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Ambiverts Unite!

I read an online post a while ago about the challenges of parenting as an ambivert. I had never heard that term before but apparently if you’re a mix between an introvert and an extrovert you’re an ambivert! I had a complete “hallelujah” moment. For years I’ve been taking quizzes to figure out whether I’m an introvert or extrovert because I never felt like I fell squarely into either camp and my quiz results were always mixed.

The definitions of all three personality types are:

Introvert – a shy, reticent person

Extrovert – an outgoing, overtly expressive person

Ambivert – a person whose personality has a balance of extrovert and introvert features

According to www.learningmind.com: “To simplify it, an ambivert is a person who has both introvert and extrovert qualities and may bounce between the two.  Sounds a tad contradictory, right? It can seem that way sometimes, but honestly it’s more of a need for balance. The ambivert loves social settings and being around others, but we also need our solitude. Too much time on either the introvert or extrovert side will make us moody and unhappy. Balance is the key for us ambiverts!”

If, like me, you get invited to a party or social gathering and you instantly have mixed feelings about it you might be an ambivert. You don’t know which personality will be dominating your life on that day. Will you be feeling social and itching to get out of the house or will you be so deeply invested in sitting on your sofa for a Netflix binge that it’s going to take every ounce of your emotional strength to get you out of your door?

This dual personality can be puzzling to those who have it but it can also be confusing for your family. Sometimes when I’m with my children I’ll be in complete fun mom mode and will be laughing and joking one minute and the next I’ll feel emotionally drained and will need to find a quiet space for a while. I can tell it is a little jarring for them and I’m sure they discuss “Mom’s crazy mood swings” amongst themselves when I’m not around. And as for my husband…well he’s been muttering to himself for 26+ years about my moodiness so he probably figured out a long time ago that I have a split personality!

Personally I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being an ambivert. I love going out and socializing and in fact at times I crave social interaction and seek it out. But I also enjoy my own company and am happy to spend time alone, writing or reading or watching a movie. To me it’s a pretty good balance and while it doesn’t always work out that I’m in a social mood on the day of a social gathering, I get by.

Whatever your personality, whether you’re an introvert, an extrovert or an ambivert or whether you think these terms are generalities and don’t define who you are, it’s still good to know what does and doesn’t work for you and how your mood swings might impact your interactions with family and friends. I’m more mindful now of whether I should be accepting invitations to socialize when I’m just not in the right frame of mind and I’ve explained to my children that when my mood switches suddenly it’s not because they did something wrong – mom just needs a little time out to restore the balance. I’m an ambivert and that’s OK.

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We all know at least one. The cool mom who has an edgy mystique about her. The mom who wears skinny ripped jeans, a cropped leather jacket and (oh-so-cute) ankle boots like it’s NBD. The mom who talks about all her creative projects, her bracelets jingling as she runs a hand through her effortlessly tousled hair. You really want to hate how cool she is but she’s such a damn rock star. And in your mind you are her or at least aspire to be her.

I was cool once. In my late teens I was pretty ‘alternative.’ I hung out at nightclubs in downtown Johannesburg wearing my all black uniform of short skirts and leather jackets with the requisite Dr. Marten boots. I rubbed elbows with punks and skinheads while I chain-smoked and downed Tequila shots. Back then my night would just get started at 10 p.m. and I’d roll in at 9 a.m. after a night of dancing, feeling young and carefree. My mom used to say I’d probably get married wearing Doc boots under my wedding dress.

And then I moved to Canada, got married (and no I didn’t wear Docs on my wedding day) and had three children. I traded in my punk persona for more comfortable mom jeans (with a little give in the waist) and canvas sneakers. I (sensibly) gave up smoking and the sight of Tequila now makes me instantly heave. When I became a mom, life as I knew it changed. I gave birth to three beautiful children and suddenly being out clubbing all night didn’t seem so important. I was too busy feeding and consoling babies through the nighttime hours. I now have twin boys, aged 15 and a 12-year-old daughter, and I have loved watching them grow and become the amazing people that they are. I’ve never looked back at my wild youth. Until recently.

