All the Women I Have Been

Every version of me was leading me here.

Good morning,

I have hit the metaphorical wall and am currently experiencing a stint of burnout. This Sunday’s post is late because I have been too exhausted to write. I’m also way too stubborn to let myself down, so I am staying true to my word. Besides, these entries are so cathartic for me and I always feel lighter after writing them.

Recently someone asked me how I come up with the ideas for my Substack and I wanted to share my response here.

I’m someone who is in her head a lot. I’m also someone who’s main mode of transportation is walking, so I have a lot of time with my thoughts. When an idea strikes, I grab my Notes app and start getting the ideas out of my head. This builds a foundation for different topics that I can come back to later and choose to build on or keep to myself. Once I get the ball rolling on a topic that resonates, the words start flowing. It’s funny because when I write here— I feel intelligent, empowered, witty and confident in myself. Sometimes when I’m in conversation with someone who isn’t a close friend, I feel a little more quiet and reserved. Probably because I am someone who is in her head a lot. I need a little more time to digest before responding.

Today’s post started as a note in my phone, continued from my bed this morning, and finished from my laptop. Today’s topic is inspired by something I wrote many years ago— I can’t remember if it was on Instagram or on another blog, but it was about how I’ve had to be a chameleon throughout my life. Someone once tried to elude to this idea I had about myself as being negative or some sort of character flaw. Maybe they thought it implied I was inauthentic or had some sort of malice behind my adaptability. That’s the thing about sharing your feelings on the internet— you’re at the helm of everyone’s opinions, and sometimes people don’t have the self-awareness or emotional intelligence to keep negative or hurtful opinions to themselves.

I digress. But being a chameleon, for lack of a better word, simply means you’ve had to adapt to different environments and situations throughout your life in order to get by. For me, it’s meant learning how to blend into my surroundings, not out of deceit, but in order to persevere. To survive.

I could only dream of having the kind of innocence and security that would preclude me from ever having to experience what it feels like to constantly need to adapt.

My upbringing was different. I noticed it every time I went to a friend’s house or stayed with family. There were things other families did that we simply didn’t— there was order, togetherness, and peace. Of course, no family is perfect, but whenever I stepped outside the four walls of my own reality, I was struck by how different it felt to be somewhere else.

I get that most of my friends and the people I know grew up differently than I did. They will never understand what it feels like to be pulled aside by a social worker after gym class in grade 6 asking if they felt safe at home. They wouldn’t know how confusing it is to not see their dad for a long time because he’s in jail, or how scary it felt having conversations with him through a thick, scratched and stained plexiglass window.

I envy them.

They got to be themselves and be in an environment that allowed such freedom and innocence. We had a lot of freedom as well, but it was the unsupervised— I’m too busy for you— kind of freedom. There wasn’t a lot of one on one time with my parents. I know that back then most of us spent a lot of time in our bedrooms, but it felt like I spent all my time in my bedroom or away from my house completely.

I know we all listened to our parents fight, we all got smacked here and there, and no one was raised perfectly. I also know that most of my friends didn’t watch their parents get high or wasted and then beat each other or throw the living room furniture around the house— so yeah, there’s a lack of relatability and experience on a lot of fronts here.

I absolutely loved going to my friend Ashley’s. Her mom and stepdad were so kind to me. We spent a lot of our time outside on the trampoline, in her bedroom listening to Shyne, or out on the paddle boat on the river. But, we ate meals together at the dinner table and we watched TV together in the living room. Her parents asked me questions and engaged with me. It made me feel accepted and part of their family. I always felt very loved by my close friend’s parents. Instinctively, I think they knew what was going on at my house.

I had rich friends, poor friends, friends whose parents were cops, friends whose parents sold drugs, friends whose parents were very proper and a bit strict. Even though I was from a poor, dysfunctional family, I was able to blend into any situation around me. Looking back now I realize that’s how I made it out. I didn’t own or buy into the lifestyle that was chosen for me. I loved my parents with all my heart, but I could never understand why that love wasn’t reciprocated in the ways that I truly needed it. I resented my parents and I refused to believe that this was where I belonged. You could probably ask any adult around me growing up and they’ll likely tell you I was a little brat most of the time who loved to argue and make people laugh. My mom always told me I had “champagne taste on a beer budget” or that I should be a lawyer. I always wanted more for myself. I picked up on how other people lived and spoke to each other, and I followed suit.

