Once upon a time. There was a boy. This boy wasn’t the most unique boy. He wasn’t an odd boy. He grew up in a normal family, had two older sisters; Jori, this is not a short version of Jordan, the older, and Rachel, the younger. As children the fought the normal amount. It was usually between his sisters. At least that he could remember. He grew up in a hamlet. Smaller than a city, not quite a suburb, outside of Edmonton. Sherwood Park. He had so much energy, and positivity, he couldn’t stay mad for long. He was an extrovert, happy in friends, school, church, everything. He was content. Life was good…

There was a boy at the age of ten whose family packed up and moved renting their house to a family friend. They flew. From Edmonton to Vancouver, Vancouver to London, London to Nairobi. It was a new experience, scary but exciting, having no friends. Arriving in Kenya being picked up in the middle of the night by a school bus. Being driven in to Whispers ave, to the Carline house. They called it the Carline house because the school his dad worked for was renting it from a family. The Carlines. They didn’t live in a dirt or mud hut, nor metal shack, as many do in the ‘shanti towns’ as Vincent would say. They were delivered to a house with high stonewalls with broken glass cemented to the top. The house was divided, his family on the bottom floor, and a Chinese man on the top floor. They lived there for a year walking from there in the morning to school, it was only about a twenty minute walk. Over time he grew, in faith, height and friendships. The next year they moved on the school campus. He grew closer with friends and family. He learned to love reading in Kenya. He always was making up fictional fantasy or futuristic universes. He and his friends would play games of trying to survive and inevitably conquer. It was so much fun. There he learned to love making stories, and worlds; he found a love of geography and history. He became more alive than ever. He went to a summer camp two years, it was amazing. Life was good.

But though it was good. It didn’t last. His eldest sister graduated and went on a gap year. And his other sister was going to graduate, and his parents decide to move back to Canada where they could help their daughters settle into university. So slowly friends began to grow apart. And eventually they left and moved back to Sherwood Park.

Back in Sherwood Park they arrived but didn’t settle. His dad didn’t have a job in town so they knew they likely wouldn’t be able to stay. He searched and didn’t find one for a while, it was a stressful time. Soon before school started his dad found a job.

A school in Calgary had hired him. So, he and his dad moved to Ardrie in his great-uncle. They drove from Ardrie to the school every morning, every Friday evening they drove up to Sherwood Park, every Sunday night they drove back to Ardrie. In November they bought a house and moved in.

Over the summer he worked at Camp Chestemere and now he is writing this about me. So this is it: