When we're young, it's easy to imagine that adulthood arrives all at once. One day, we'll know exactly who we are, what we're meant to do, and where we're headed. We assume everyone else has figured it out long before we have.
That wasn't my experience.
Looking back now, I realize that I spent many years searching for something I couldn't quite name.
As a teenager and young adult, I often felt like I didn't belong. I had low self-esteem, although I didn't have those words for it then. I drifted toward people who accepted me without asking many questions. I worked in bars, stayed up far too late, and spent years looking for connection in places that couldn't really provide it. I was lonely, even when surrounded by people.
It's strange how clearly we can see those chapters once enough time has passed.
If someone had told the younger version of me that one day I would wake up excited to spend my day painting, that I would have studios in both the country and the city, that my husband would become my biggest supporter, or that my paintings would find homes around the world, I don't think I would have believed them.
Not because I lacked ambition.
Because I lacked belief in myself.
That belief didn't arrive overnight.
It arrived quietly.
One painting at a time.
One decision at a time.
One small act of trusting myself after another.
Today I split my time between two very different studios. In Gore, surrounded by trees, lakes, and mountains, I paint large canvases that invite my whole body into the process. In Montreal, my smaller studio encourages a different rhythm. I work on paper with watercolour, gouache, pencils, and whatever materials happen to inspire me that day. Each space asks something different of me, and I love that.
People sometimes ask where my ideas come from.
The truth is, they come from paying attention.
Not just to colour or composition, but to my own life.
To the moments when something shifts inside me.
To the realization that freedom doesn't always arrive when we're young.
Sometimes it takes decades.
One of the greatest gifts of getting older has been letting go of the idea that my life needed to follow someone else's timeline. There is a quiet confidence that comes from accepting yourself as you are instead of constantly trying to become someone else.
That doesn't mean life is perfect.
It simply means I spend less energy wishing I were different.
My husband David often helps with the business side of my work. Together we travel whenever we can, curious about new places, cultures, and experiences. We even keep an ever-growing bucket list of places we'd like to explore while we're still able.
Those adventures inspire my paintings, but so do ordinary mornings in the studio. Mixing paint. Rearranging brushes. Standing in front of a blank canvas without knowing exactly where it will lead.
I've learned to trust that uncertainty.
Maybe that's what abstract painting has been teaching me all along.
You don't always need to know the destination before you begin.
When I was younger, I thought happiness might arrive after I accomplished enough or finally became the person I imagined I should be.
Now I think happiness is something quieter.
For me, it's waking up and realizing that my life finally feels like my own.
It took me more than fifty years to become myself.
And perhaps that's exactly how long it was supposed to take.