I was no longer the young girl who didn’t get invited to the birthday party because I was “swearing” in my back yard. Give me a fucking break. The older I got, the more I understood that opportunity comes from who you know, not what you know. Where you got in life depended on how far away you moved from what was not in the best interest of your highest good. You become who you surround yourself with and if I wanted to have a brighter future, I needed to blend in with people who were going places.

This proved difficult at times because I was extremely shy and awkward the older I got. It’s also hard feeling confident in who you are when you spend so much time trying to be someone else. Luckily, I still made decent choices and didn’t fall into peer pressure too much. I had no interest in boys and couldn’t even think about the idea of kissing them. I over-plucked my eyebrows, dyed my hair black or orange a lot, bullied people, and had no idea who the hell I was. That was a side-effect of constantly having to adapt that wasn’t shared with me when I self-diagnosed and prescribed my own survival strategy.

I went to 3 elementary schools, 3 high schools and halfway through grade 11, I had had enough. I got my first part-time job when I was 14 but started working full-time when I was 16. I hated school. I couldn’t focus and decided to stop going. Of course, this was approved because my parents dropped out too. When I stopped going to school I started getting into trouble. I started making really bad decisions and started doing everything that everyone around me was doing. Those stories are for another day, but I eventually moved to Toronto to try my hand at college. Surely I would do much better at college, right?

Wrong. I lasted a few months and dropped out of that too.

When I lived in Toronto in 2007 I got a job at one of the newest and hottest nightclubs in the city. Little old me having just come from a town with a population of less than 300, who had zero experience in big city nightlife or clubs, was now working in bottle service. I quite literally went from pumping gas for the town alcoholic, to greeting David Guetta and Lupe Fiasco through the VIP entrance of the club before they performed. My job was to look hot, greet people, and bring them to their tables. I vividly remember asking the other girls if they had any clothes I could borrow for specific theme nights because I never had anything to wear and couldn’t afford to buy cool, hip, club clothes. Perhaps my best chameleon role to date!

It was around this time that I met my first boyfriend. He was older, from a wealthier family, and living a totally different life. When he was getting to know me— and asking the kinds of questions people ask when they’re trying to figure out how much money your family has— I had all the right answers.

Yes, my dad runs the shop at one of the top marinas in Muskoka.

Yes, we have boats and sleds and lots of toys.

Yes, I’ve been to Lake Joe Club for lunch many times.

Yes, I know Richard Ivey, Kenny G, Wayne Gretzky, Cindy Crawford, Goldie Hawn, Paul Coffey, and the list goes on.

Blah blah blah.

All of it was true— but only half the story.

My dad was the head marine mechanic at the shop.

We did have access to every single toy that was owned by the marina.

I did go to Lake Joe Club— it doesn’t matter if it was with older men who enjoyed my company.

I did meet a ton of celebrities and athletes and rich business men— because I babysat their kids, power washed their boats, and scooped their ice cream.

He didn’t need to know that I also frequented the run-down strip club in my 300-person town with the 60-year-old drug dealer named Jimmy who lived in my basement. It never came up that the whole reason I was in Muskoka to begin with was because, before that, I’d been in a women’s shelter— then crashing with my friend and her dad, skipping school until my own dad finally said, no more $250 a month for you, little miss— so off to Muskoka to live with my dad I went.

He didn’t ask specifically about any of that in the beginning, so… what’s a girl to do? And before you judge me, I was young, fun, and attractive, and if some older man wants to date me, that’s his decision. I’m just a girl. I did end up telling him about my whole life story and we stayed together for almost 6 years so, relax. I remember one time my dad came to meet his mom at her cottage and a few days later he confessed to me that his mom was concerned at just how different our lives were. Nothing against his mom whatsoever, she loved me and treated me like the daughter she never had— but she knew we were cut from two very different cloths.