A few months ago my husband and I went to a Depeche Mode concert. For me, Depeche Mode is the symbol of my angst-ridden teenage years. It reminds me of all those nights, age 16, I would blast “Personal Jesus” in my bedroom while my parents yelled at me to turn down the music. Or how I’d dance with abandon with my friends to “Just Can’t Get Enough” at someone’s house party, eyeing out cute boys while we sipped illicit lukewarm ciders. So, I was really excited about this concert. I dressed in my edgiest outfit of skinny black jeans, boots and a cropped black jacket. I took a long time with my make-up and added some extra black eye-liner as an homage to my youth. I felt great.

We got to the stadium and went to the bar to get a drink. As we waited in line I started looking around at the other concert goers and was met with a sea of cool moms (and dads) around my age. Everybody there clearly had never lost their coolness. The alternative punk vibe practically oozed out of their leather-clad tattooed pores. You could tell they hadn’t just dressed up in their funkiest finery for this one night. They were inherently cool and I felt like an impostor. How had this happened? How is it they had stuck to their punk roots while I clearly had become a middle-aged frump?

I’ll be honest, as much as it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, I was a little distracted for a few days afterwards. I couldn’t stop thinking about all those people who looked like they could have walked right off the cover of a Clash album. How had I strayed so far from who I was when I was 20 while they had all clearly retained their alternative style? I thought a lot about the fundamental differences between me and those people. Did they parent differently? Why do some of us give up that part of ourselves when we become parents?

After a few days I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I stopped obsessing about my lost youth and started reminding myself about all I’ve gained over the past 20-something years. I have a husband who still makes me laugh after 23 years of marriage, who I love spending time with. I have a career as a freelance writer that brings me so much joy. I have three beautiful children who have taught me so much about myself and about what it takes to be a good parent.

I still don’t have the answers on why some of us retain our edgy vibe and some of us don’t. Parenting is difficult and requires a lot of sacrifice and maybe for some of us it’s just not an option to lose our identity, but many of us do. Despite that, when I think about what being a mother has brought to my life and when I look at these three young humans I helped create, I know I’d trade being cool for all of that any damn day. And hey, I can still rock a smoky eye and leather jacket when the mood strikes. Along with my comfy mom jeans of course…

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Five Things Nobody Tells You about Having Kids

I think before you have children there are certain things you just know: childbirth will HURT, babies cry a lot, changing diapers isn’t for those with a strong gag reflex and you can wave bye-bye to sleeping in ever again. Oh, and your social life goes from nights out clubbing to afternoons spent clutching overly-sweet fruit punch at your friends’ children’s Princess-themed birthday parties. We all know those things, but there are also aspects of parenting that nobody seems to discuss and after 14 years on the front lines, I think I know why they’re so taboo. Because if you knew, you’d never, ever venture into this crazy world of parenthood.

Vomit

Dear god, the vomit. I’m not talking about a little milky trickle out of baby’s mouth after too much breastmilk or formula. I’m talking about all three of my children suffering from extreme motion sickness on every single plane, car, train, boat and moving vehicle we’ve ever been in. I have so many bad memories involving vomit but a couple stand out – like the time we flew back from Chicago when my twin boys were 7 and my daughter was 4. All three of them had been sick on the plane. We had barf bags being thrown at us by air stewards, other passengers, the pilots. One of my sons barfed so much he had nothing clean left to wear. After the hellish flight we walked through Vancouver airport to claim our bags, heads held high, him dressed only in his underpants and sneakers and my husband’s undershirt.

That wasn’t even my lowest vomit-related moment as a mom. That came two years later when all three children picked up the stomach flu on the same night. At around 10 p.m. I heard the first cry come from my daughter’s room. She had puked all over her bed. As I was cleaning her up I heard crying from my twin boys’ room. They were both feeling sick too. I ran to get my husband and some buckets and then for four excruciating hours we took turns going room to room consoling and cleaning and changing pajamas and sheets. At 2 a.m. my husband gave up and went to bed and I continued my lonely vigil until 6 a.m. The next day as I blearily surveyed the chaos, I realized one of my sons had thrown up all over the top bunk. Have you ever tried to clean vomit from a top bunk? It should be added to an interrogator’s torture arsenal. I considered packing my bags and leaving the country that day.

Lice

Oh those evil little creatures that make themselves at home in our hair, their legs seemingly coated in superglue. Three years ago my children’s elementary school had a lice infestation. It spread like wildfire among the students. Letters were sent home and panic was discernible among parents huddled in groups at pick-up. Of course all three of my children got it. I can’t even count how many hours I spent washing sheets, pillow cases and blankets and treating and combing out their hair. It became a full-time job but my daughter just couldn’t seem to shake it. We tried every over-the-counter shampoo treatment, different combs and removal techniques.  

After a year of my daughter picking up lice every couple months we had no choice but to call in some experts. I found a local company who came over and sold me their lice shampoo and extra-special lice comb. Then one of their employees spent hours meticulously picking out every last mite and egg on her head and she was finally lice-free. It hasn’t come back again, but if I so much as see any of them scratch their heads now I jump into action, picking through their hair like an over-eager monkey. Not on my watch you evil brown insects!

Poop, Farting, Belching

I lump these three together in a category because I feel like each one alone is maybe tolerable but all three together are a trifecta of grossness. We know dealing with poop is not the most fun thing to do and I won’t make things worse by discussing my poop stories because every single parent has poop stories. Are you even a parent if your toddler hasn’t at least once take their poopy diaper off and smeared the contents all over a crib or a wall?

When our babies are born we’re obsessed with their poop because they can’t communicate so their bowel movements give us information on how their little tummies are doing. We discuss the colour and consistency of their poop with other moms, ad nauseum. Now, many years later I have two 14-year-old boys who think anything poop or fart related is absolutely hilarious and I want nothing to do with it. They’re constantly trying to gross me out by farting and belching and regaling me with toilet humour. I no longer have any desire to know anything about anyone’s poop, and finding an un-flushed toilet is not what I consider a fun time.

Smells

It’s amazing how much little humans smell. I mean, we all smell, but most of us, by adulthood, have figured out how to control or disguise our natural body odours. I have a very sensitive sense of smell, so unwashed hands, sweaty armpits, smelly feet, morning breath – they’re all an assault on my nose and senses. I spend so much time asking my children these questions:

“Have you washed your hands?”

‘Did you put on deodorant?’

“When last did you wash your hair?”

“There’s no way you brushed your teeth!”

“Whose feet stink?”

It’s another skill to add to my ever-growing list of job descriptions I’ve taken on as a mother: hygiene monitor and expert!

Worrying

From the second your baby takes their first breath until the day you take your last breath, you will be worrying about them. You will worry about anything and everything they do at every single stage of their lives.

Babies: Are they sleeping, eating, breathing and pooping ok?

Toddlers: Are they growing at the correct rate, putting on weight as they should be?

Pre-schoolers: Are they social enough? Do people like them?

Kindergarten: Are they learning to read and write at the same rate as their peers?

Middle school: Are they studying enough, doing their homework and handing in assignments on time?

High-school: Are they drinking, taking drugs, hanging around with the wrong crowd?

I wish I could tell you it ends when they leave home but I haven’t experienced that yet and I know from other more experienced mothers in my life that it doesn’t switch off, ever. Even as my teenage boys and pre-teen daughter grow, I still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and feel compelled to go check on them. I watch them as they sleep and a feeling of immense love and contentment washes over me. Despite all the vomit, lice, poop, belching, smells and grey hairs they’ve caused me, I wouldn’t, for a second, change who they are or what they’ve brought to my life.

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This is my favourite photo from our road trip. Half of us have our eyes closed but I just love that we’re all laughing on a beautiful beach in California. It’s why we do these trips with the kids. It’s about the five of us making memories, especially since the kids are now older and the day will come when they won’t be all that into these trips with me and Brendan. While this wasn't one of the most relaxing vacations we’ve had, we definitely had a lot of adventures and we will never forget it. 

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Our final stop on the family vacation was Las Vegas. It was the first time the kids have been there. They were pretty gobsmacked at the craziness of it. As we walked past a cage dancer (in the middle of the day of course) at Planet Hollywood Jessica turned to me, eyes wide, and asked in a whisper ‘Is that a stripper??” She kept asking me if there would be strip clubs everywhere and if the strippers just stand in front of the windows. I think she was relieved to see that wasn’t the case but she wasn’t too impressed with the moving billboards driving up and down the Strip, advertising uh..ladies of the night. Needless to say, it was an eye-opening experience for the kids. One thing we all enjoyed was Love, the Beatles-themed Cirque show at the Mirage. It was my second time seeing the show, and just as amazing the second time around. 

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On the way to Vegas we stopped at the Hoover Dam. We didn’t quite have the time to fit in the official tour but we got to wander around and freak ourselves out with how high it is!

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There really is no place quite like the Grand Canyon. We booked a jeep tour that took us to 6 different spots along the Canyon on the Arizona side. It was beautiful and sunny (although cold) and the immensity blew us all away. Our tour guide’s knowledge of the area, and the colourful characters who are part of the Canyon’s history, was amazing and we learned a lot about one of the wonders of the world. 

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After the craziness of Disneyland it was so nice to have a brief respite at our friends’ house in Indio. We had one day of relaxing (and pool time) in the desert before we headed off to Arizona. 

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Of course, no Cali trip is complete without a trip to Disneyland. We spent New Years Eve and New Years day in Anaheim and had a fun day at the park. We managed to go on every ride we wanted and also catch the parade. I could definitely sense though that the kids might be at that age when they’re losing interest in Disneyland. I think they had more fun last year at Universal - it’s geared to older kids. The top pic is Jessica aged 4 in her first trip to Disney and then this year, aged (almost) 12. Time is flying!

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Our next stop was Monterey and Carmel. I’ve never been to either city before and I loved this part of California. The beach at Carmel is absolutely stunning...soft white sand and miles of beautiful coastline. We will definitely come back here in the summer sometime. We spent an afternoon at the Monterey Aquarium and of course, as a fan of the HBO TV series, Big Little Lies, I had to go see Bixby Bridge...along with the other 200 people snapping pics of it.

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One of the things we did in San Francisco was rent bikes and cycle from Fisherman’s Wharf over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. Sounds like a great idea right??? I’ll just say that unless you’re a pretty strong cyclist - don’t attempt this! There are lots of hills (obviously...it’s San Fran) and the pedestrian and bike traffic on the bridge is crazy, so Lucas and I ended up pushing our bikes over the 3 km bridge rather than try constantly dodge people on a narrow pathway. By the time we got in to Sausalito after almost 2 hours, we were so done with the whole activity that we just got straight on the ferry and headed back to San Fran. Let’s just say a giant Mimosa was had at lunch that day!

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So, after Christmas we always get out of Vancouver, usually for a beach vacation. This time we decided to do something a little different and planned a road trip starting in San Francisco and ending in Las Vegas. We flew to San Francisco, spent 3 days there and then drove to Monterey (and Carmel), then Anaheim, Indio, Grand Canyon (the Arizona side) and Las Vegas...in 10 days. It was definitely an ambitious plan. There was a lot of moving around and driving but the kids handled it amazingly well. Apart from those two days in Anaheim when we had crappy WiFi in the hotel. Three teens/preteens without access to social media and YouTube aren’t happy campers! San Francisco was probably my favourite leg of the trip. It’s one of my favourite US cities. It was the kids first time there so we went to lots of the usual spots: Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, Union Square. But we also went to a few new spots (for me and Brendan): Twin Peaks, the Painted Ladies, Half Moon Bay. 

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Sometimes the Apple Does Fall Far From the Tree

Nobody would have described me as a confident child. I was shy and reserved and completely uninterested in sports. I loved books and would happily spend hours reading in my room. I had friends at school but I was seldom the centre of attention or leader of the pack. I preferred to spend time with one or two friends rather than a huge group of girls. So when I found out that my third child was going to be a girl (my first two were twin boys) I had visions of her being a mini-me.

I think it’s common for parents to expect that their son or daughter will be a mini version of themselves. I know my husband had the same expectations when I was pregnant with our twin boys. He didn’t quite get a mini-me either. All three of our children are very much their own people and apart from the odd similar interest here and there they couldn’t be more different to us, but the difference between my daughter, Jessica and I sometimes feels colossal.

Jessica is outgoing, confident and excels at every sport she plays. She makes friends like I consume Americanos – daily and without much fuss. She is smart and sensible and interested in so many things. She’s popular at school and well-liked by teachers. She gets involved and signs up for every activity from student council to library duty. It honestly amazes me how different we are. And I embrace the differences.

