choose your own story

What's your path?

I use writing as a way to understand mine. During my 27th year, I wrote publicly and privately about lessons, change, hustling, and the power of positive thinking. This year I dealt with many unknowns, and navigated through some challenging times. I was tested in all areas of my life, both professionally and personally.

I can describe it as standing over a gleaming pool of darkness. You can't see anything beneath the surface, and you're equal parts enchanted and terrified. While daydreaming, you lose ground or you're pushed, and suddenly YOU ARE IN.

Your toes are snarled with hairballs and seaweed fingers envelop your waist. Your eyes are smudged from crying, because why wouldn't you be wearing mascara on your spiritual journey through a lake of sludge? You'll choke, and flail, and try to stay afloat, and just when you're about to drown, you'll find a way to kick back and look up.

You'll see a cloudless sky and it'll feel like the first time someone told you what the colour blue was.

The dirt will dissolve in fizzy black bubbles; you'll be clean again.

That is how I felt when I turned 28 last month.

This is what 27 looks like...

If someone asked my 13 year old self what I thought 27 looked like, I would have thought about the person I knew closest to that age, and decided from there.

I probably would have thought about a teacher, or a cousin, or someone I saw in a movie. We like to look at other people as an example of where we imagine we should, or could be. I know that by 27 my mom had me, and was close to expecting my sister. I know about the tragic musician's 27 club. I learned Ingrid Bergman was 27 when she captivated Bogart in Casablanca.

Why do we look to others as a comparison to where we stand?

I am entering the latter half of the party that is my twenties. It is like being stuck at a 10 year house party, where you enter thinking it won't be drastically different than your teens, and then you walk through the front door.

At the twenties party, someone is nursing a baby in a room upstairs, while another person is upside down taking tequila shots off a stranger. Someone is getting promoted, while another person is quitting their job to backpack across Thailand. One person is wearing a diamond ring, while the other is trying to find a hookup on an app. It looks quite different; for every stage, and for every person.

As I near the end of my twenties, I'm trying not to set goals that are attached to my age. For example, by the time I am 29, I should be here. Goal setting tied to age creates additional pressure, because if you fail to achieve a milestone by the target, there is a heavy sense of failure in that.

For example, a goal like: I want to be published by 30. What happens when I'm 31? Do all of my publishing dreams go to die in a 30 year old grave? Julia Child was 49 when Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published. If she decided that she was too old to become a chef, would her success have happened?

The important thing to do is to know yourself, and where you'd like to be, separate from people in your age range. Understand that it is always an internal struggle, not an external competition, or race.

Goals can be made at any age. Love can be found at any age. Education can begin at any age. Don't get trapped in believing that if you're not where you want to be when you blow out those candles, that you've failed. Another year is another shot to make it happen.

So this is what 27 looks like, and it's perfectly okay, because it's now.

Photo taken by Stefania Sgambelluri in Toronto, on April 19th, 2014 

New Weekly Mantra - On Handwritten Thoughts

There is something I deeply treasure about handwritten cards.

While getting 300 text messages can be equally as thrilling, there is something about reading the loops and swirls of a person's penmanship that lights me up. To the messages that recall 100 memories or the simple well-wishes, there is a traditional simplicity in the gesture. A consistency each year.

Last week, I ruminated about years gone and years to come; about self-reflection and personal growth. It was only afterwards that I realized that another year isn't just a reminder about yourself. It's about the accumulation of people over the course of a life.

For friends that I've known since I was 11, to people that I met last year; to a family so large and thoughtful that I really take for granted that not everyone has this kind of love around them. I realized through my gatherings (dinner parties, family dinners, extended family lunches) that the best gift I can give to the world and myself is daily gratitude.

This week's mantra (albeit a bit saccharine) is as follows:

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust

No matter what your position in life, practice being grateful. Count the people you care about (whether the number is 3 or 30) and silently thank the world that you have them. Better yet, write them a card (oh howwww cheesy, you may think) but it's not. Send them a card thanking them for being there. Send them the loops and swirls of your hand and pay it forward.

