haven’t had.

This is amazing, and totally what life is about. Life is about living, not reaching the benchmarks set for us as “ideal” goals.
I’ve been meaning to say for ages: I’m very familiar with Truckee, because my family has a cabin right near by, in Soda Springs, that I’ve been going to since I was 4. And I live in Berkeley (except for when I’m going to school in Ohio), so it always warms my heart to see mentions of the Bay Area, or Truckee, or Lake Tahoe. <3!

Source: bailey