I feel like she’s taught me so much and I love seeing life through her eyes. She views the world through rose-tinted glasses whereas I’m more cynical. She recovers from setbacks very quickly while I will wallow in self-pity for days or weeks after a traumatic event. She throws herself head first into every activity she tackles but I prefer to hang back and watch for a while before getting involved. She will start talking about Christmas in September because she loves the holidays so much and gets so excited while I’m in the background muttering “Bah Humbug!”

I often wonder where she came from and how my husband and I produced such a sunny, happy, outgoing child. My husband isn’t known for his sunny disposition either and is even more cynical than I am. He is sporty so they have that in common but he’s not particularly outgoing and doesn’t make friends easily. I know he loves her outgoing nature as much as I do and we both marvel at her ability to make friends five minutes after we’ve landed in a vacation spot. We’ll barely have our towels spread out on the loungers and Jessica will be in the swimming pool playing games with kids she’s just met.

I’ve learned a lot through parenting. My twins are now 14 and Jessica is 11, and in that time they have taught me a thing or two. I’m more patient, more understanding of what these three little human beings need in order to thrive. I’m not so arrogant anymore as to believe that our children are clones of me and my husband. They are three very different individuals with very unique personalities and needs. And I’m in awe of the amazing young woman my daughter is becoming. She is strong and level-headed and has more confidence in her pinkie than I think I’ve ever had in my 44 years on this planet and I love it. You go girl! Mom will be (quietly) cheering you on from the sidelines.  

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you will have heard that more than 50 women have accused 65-year-old American film producer, Harvey Weinstein, of sexual assault. Apparently his predatory ways were a badly kept secret among the Hollywood elite for many years. He is said to have invited countless young actresses and industry insiders to private meetings at hotels where he would pressure them into sexually related acts under the threat of being fired from his projects. His abuse of power is astonishing, but what I keep mulling over is the fact that many of his victims never said a word to anyone until now. This does not come from a place of judgement because I know how difficult it is to discuss. I have been sexually assaulted three times, one of those by my own version of Harvey Weinstein.

It was the early 90′s - I was 18 and still living in South Africa. I was going through a bit of a ‘finding myself’ phase. I had dropped out of college, moved in with a roommate and signed on with a temp agency to pay the bills while I figured out what to do with my life. I thought I’d landed a lucrative temp gig when I ended up working as a receptionist at a diamond company that kept renewing my contract week after week. The company’s CEO was a wealthy 40-something male who we shall call John. John was tall, dark-haired and had an ego to match his height. I took an instant dislike to him. He was macho and arrogant and I felt myself a little on edge whenever he was in the office. The other employees never said anything to me, but they seemed wary of him so I instinctively knew to be on guard around him.

I’ll admit that my work attire wasn’t office-appropriate. My skirts were a tad shorter than they should have been, but I was young and broke and didn’t have a lot of money to buy new work clothes. After a few weeks at the company John seemed to take more interest in me. He would linger at my desk and call me into his office to ask me seemingly innocuous questions. Then one day he called me in to his office and he said he needed my help. He had stacked a series of new paintings on the floor, propped up against a wall in his office. He closed the door to his office and asked me repeatedly to bend down, pick up the artwork and place it on the wall where he thought it might go, while he stood back and gave feedback. It sounds innocent enough but he stared at my butt and legs the entire time. It was the first time he made me feel truly uncomfortable.

That night I discussed it with my roommate. I wanted her opinion on whether I was overreacting about his behaviour. After much debate we agreed that he was a creep, but that I’d keep my job at the diamond company since the money was pretty decent and I needed to pay my share of the rent.

A week later he called me in again, closed the door and told me he wanted me to type something for him. He was sitting at his L-shaped desk with his computer on his left side which meant I couldn’t reach the computer to type without leaning over him. He didn’t move. I looked at him uncertainly and he said “You can just lean over me and type.” And I did it. I leaned over that awful man and typed his document because I needed that job and in that moment I didn’t feel like I could refuse. His face was inches from mine as I typed. I remember feeling humiliated and angry and as I started to walk away his hand brushed my thigh. I knew without a doubt that if I stayed at that company he would become bolder in his advances. I had to leave.

