My Wish to a Shooting Star

By Jenny Wilson

Last Sunday night when I was driving back to Toronto, I was looking up at the sky and saw a streaking greenish light. At first I thought it was a plane, but then it disappeared, and I realized that I had just witnessed a shooting star! I just saw a chunk of space rock burning up in the atmosphere hurtling toward the earth. Obviously my first thought was ‘ well that was cool’ and then I realized that I got to make a wish.

Who knows if this is actually a real thing? Odds are that it’s not real and nothing will happen, but I was not about to let it go to waste, just in case. So I thought about it. What do I wish for? A shooting star is rare, so it’s got to be good.

Things in my life are kind of coming to a crossroad right now. I have two weeks of school left, and then I start an internship. I still have to make the decision on where I’m going to intern and for how long, and I’m really scared of making the wrong choice. After my internship is done, that’s it. It will finally be time for real life and a real job. Where do I want to be when I start real life? I’ve pondered over this for the past few weeks—or months, and I’m still not 100% sure.

Earlier that same day I started looking online for editing jobs. Started planning for the future, and I opened my search up to all of Canada. Honestly there isn’t anything that’s keeping me rooted to one particular place. Sure I have my friends and family here in Southern Ontario, but I’m ready to be a little adventurous. Needless to say, I found a job that caught my eye. At first I clicked on it because it fit most of my search criteria, and then I read the whole description. It sounded amazing and the job was something that I could really see myself doing. I almost immediately pictured myself in the role. The only catch— it’s in Ottawa Valley, and they want the hire to start in May. That doesn’t give me much time between a six-week internship and then picking up my entire life and moving to a new place—again.

Surprisingly, moving doesn’t really scare me. Maybe because it’s not real yet, maybe it never will be, but I’ve decided that this is something that I really want to do. The job itself is an editorial position at a paddlesports media company and getting to work on content that I’m interested in every day is all that I could ever ask for. The only downside is that it’s so far away but I think I’m ready for a new adventure. Everyone always says you should travel while you’re young to experience new things and make life exciting. I want that, and I want it while I can still get it. So while I may have let my imagination get the best of me this week, it’s not a daydream that I want to keep bottled up in my head. I want to make it a reality.

So as I approached the stop sign before getting on the highway, I had to pause to think about my wish. Would I be practical, or would I go for it? Obviously I can’t say, because then it might not come true, but you should know that whatever I wished for would change my life in a big way. Now I just have to wait to see if shooting stars really are magical.

Cheers.

— Jenny