Everyone’s finding themselves. Why? I know myself. I’m a 24 year old unemployed ginger with a peculiar fondness for beards, and I like beer more than wine.

I want to lose myself. Escape the routine, the familiarity. Here’s my map for success.

1. Have a semi-traumatic experience, like being laid off from your career two days before your birthday.

2. Go on a two month bender dubbed “The Summer of Candice,” with highlights including hot tubs and homemade wine.

3. Have a certain amount of tumultuous love affairs with men ranging from 0-10 on the Douchebag Scale.

4. Buy a one-way ticket to a city of your choice.

5. Plan an impromptu, one-day roadtrip with a strange man you’ve only met two months ago for a few days. (Just kidding, Carlo. Maybe.) Also, a ziplining tour and water-park adventure with a girl named Steph you’ve only met last week and all her friends you haven’t met yet.

6. Don’t die.

I fell hard for Cape Breton.

Somewhere on the island of Cape Breton, after Markland Beach and the Highlands with its giant crashing waves and green hills and chirping crickets, zooming down mountains in a car rental and finding another perfect curvy landscape around the next corner, I might have shed a tear of happiness. A thousand miles from home, in a new setting where beer is only sold warm at the local Co-Op, hearts and fragile egos mend, and new beginnings…begin.

Seriously, despite the sunburned arm and the mosquito bites on my ass, I am so blessed.