The Writing and Photography Blog of Kevin J Sabo

The year continues to fly by.

It doesn’t seem possible that we are well into the first week of September already, yet here we are.

I’m not going to lie, the past few months have flown by way too fast. I can’t believe that I have been staff at the paper for over ten months already. In that that time I have covered a lot of stories, taken a lot of photos and generally learned a lot about the job and myself.

My publisher looks forward to the new year as with the changes I have made and the coverage I have provided in both the communities I cover both the publications I write for will have strong submissions for the Alberta Weekly Newspaper Awards in 2023.

While there is still a few months between now and then, I do have my own benchmarks to look forward to. The end of September will be two solid years since I was last in hospital and Nov. 1 will be a year since I joined the paper as a staff writer. Both are incredible milestones that, to be honest, I never thought I would approach.

Five years ago, when I was still in the depths of my darkest post traumatic stress depression, staying out of the hospital for six months to a year seemed like a feat. Working full-time seemed like an impossibility.

Fast forward to today and the challenge I face is slowing down. There never seems to be enough time for everything I have on the go.

Work. Photography clients. Church activities. Boards. Photography workshops.

I’ve had a lot of things keeping me on the go. The wild thing is, instead of being overwhelmed by everything I have going on, I am feeding off them, being energized them.

In some ways, I feel like I’m developmentally delayed, that the experiences that I am having and feeling now are those that I should have had in my twenties and thirties. Instead, during those years my mind was shattered, fragmented nearly beyond repair.

Even when I was functioning, I wasn’t living. I feel like now that I am getting into my forties, my mental health is settling and I am actually living. It is a novel experience, and one for which I am grateful.

Kevin