I always wanted to be a writer, and even as a child, I often spent inordinate amounts of time creating small books out of paper and signing my name on the covers. My grade six teacher used essay writing as a punishment but allowed students to choose any topic, so I began talking back in class and planning what I would write about. He quickly realized what I was doing and changed my reprimand so I wouldn’t purposely get into trouble anymore.

I was a voracious reader and grew up with one TV channel, but two channels on a good day, and spent as much time as I could outside alone. So, I could pretend the forest was my home; that was my reality, and everything else wasn’t as real. This continued until university when reading became required and felt more like drudgery than an escape. So, I began to forget that part of myself. I still loved to write essays, though, as much as I also equally hated doing it. Especially when the topic felt close to my heart and I had the freedom to delve into it all.

I graduated with an undergrad in Gender and Women’s Studies with a Minor in Film Studies. I spent too much time taking electives and delaying graduation because that meant real life would soon follow. My choice of major was born out of a need to understand myself more, with much attention being spent on philosophical topics regarding gender performance and sexuality. My minor helped me develop an eye for creative expression, and often, there were parallel themes from both programs that intrigued me.

Concepts put forth by Simone de Beauvoir, Laura Mulvey, Michel Foucault, Naomi Wolf and Judith Butler, to name a few, began to infiltrate my brain and forced me to see the world differently. It became frustrating and difficult to care so much and no longer ignore societal issues. Sometimes, I would lament to professors about philosophers writing from a privileged and highly educated standpoint and how they would use language that felt elitist and exclusionary. I remember one professor asked to speak with me after I wrote a strong critique of a required text.

I had become frustrated analyzing perspectives on poverty through the voice of an intellectual whose writing felt inaccessible to the group they felt compelled to write about, and my words struck a nerve with my professor, who felt the need to defend the course content. I remember feeling annoyed in those moments thinking about a person who had likely never experienced financial hardship and who had more opportunities growing up and throughout their academic career. Still, here they were, supposedly teaching me the importance of factoring in poverty regarding intersectional discrimination as if it were a theory based on a potential reality rather than my lived experience.

I often wrote well enough but felt inadequate scholastically. I lost marks for not participating in the class discussions. I always believed my opinion was less valid and polished than the rest of my classmates. Interestingly, our warped perception of ourselves is ultimately the most significant deciding factor on what we get from our experiences.

So, it came as a surprise when I received a message one day from a mentor interested in working with me to be a ghostwriter for an upcoming book he was working on. I knew he was working on a new project, and I jokingly messaged him to see if he was looking to hire someone, but had I known the scope and gravity of everything, I never would have offered.

It wasn’t because I didn’t learn or gain something through the process, but because I wouldn’t have believed I was good enough to accomplish something of that magnitude. I know he believed in me and saw what I could do, but I couldn’t see it in myself.

I learned so much about myself through the process, but not what I expected to learn. I immediately had to check in with myself and mull over the decision to fully be okay with not having my name attached to something I poured my heart and soul into, and I realized early in the process that I would be OK with that. Not that I had many expectations on what the opportunity would provide me in the immediate future because I’m smart enough to realize the reality of it all. Still, the finality of it coincided with health issues and the prognosis of impending baldness, unemployment, and what felt like a sudden loss of identity. As a writer, I expected to love what I did but did not expect the grief I experienced when the project was over.

I was surrounded by people who were aware of it all, but I felt embarrassed about the perceived absences in my life at that time. I struggled to look at myself in the mirror in the following weeks without weeping the rest of the day. I was dealing with the idea of going to a job interview when all I wanted to do was shave my head, and how that might look to prospective employers, and applying for job after job without ever hearing back. So, it was an interesting dichotomy of perception vs. reality. I was so far into debt but couldn’t apply for EI or Income Assistance.

It was a challenging time, and although I’ve always felt alone in this life, that was the first time I have ever felt that lonely, and it took a while to crawl out of my self-imposed exile. But Spirit was always there with me. I knew and felt it, which is likely the only reason I made it. 

Writing in someone else’s voice gave me the gift of objectivity for my abilities. I consider myself to be a skilled writer. Still, I had so many self-limiting beliefs surrounding my potential, but reading back the words I wrote for someone else distanced me enough from it to see what value I brought to the table and mirrored my worth back to me.

Even in the following weeks that were excruciating on many levels, it was a gift—I couldn’t see it then. I was provided time to work on myself further and to write in between the moments of intense sadness. I think had it not been for that period, which was just growing pains leading me to the next phase of my development, I would have dropped the title of writer from my identity and perhaps never would have reclaimed it again.