As quickly as I learned I needed to blend in so I wouldn’t stand out, I also learned that a lot of people are judgemental. It’s easy to judge a book by its cover. Sometimes you don’t know if someone is being kind to you because they like you, or because they feel sorry for you. I always wanted people to get to know the person I knew I could be. I never wanted to be judged based on what my parents were doing or not doing. I carried that feeling around with me throughout my life. I was ashamed. I wanted so desperately to be loved by my parents in the ways that I needed it. I’m older and a lot wiser now, and I accepted my situation a long time ago. When you carry around all this anger, shame and resentment it doesn’t change your outer world— all it does is create turmoil inside of you. It robs you of your inner peace. You can’t change anyone who isn’t ready to change and if you keep trying to force that change, you’re the one who gets hurt.

In 2008, an opportunity came up for my then boyfriend to start his own business. He grew up in West Vancouver, and all of his friends were there, as well as his dad. I was working at a cafe during the day, and the nightclub on weekends. I didn’t really have much going on for me in Toronto and I felt like this could be my big chance at something. When we arrived in Vancouver I was surrounded by his friends. I didn’t know anyone so I blended in. The majority of his friends also came from wealthy families so I was now surrounded by people who had the kind of values, education, and experience I could learn from. I was freshly 20 years old, mixing and mingling with people in their late-20’s. I wasn’t just an ornament anymore, these were my friends too. This was different than hanging out with old men from my small town.

My boyfriend’s mom convinced me that I didn’t need to be working at a nightclub or a cafe anymore. She told me I needed to make a good resume highlighting all of my customer service work, and walk around downtown Vancouver handing it out at all the banks. So, that’s what I did. I got my first “grown up” job as a bank teller when I was 20. I still ended up working part-time here and there at a couple different bars and clubs— the money was too good to pass up. Eventually I got tired of working at the bank so I applied to work at a law firm and got the job. I started as a receptionist, then moved into office services administration helping with couriers, and printing documents for court proceedings. Then they offered to pay for my schooling to become a Legal Assistant and I moved over to the Corporate Records department as a clerk.

Eventually, I didn’t need to “blend in” to my surroundings anymore. I didn’t need to pretend like I belonged, because I did belong. I started creating the life that I wanted to live. After I broke up with my ex, I spent the next year of my life tapping into everything that brought me joy. I had spent so many years adapting and changing, and it was finally time for me to settle into all of it. I didn’t need to be a chameleon anymore in order to survive. I could just be. This was tough to settle into because I had been in fight or flight for so long, and I was still pretty confused about who I was. I managed though, as most of us do, and I am still learning and peeling back layers of myself that were buried away in order to survive.

Fast-forward 12 years to today, and I’m starting to realize just how many positive parts of my childhood and upbringing are deeply ingrained in my bones.

I love that I’m from a small town in Northern Ontario.

I love that I grew up fishing, snowmobiling, walking out to the garage to find my dad and his buddies standing around a deer, hung by a chain to let it bleed out before processing it.

I love that I grew up wild and free— running rampant through the gully or the creek until the sky started turning that faint but vibrant mix of pink and gold.

Getting dangerously close to the mouth of the river in the middle of winter— and living to tell the tale.

Driving a car packed with my friends while drunk and high, without a license— because I’d been voted the least drunk and high.

Spending too much time with old men.

Doing too many drugs as a teenager.

It’s worth noting that I put myself in so many dangerous situations with some questionable characters, and yet I was never taken advantage of— thank God.
I credit that to being a chameleon. When you can become the people you hang around with, you become a peer instead of a target.

My only regrets in life are wishing I’d been old enough to take my sister with me, and staying in school— both things I had no control over at the time.

All of these experiences shaped me, and I love who I am today.

All the women I’ve been have led me to the woman I am now.

What’s crazy is there are still so many women I get to be. So many versions of me I haven’t met yet. Now that I am where I am, and I am who I am— it’s no longer called being a chameleon. It’s now called following your dreams and not letting imposter syndrome stop you.

I used to become whoever I needed to be to stay safe. Now, I’m becoming who I was always meant to be.

Thanks for reading and take good care.

Nicole xo