30/08/2026
I used to think this was just a little blue book.
A place for stamps. A record of where I've been. A requirement for airport security.
Something you tuck back into the drawer until your next trip.
Now I know better.
It is possibility wrapped in a navy cover.
It is the quiet privilege of crossing borders with relative ease while knowing so many people spend years, sometimes lifetimes, longing for that same freedom.
Every time an immigration officer smiles, stamps a page, and says,
"Welcome."
I feel immense gratitude.
Not because I earned the country I was born into...but because I recognize the gift it is.
Because the truth is, only a small percentage of the world's countries enjoy the kind of freedom to move through the world that we were simply born into.
In so many ways, being born Canadian is like winning the geographic lottery; to me anyways.
I didn't earn this passport.
I was simply lucky enough to be born somewhere that handed me one of the world's most powerful little blue books.
This passport has carried me through medieval villages, beneath cathedral ceilings, along winding rivers, and into moments that have forever changed me.
It has carried me closer to my son's dreams and closer to my own and somehow strengthened our bond across space and time.
So today, I'm grateful for the little blue book that fits in my hand......and for the country that made it possible.
Some freedoms are so ordinary, we forget they're extraordinary until the world reminds us otherwise.
Anyone else bummed that passport stamps are about to become a thing of the past?
❤️ 🇨🇦