I don't think I'm unusual in that, in my 20s, like many people, I felt invincible.

I swung from one place to the next, sometimes backward, sometimes forward, capitalizing on my own momentum, knowing that at some point my arms—or, more accurately, my quivering bank balance, accessed through foreign ATMs—would give out, and I’d fall to the ground.

I am so proud to be a Canadian.

I've realized that the world is, in essence, full of banana peels - loaded with things that may unwittingly trip an internal wire in my mind, opening a floodgate of fears without warning.

I have watched lives change. I have seen women gain confidence.

Friendships that don't fit my life anymore have faded away, and new ones have come in.

In my version of paradise, the air was always cold and the rivers ran with candy.