I am a woman who embodies the classic tale of a small town girl who moved to the big city, with nothing but a suitcase and her dreams!

(I came with more than just a suitcase and dreams, but that reads better)

I was born and raised in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.

Sarnia was a great place to be an active and creative kid in the 80’s! Art classes at the Lawrence House, Junior B hockey to watch every Friday night in the fall/winter at the Sarnia Arena (Go Bees!), and ultra-competitive softball in the spring/summer (fastball to you other Southern Ontario girls – windmill is where it’s at). When I think about home, I think about Canatara, Germain Park, Point Edward and the beautiful Bluewater Bridges over the St Clair river, Centennial Park, and the Lambton Mall.

Truly, I had a childhood full of fun and adventure. My world was pretty small, but when it’s all you know it seems HUGE!

My primary education was with Landsdowne Public School from kindergarten to 8th grade, and I received my high school diploma, with honours from St. Clair Secondary (aka the farmer school – I had many friends who’s parents owned horse/pig/chicken farms – really).

Throughout my academic career, it was obvious that I was a very smart young lady. I seemed to especially excel in languages (Thank you, Ms. Clemens, Merci, Monsieur Clements and Graçias, Señor Matchett for making it so fun!) and the arts – visual, music and theatre. I really took to writing – mostly poetry and short stories – when I was about 12.

When I was 15 I was published for the very first time in our local newspaper, the Sarina Observer. I remember it very clearly; I wrote a very emotionally charged poem about he Gulf War. Sadly, this has not been my only experience with the horrors of war, but it was my first and it made me SO unbearably sad. The poem was written in rhyming couplets; simple in format, but if I do say so myself, it was powerful in it’s language. I wish I still had a copy of it. (I bet my mom does somewhere….)

The feeling of knowing that other people would read the words I wrote – words that came from a very vulnerable place in my heart – was overwhelmingly powerful. I was scared at first. I worried that people would judge me for being too sensitive, too emotional, and too young to really have an opinion on such things. But the response I received from teachers, friends, friends’ parents, was the total opposite! People not only enjoyed reading the poem because it was well written, but it moved them! It affected them in ways I was definitely not expecting. I remember having a conversation with my friend’s dad about it, and him telling me that I should really look into writing as a career.

That was the first time I felt like that might be possible. Me, a writer! What an amazing life that would be! Putting my pen to paper (it was the 80’s, people) and writing stories and poems that would elicit these kinds of connections with other people, and getting paid for it? It lit a fire inside me that’s been burning ever since.

Skip forward to Rebecca at age 17. Newly graduated from high school, and avoiding commitment to a career plan. I was so scared to take on my dream of writing professionally because I didn’t want to fail. I didn’t want to have the dream I loved most dashed by grouchy, underpaid college professors.

So, after a year of living on my own, working random jobs (I was a fairly decent waitress/bartender), and a semester of General Arts (Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology and English Literature), I went into the diploma program for Hospitality and Tourism at Lambton College.

Then, near the end of my first semester in my program, my parents got divorced. I was 19, and struggling with balancing my social life and partying with school as it was. The divorce, and how it went down, was pretty earth-shattering to my mom and my little sister. I found myself supporting them emotionally a lot more, and my tank was running on empty.

After a year or so spent in school, and making sure my mom and sister were stable, I met with a high school friend of mine who had recently moved to Toronto. He had met someone he was really into, was working full time and seemed to be really enjoying his life away from his parents and his brother. He seemed alight from the inside – and that was something I really wanted for myself. Maybe a change of scenery was exactly what I needed to refill my tank!

So, at the ripe old age of 21, I packed up my books, my CD’s, and my water bed (it was the 90’s, people) and I moved to Toronto!

Skip ahead 20 years, and you’re looking at today’s me!

I’ve been “married” (in common-law) and divorced, I have a beautiful and talented 15 year old daughter, and a career I’ve been in for 10 years (today is actually my 10 year anniversary!).

All the experiences of the last 20 years of my life have kept me writing the whole time. I’ve never stopped. It’s such a liberating sensation to take the misty thoughts and feelings that reel around in my head and heart and to put them down into words. I’ve successfully achieved personal, emotional and spiritual enlightenment in my life through my writing. I’m joyous that this love I found when I was so young has never left me.

The best part, is through the magic of the internet, I’ve purchased my own website and begun to blog professionally. I am a writer. Just like I always wanted to be!

Why the rambling diatribe, you might be thinking…. I know I am. But I also know, as always, there is a point to what I’m saying.

The point is simply this; I never gave up my love for writing, and because of that I was able to realize my dream. It might not have come together the way I imagined it could have in the beginning, but it’s truthfully even BETTER than that!

I don’t answer to anyone. I am the webmaster, content creator, editor, marketer and CEO of my own little business!

What you’re reading here is the manifestation of my dreams.

I thank you for taking a moment to get to know me. I hope that you find other things here that arouse your curiosity, inspire you, or soothe you in some way!

Stay a while… curl up in a comfy chair, sip some tea, and read.

I delight in your presence!

In Strength,

Rebecca

Xo