The perfect time might never come - and that's okay

I think it was about 2012 or 2013 when I first gained an appreciation for travel. I was still quite young but I would say it was around that time period that I decided I wanted to eventually see the world. In 2012, I was in my senior year of high school and had befriended a really cool Bosnian girl that was a junior at the time. We became bestest of friends since we were able to bond over our shared eastern European backgrounds and soon enough, we were spending most days together.

I didn't know many other Europeans back then and felt like I was losing a part of myself and my heritage by not being friends with any other alike individuals. But alas, along came my Bosnian friend and overnight, my sort of emo sounding music taste turned right into the unce unce of EDM. I loved being around her because I felt like I was understood and could finally be myself fully around someone that could relate (and that wasn't family). She re-introduced me to the music that shaped my upbringing but that I left behind in trying to assimilate to the Canadian way of being in 2008. I was far too young to understand that I could still like EDM and be Canadian too. I thought that in being Canadian, I had to listen to a whole lot of the music that the other 12-17 year olds were listening to, or at least the ones I was hanging out with (Alexa play music by City and Colour, Abandon all ships, A day to remember, Hedley, Simple Plan).

And so, my friend introduced me to Tomorrowland - the biggest EDM festival in the world. From 2012 onwards, Tomorrowland has been a dream, a bucket list item that I hoped I would one day get to experience and live through in real life.

In the years that followed, I lost sight of the travel dreams I had. I was preoccupied with pursuing higher education and since I wasn't working, I didn't really have any money to my name. I knew of a lot of people who pursued their education abroad but unfortunately, my parents did not have those kinds of means to send me abroad too. Hell, I couldn't even afford to move to Toronto, let alone Europe. I didn't really mind though because I loved my university experience and all of the memories made along the way. Everything happens for a reason right?

I finished my undergrad in 2017 and that was the first time I really considered picking up my old dream of travelling. I hadn't been back to Romania since I left in 2008 and I figured that having completed a degree and with no life experience, I might as well go back to my roots and really explore my heritage. I was still young though and fairly naive. I spent two months abroad and only saw parts of Romania, Bruges in Belgium and London, UK. I'll tell you one thing - if I had two whole months nowadays, I would be able to see all of fricken Europe. I will blame my lack of initiative on being young, dumb and naive though. That being said, I had one hell of a fun time during those two months. Like I said, everything happens for a reason right?

Fast forward a few more years, I began ignoring the travel bug yet again. I started thinking that travel is much more fun if done with other people and I started spending time and losing time on waiting for someone to join the ride. Before I knew it, a worldwide pandemic hit and I couldn't go anywhere even if I wanted to, despite not having gone anywhere literally since 2017. When the freedom to travel got taken away from me, that's when it really hit that I needed to stop wasting my life waiting.

Waiting for my friends to join in, waiting to have more money, waiting for the perfect moment to come along. The truth is that the timing will never be perfect and anything can go wrong at any point in time. That's just life and if you try to fight the waves instead of learning how to float around, you might drown.

So I said fuck it. I started booking trips while sitting in front of my desk at work. I started telling my boss about it once the flight was already non-refundable and he had no option but to let me go. I booked a couple of weeks away with only $100 in my account cause that's what credit cards are for right? Money will always make their way back but these wasted years will not.

Here I am at 28 years old wanting to reach 30 countries before I turn 30 and only being halfway through that journey. Here I am realizing how much time I let get away from me and precious years where I could have seen the world, all because I was either too naive, too broke or too caught up in my own head to realize I could do this all on my own.

It might be over a decade later but, this year I am going to Tomorrowland Brazil. A month from now, I will make the 2012 Cez proud. I will finally go, I will finally experience Tomorrowland.

If you take anything away from this, let it be this: you will never be this young again. You might not even live to see old age. While this isn't meant to be pessimistic in any way, you truly never know what tomorrow brings. If you were to be gone tomorrow, would you be at peace with what you have accomplished? Would you have wanted to do more, to be more? Don't let life pass you by because you think it isn't the right time to do something because in all reality, the right time might never come. Make imperfect, perfect by simply choosing what you ultimately desire and live your fricken life to the fullest.