The people I have met.

Life is compromised of small moments that make up our journey. It is often said that success and happiness are in the journey, not in the final destination. From a young age, we are taught to look towards the future. "Where do you want your life to be in ten years? Five years? Six Months?", many have asked. I personally used to fixate on the future and plan everything in my life to a tee, in order to ensure that I would make it to the future that I wanted. The happiness that I wanted. Every step of the way, I had planned out. I have learned through hard lessons that not everything is going to go our way in life. That when we have a plan, it will be turned over, broken apart, and changed. A year ago, I would have never planned to be where I am, I would have never planned that I would be the person I am today or feel the way I do. Life is in the journey, in the people we meet along the way, in the experiences we have.

I say this because today, I spent the early hours of the morning, at our new community rinks. They are small pond hockey rinks that anyone can go to and access the game of hockey. With bitter cold temperatures, my fingers, and toes were very frozen. Many would think that waking up at 5:50 to go and freeze your fingers and toes off just to play hockey would be miserable. That wasn't the case. I spent the morning with people I love, playing the game that I love. Not much was gained from this early morning skate, no skills were honed in and no agility gained. However, I believe that every time that I step on the ice, with all ages, all skills, all persons, I am lucky, and should be happy and feel success in my journey. I am in awe of the people that I have met along my journey of playing college hockey. Reminiscing yesterday, a good friend of mine and I realized that we had known each other for almost eight years, but it feels like it was just yesterday that we were meeting for the first time. I have met people along my journey that make me grateful every day to be where I am, and thankful that I have made the choices I have made, just so that I could meet them and hopefully impact their journeys as positively as they have impacted mine. I have felt more love, more kindness, and more pure joy from the people that have impacted my hockey career than any other aspect of my life. Everyone has hard days, but if we never have hard days, our best days wouldn't be as special. Today, in the bitter cold, it was enforced in my mind that my journey has been made special by the people in it. Today, as I looked at the people I was skating with, I admired their journey. Unique in their own ways, but just as important and special. I admire what they have taught me; strength, courage, humility, caring, kindness, and love. All of which have impacted my view on the world.

I have realized over the last year that not everything is going to go as planned, life brings about challenges and opportunities for us to overcome and to learn from. I don't know where my future will take me, maybe to more hockey, maybe to an amazing career. The one thing I do know is that no matter where my life takes me, I will always treasure the people that I have met, and will meet. They have impacted my life more than they will ever know, in more ways than they could possibly imagine. Although my year was plagued with hardships and difficulties, I have learned that whether or not I obtain the future I want, I am obtaining the future that was destined for me. Today, I could have looked at my morning skate as brutal because of the temperature or lacking in substance because it wasn't a team practice, but that wouldn't be spinning negatives into positives. That wouldn't be positive to the people around me or my mental self. I was doing what I love and there can be no negative to that. Where I will be in ten years, five years, and six months, one can only guess. I know, however, that I will be with people I love, doing what I love, and understanding that everything can be looked at through a positive light