Hello there! Charlie’s my name, and I’m a full-time student in my second semester of the Child and Youth Care program at Fleming College. I’ve always been a charismatic, on-the-go type of person. I’m sunny, spontaneous and creative, and when the weather is warm, I’m hardly ever indoors. I’m passionate about so many things – food, music, the arts, cosplay, games, nature, people – you name it. The thing that I am most passionate about, however, is humanity itself.
Part of the reason why I enrolled at Fleming to be a CYC practitioner is because I know what it’s like to need one. Sparing the gritty details, I was once a kid with some big questions and concerns, and nobody to answer them.
Through certain circumstances, I met my first CYCP in public school, who also happened to own a café downtown in the place I was living at the time. They were a kind and generous person, and I remember the interaction we had on the first day that we saw eachother again after I had moved away to another town; as it turned out, they often traveled to different school districts and did activities with young people to promote wellbeing and mental health. So, years after we had seen eachother for the last time at my public school, here they were again, teaching breathing exercises in my grade eight class!
Once the activity was complete and they were preparing to leave for another class down the hall, I caught their attention and began a conversation. They were just as wonderful as I’d remembered. I always thought very fondly of them and the way that they spoke to me as if I were a real person, and not just a small child with nothing to say about anything. I had no idea that, after all these years, I would be training in the same field!
Next came high school. Oh, man. My horizons started narrowing as my focus shifted, grades dropping fast and I couldn’t find the reason for it. I jumped from interest to interest, one career path to another and no results to show for it. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and my mental health became a pressing issue more than it ever had in my life.
Halfway through senior year, on the edge of eighteen, I met my second CYC. They were bright (and very fashion-forward, I’ll admit) and just as sweet as the practitioner I’d met before. We sat together once about every other week in their little corner room at the guidance office, and I remember that after a few months of interaction, I hit one of the lowest points of my life – but a point that would also thrust me into the right direction, having me stare my future down with no means to look away. I was graduating soon, and I had no idea what I wanted to make of myself. The only guarantee in my life was that I was about to finish school; I could go anywhere I pleased, but for extenuating circumstances, I couldn’t continue to live at my family house. It was in one blinding moment of self-realization, sitting in that chair in the corner room, that I came to know what I would become. Now, I am here, entering a passage into my personal e-portfolio so that I might continue on to my second year of schooling, one step closer to re-entering the world with a brand new lens.
One of my greatest passions is humanity. I can’t get enough of social interaction; the possibilities for relationships are infinite with so many people globally, every one a unique soul with individual feelings and individual stories! Have you ever taken time to think of just how extraordinary the world can be if you only think bigger than yourself? Bigger than the roads, the cities, the governments, even the atmosphere that shades us from the eternal blaze of the closest star to home? We humans are truly amazing beings, but terrifying and awesome as well; our influence on others around us can be the difference between life and death, rest and war, possibilities of futures we only dare imagine and a wasteland mind, devoid of hope and choice.
I have a love for people that runs deeper than I can yet fathom, and it drives me to create the positive change that I want to see in the world. I am privileged enough to know a world that is peaceful and kind, and it pains me to know that a great many on this same Earth do not. I dream to help all others in my life and those I have yet to meet, but I know that this is a dream that is far too big for my view as of now. My hope is that, some day in the distant future, I can say different, possessing an influence on the lives of others that will bring nothing but good.
