pivot.

I heard this word used often in my business networks at the beginning of the pandemic. Pivot. Pivot your life. Pivot your business. The sirens signalling impending danger for small businesses sounded loud and clear. As a disabled person, my entire world got turned upside down pretty quickly, leaving me little time to stress about my business. I had support staff stop coming in for fear of contracting the virus on their commute. I had to rally extra support from family, friends and neighbours. I faced medical supply shortages with gloves being in high demand. I had a whole lot more advocacy work to do and two more book projects to submit. My plate was full. The burnout hit HARD. Towards the middle of May, I decided that it was time to pivot. I started with my personal life. I had just moved to Toronto in November with my eyes set on a more accessible lifestyle. But with the city under COVID restrictions, summer stuck in my tiny condo sounded dreadful. Leaving the city was first on the list. My dude has a place up in the forest that needed a little TLC, so I decided to give country living a try for a few months. We could get away from any extra risk, we have access to nature and he can get the house fixed up. I’m hoping that the city feels more “normal” before the winter comes but I’m slowly losing hope that things will have any normalcy by December. I have faith that the universe knows where I need to be.

Living in nature has given me all the grounding I need. It’s given me the space I need. It’s given me peace. It wasn’t an easy decision, it was a really difficult transition. I was giving up the comfort of my accessible space (albeit tiny) for a house with stairs… in the woods… very isolated. I guess isolation was the name of the game earlier in the pandemic but isolation makes disabled life a whole lot more tough. Moving to Toronto was a huge leap outside my comfort zone but city living grew on me. I can say the same for country life but I don’t think winter will be tolerable. The house would be inaccessible for me once the snow comes, which essentially means I’m trapped in here until spring. I’m also currently relying on my partner to be my legs to navigate the stairs, eventually he will need to return to work. I don’t know how the snow will affect the ability of my support staff to arrive safely or how managing in storms and power outages will look. There are so many unknowns right now for all of us.

Being surrounded by serene stillness gave me the motivation to start really digging deep to find what my soul is being called to do. A series of unfortunate events that ended with news that I was back at square one for my website design, put me in the perfect position to sit down and feel it out. Pen to paper. Now here we are…. getting ready for launch in the next few weeks. I’m beyond excited to start the next chapter in business. I’m really happy with the decision to start blogging again. In the next few weeks you will see my online shop pop up too!

Today is my 31st birthday. I feel like COVID stole 30. This year is going to be the year that it all makes sense. The last few years of transition and growth have been really hard but slowly but surely the universe is revealing why I needed to learn those lessons.

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Much Love.

This is 31!