When I was writing this post a year ago today, I couldn’t have imagined how it would change my life. I wrote it out of frustration, forgetting for a moment — or not caring — that as a CBC radio host, I am not allowed to publish my opinion. Also, my employer would very much prefer that I not drop f-bombs wherever I go. My bosses didn’t care much for the angry tone, either, to be honest. At the time, I was super happy in my role as a CBC radio host.

But after I pressed publish, after the post was shared hundreds of times, and viewed tens of thousands of times, after I was reprimanded and disciplined for breaking the journalistic standards and practises, after I confronted the strange and discomfiting feelings of having broken the rules, and the equally strange and opposite feeling of having done nothing wrong, I had to think deeply about where I was, and where I wanted to be.

Being a public radio host is a dream job. But it’s not my dream job. I am and always have been a writer. Writing is my dream job. And more and more over the past year I have chafed against the strictures that prevent me from sharing my opinion. Less and less I have been happy — let alone super happy — in my role as a CBC radio host.

This day last year I said what I saw needed saying. I said what was on my mind and in my heart to say. I thought of myself only as human, not as human-with-public-job. Thanks to everyone who read what I wrote and responded. Thanks for the wind in my sails that also helped blow away the fog that surrounded me.

This day last year I did something I have never once regretted, though I got in trouble, though I lost my sense of myself for months afterward, though it led to me making a plan to leave a job I loved. This day last year I put my foot along a path that has now opened widely before me. I will not be looking back.