I went home that night and called the temp agency and told them I would not be going back to the diamond company and stated exactly what had happened. The woman I spoke to wasn’t overly-sympathetic, but said she would call them about the money I was owed and also to get his version of events. A week went by without a word from the agency. I finally called them back and was told that they’d spoken to John. He was refusing to pay me for my last week because I was “unprofessional” and “lazy” and a “liar”. He denied my account of what happened and said he had never laid a finger on me. Also he said I dressed “very inappropriately” for an office environment.

I was shocked and angry and ashamed. I felt like it was all my fault. My short skirts had been an open invitation to him. Still, I asked the woman, “If I was so awful, why did they keep hiring me back every week?” She had no answer to that. That was the last job I got out of that temp agency. I had been blacklisted. Week after week I called looking for work and was told they had nothing suitable for me. John had won – they had taken the side of the successful, wealthy CEO over the 18-year-old temp receptionist with questionable dress sense.  And that, right there, is why it’s so not easy for women to come forward after uninvited sexual advances from men in positions of power.

After the Weinstein scandal broke, actress Alyssa Milano urged women to add their voices to the conversation and to add the phrase #metoo to their social media feeds if they had ever been victims of sexual assault. Millions and millions of women came forward and said “#metoo” – some also shared their stories. It has been an eye-opening few weeks for many of us. Sexual harassment of women is clearly more widespread than we had ever imagined. With so many women (and men) reporting sexual abuse isn’t it time we start doing something about it?

As a parent I know what I can do for my children. I can not only talk to my daughter about the dangers that might lie ahead for her, but I can also talk to my sons about being respectful and about not being sexist, misogynistic, power-hungry jerks. The more we talk about the systemic problems around sexual assault, the more we can educate the next generation and end the cycle of abuse. I plan to be honest with my children about my own experiences and I hope that if one good thing comes from the Weinstein scandal it’s that women can feel free to come forward and share their experiences without feeling humiliation, anger and shame. Unfortunately so many of us have come across our own version of Harvey Weinstein. It’s time to take back our power.

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This morning I slept through my alarm so when I finally got up I was already late. I raced around waking up my three children and my husband and chaos ensued as we all tried to get ourselves up and out the door for our typical Monday routines. I usually check my social media news feeds early in the morning but today I didn’t have the time. It was my 14-year-old son who saw the news about last night’s massacre in Las Vegas first. He is already an anxious child and worries about all the terror attacks going on in the world so I stopped what I was doing and checked the news sites. 

As of now, 58 people have died and more than 500 have been injured. The numbers are staggering and this is being called the worst mass shooting in modern US history. We don’t live in the US but as their neighbour to the North, and frequent visitors to the US, it hits close to home. In fact, I’m scheduled to fly to Vegas next week to meet a friend for a girl’s weekend. At this point we still intend to go but our excitement has absolutely been tempered with last night’s horrific attack. Those 58 people were someone’s father, mother, daughter, sister, friend. Their families are reeling right now and trying to make sense of why this happened. 

I too am finding it increasingly difficult to stay positive in the face of so much death and violence happening around the world. In the summer my husband and I took our children to Europe - it was their first time. He and I were last in Paris seven years ago. We were quite saddened by how much the recent terror attacks there have affected the city of light. There is a noticeably heightened police presence everywhere you go - heavily armed police roam the streets now. Security is tight, especially at the tourist hot spots, and you can’t go anywhere, not even into a shop on the Champs-Elysee without a bag check. It’s an unfortunate but inescapable consequence of the times we’re living in. 

So how do I talk to my children about all this? Up until recently through every horrific event I’ve reiterated that we can’t let the terrorists win, that we have to soldier on. I keep saying we are letting them win if we stop traveling, stop attending concerts and stop living our lives. But honestly I’m worried about where the world is going. I’m heart broken today because it feels like it’s an onslaught. It’s too damn much. It breeds a culture of anger, sorrow and mistrust and it’s getting harder to recover from these shocking events. 

I am only one person, what difference can I make? I can start by teaching my children to be kind and to spread kindness. I can talk to them about giving back; volunteering and doing their part in the community. I can spread love and not hate. I can be more tolerant, more patient. I can do my part to stop the cycle of hate. It’s what we all need to do now. 