Or send a text. Just remember.

Quarter Century

When talking to my mother on the phone recently, I relayed my thoughts about turning 25.

She told me that every year, on her birthday, she allows herself one hour to sit around and mope. She gives herself this limited amount of time to reflect on the year and soak in any feelings of nostalgia or "broodiness" as she calls it. She says that this hour has nothing to do with getting old in a vanity context (you won't catch my mother crying about wrinkles or contemplating botox) but she says, it's more about reflecting on the process of reaching another age and the mixed feelings that can come with that.

Once the hour is up, she goes about her day, practicing gratitude for life and starting fresh. There is no moping or sadness or complaining after that. She gets on with it. 

While I'm turning a big milestone today I can't help but think about the things that lie ahead and behind me. I have been thinking about the responsibilities that come along with getting older and the pressure to achieve certain things. However, today I will try and focus on the new adventures that lie in front of me and believe that wherever I am today, is exactly where I should be. I will not compare myself to other 25 year olds (past or present) and make my own path towards something new. I hope that I don't even use my allotted one hour.

Above is my first gift from my parents: a new pair of "real woman shoes" as I call them and a classic Kate Spade watch.

Here's to another quarter. xx

20 Candles

My baby sister is 20 years old.

I remember when she was born. I was three and the doctor told my parents they were having a boy. The room was decorated (Sesame Street) and the name was picked (Johnathan). I remember my Dad pulling the letter "J" from the alphabet sticker border and placing it in Big Bird's beak.

My parents said I would threaten them everyday and throw mini tantrums because I was adamant that I wanted a sister, and I was determined to get one. My parents would exchange nervous glances. They had no idea how they would contain me when they brought home my squealing, squirmy baby brother "Johnathan" from the hospital.

Cue May 23rd 1990. I was sent to my grandparents house and we got the call. Confuzzled (that's a mix of confused and puzzled) my grandmother spoke to my Dad on the phone, "What? It's a girl?! How can that be?" she said.

When I heard the news I jumped up and down screaming, "I won! I won! I won!"

The prize? The best little sister a girl can ask for. Safe to say the "J" in Big Bird's beak was changed to an "M" immediately as per my request.

Happy Birthday Melba!!!! Love you xo

 

And *BAM* I'm 23

It's a new year for me.

A birthday isn't only a cause for celebration but a time of self- reflection on the days gone by and the moments ahead. At 23, I'm at a place that is completely different than where I was last year. I've learned a lot about myself this past year, probably more than I ever have and I'm ready to embark on a new adventure that I like to call "full-time-career-adulthood?" Well maybe not quite, oh the mid-twenties. 

My first real celebration was in Miami. We went to Devitos, Danny Devito's restaurant in South Beach. The food (Italian) was spectacular, and the service was amazing. We got free champagne, appetizers and the best birthday dessert ever. When I saw the giant cotton candy "cake" coming towards me, I almost burst into happiness flames.

Famjams as I like to call them, are also my favourite part of birthdays. This year I shared my birthday with a little special someone named Bailey. Bailey turned one (or seven in dog years) two days before my birthday. We even got him a cake (yup, we're one of those families). My sister also made me the most delicious red velvet cake with cream cheese icing as per my request. If I could, I would eat cream cheese icing on everything, every single day. But I won't, and you shouldn't either.

Lastly, I had a gathering Saturday night at the Drake Hotel. So many great people in my life attended and gave me the best night ever. This morning was not looking too great, but if you're feeling great post- birthday party, you probably didn't have enough fun.

Check out my best girl at the bottom left.

Lastly, I'd love to share my favourite birthday present ever from my amazing sister. She turned Not A Model into a book!!!

A big thanks to everyone who helped kick off 23. It's going to be a great one. xo