They say the average Canadian lives at home with their parents until they are 27. This means that for everyone who left for the last time at 20 like I did, there's someone else who stayed until age 34.

I heard some of my colleagues at training talking about undergrad students in our program who were in their early 20s doing their first degree; they were talking about them in 3rd person and as though it was an unusual phenomenon. I found this odd. It is a small program and a professional degree, but it's a BA program that would certainly have great appeal to people of suitable talents. Then one of them mentioned that she'd been playing her musical instrument for one year less than I've been alive. I reacted with surprise because I hadn't realized that she was older than me, but when I told the group my age they were surprised that I had fallen into a career at such a young age, and that I have my own apartment at such a young age.

One of the training people mentioned to me that one of my colleagues has known that they wanted to work in this field since the age of 18. I thought back a bit, and realized that I was first drawn to this field at age 16, when it was mentioned at a university recruitment presentation and it hit me - "I could so do that!" The person I was talking to was even more shocked by this news.

Now I know that I've landed here more through a series of strokes of luck than through any planning or goal-setting or merit on my part. I know I'm not in my lifelong career, but rather doing what I'm going to do until I figure out what I really want to do. I know that one or two different decisions by various people I've met would have put me somewhere far less comfortable.

What surprises me is that other people are so surprised that I've managed to land on my feet. I know not everyone does - and there's certainly no shame in that, life is difficult and complicated and I haven't figured out how to handle it myself - but I've always thought what I've done is simply what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to decide what you want to do in high school, study that in university, graduate, get a job and an apartment. The grownups have always told me that this is what you're supposed to do, and then they're surprised when I do it. If it's so rare and unusual that people are surprised when your life unfolds this way, why is this what is expected?