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I always knew that I wanted to be a mother, even though I wasn’t one of those girls who would spend hours, tenderly playing with my dolls. I was more likely to be out riding my bike in the neighbourhood with a gang of local kids, but deep down I had that innate belief that one day I would marry and have a family. There was never any doubt about that in my mind.

I wasn’t so sure, however, about what my ‘calling’ in life was. At age 8 I’d say, quite confidently, “I want to be an actress.” I have no idea where that came from because now the thought of stepping out onto a stage or in front of a camera and performing makes me break into a cold sweat. So as I grew older I also grew less confident about my acting future and started to ponder all the other possibilities out there. I pictured a glamorous life of travel as an air steward or a noble one tending to sick animals as a vet. It didn’t help that my father, a musician, knew, practically from birth, that music was his life. His unwavering passion for music and belief in his talent always made me feel like I was missing out on something. I wanted to feel passion like that for something… anything.

Time marched on. I graduated from high school and moved on to college. I enrolled in a public relations course but was unmotivated and ended up dropping out of college after a year. Rather than start another doomed course I decided to take some time off. I got myself a job in a real estate agency as an administrative assistant and was instantly deeply unhappy, but I thought I just needed to buy some time to figure things out. In the meantime big changes were happening in my personal life. At the age of 20 I met and fell in love with my future husband. By 22 we were married and had left our native South Africa and moved to Canada.

Once the dust settled on our move I felt ready to re-evaluate my career options. My husband had the same drive and ambition I had seen in my father and he knew with certainty what his own career path was, yet I still had no real direction. So I did what most people with no direction do, I enrolled at the local community college to complete my first year toward a BA degree, hoping that along the way I’d figure out what to do. I like to think that’s when fate intervened in the form of my English instructor, Ms. Luke. She took me under her wing and told me I had the makings of a “good writer.” As the Oprah folk say, I had my “aha moment”. I immediately enrolled in a journalism program at the college and felt that I had found my passion. I was going to be a writer. And I loved it. I loved the creativity of writing. And nothing gave me more satisfaction than seeing my words in print or my name on that byline. It was deeply satisfying.

After college, and a not-so-satisfying year as a freelance journalist, I ended up coming full circle and found a job working for a public relations agency. For eight years I wrote press releases, media kits, radio spots and brochures among many other things. I still wrote the odd newspaper article or magazine piece on the side. I was in a happy place. And then my hormones kicked in. At the age of 29, my passion for writing disappeared to be replaced by images of sweet, chubby babies. I could not focus on anything but babies. I became obsessed.

Fast forward almost 15 years to today. I am now 44, with three beautiful children. I have 14-year old twin boys in high school and a 11-year-old daughter. I left my job at the PR agency after I had my third child and have barely written at all in the last ten years. My passion for motherhood replaced my passion for writing for at least a decade. I wanted to focus on being present and engaged in my children’s lives. I wanted to be the mom that stayed home and attended baby classes and took trips to the park every afternoon. So I did. And it was fulfilling, but then my children started growing up. Eventually they were all in school full-day and suddenly I had a whole lot of time on my hands.  

Around that time my husband started his own business and needed help so I joined the company to do the administrative work and manage the office and while it wasn’t my dream job it was a good re-introduction to life outside my mommy world. I set my own hours and kept up with my children’s activities. It was all going well...until I hit the 5-year anniversary with his company. Quite unexpectedly when I realized I’d been there for 5 years an incessant alarm bell started going off in my head. I panicked about my future. What now? What happened to my passion for writing? What am I doing for me?

Fast forward 6 months and I’m now self employed and starting a whole new venture as a freelance writer. I have yet to find a paid writing gig, but I’m blogging and writing about things I enjoy, which is a start. When I look back on how far I’ve come from that 8-year-old girl who wanted to be an actress I know that I did eventually discover my passion, in fact I found two. I discovered the joy of writing and the fulfillment that comes with motherhood and that’s pretty amazing. 

[blogafricanincanada]

It’s back to school today, but we enjoyed one last summer getaway over the Labour Day weekend to our favourite spot just across the border, Semiahmoo Resort. After the craziness of the European trip we needed a little R&R before we got back into the Fall routine. Mostly we relaxed at the pool and then on our last night we had an oceanside BBQ and S'mores on the fire - perfect for the dog days of Summer.