This dress has been in my life for the last 4 years and I can pin-point the exact moment I got it at the H & M at Dartmouth Mall, Nova Scotia in my last year of university. On the precipice of something great – completing a 4-year Business degree, moving back to Vancouver and literally hitting the ground running seeking that new career opportunity as an adult, this dress and I found each other at the most opportune moment. That moment in life where the next step was about finding myself and defining what came next in my chapter. 
Life has funny way of reminding you what you might have forgotten while you’re busy distracting yourself. This dress reminded me of that moment all those years ago when “what next?” became a common question amongst my friends and professors, and the answer wasn’t as clear then as it is is now. The goal was always to work and make money – and obviously land in a job that I loved doing so that making money didn’t seem like work. But after finding what I thought was my “path”, I quickly realized that life wasn’t as cut and dry as the text books I’d ploughed through in all my four years of business school. The world soon became a place where bills were the driving force of attaining and maintaining employment, rather than the ideology I had so long craved for of “working to live”. Until I decided to take the next step for me – to live the life I’d always been working on creating.Most people don’t know that I gave up my “safety net” of a legal job in pursuit of a risk that paid off in more ways than I would have thought – learning and creating. I was in my element and I loved it every single day. I was helping create a platform for so many great things and building this business up. As a responsible adult, we are meant to have a job that pays the bills while we work on the side hustle until we can make that hustle a full-time paying gig. That had always been the plan for me; but, what I thought was the best laid plan – my side gig becoming my every-day gig as I was working for a company that did exactly what I’d always wanted to do – life was a dream that turned quite fast. A step in a different direction was presented to me, which at the time I wasn’t ready for per-se but I whole-heartedly embraced because I could feel my potential and my creativity being stifled and what I once enjoyed became a place where I was “living to work”. Cutting this long story short and as I am sure you have surmised, I no longer work where dreams were once being made. While many might have felt despair and sadness, I only feel gratitude and appreciation for the lessons learned and the opportunities given to me when I took the risk to live my dream. 
This floral dress reminds me of so many things but most importantly – rebirth and growth. The word floral is derived from the latin words flos and flor which mean flower and bloom. At a time when most would be frantic and unsure of what to do next, my path is clear for once. Not that young woman of 22 whose only concern in life then was to secure that first job to pay bills, I am living in my truth and it feels so damn good! As a flower in bloom, I am using my time to create and write and grow as a person and as a creative soul. This time of rebirth for me has been awe-inspiring, exhilarating, daunting at times and a blessing, but a blessing that I couldn’t have asked for at a better time in my life. This dress whose print ignites happiness, energy and strength taught me and continues to teach me time and time again that we are humans who fall prey to our we. Walking in my truth has shown me not just what I am capable of as my own powerhouse, but has given me the time to be who I have always put in the background. I am walking on a path where my trust in what could be has no borders and I love every minute of it.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens …” – Ecclesiastes 3: 1-22. My sister made a point to remind me of this tonight as I sat and typed away on my computer. I have a gift that I need to use and should use – a talent that surprises me all the time (at how crazy and out of the box I can be) and I know I have a knack for creating magic everyday with each person whose path I cross. And I am not taking it for granted. I am not letting this opportunity pass me by because this is my now. We get many moments in life, but a moment like this – where you get to take a chance and do what you have always wanted on your own terms – only ever occurs once in a lifetime. 
Have you ever done something for yourself that set your should on fire and that ignited every single fibre in your body? Have you ever dared to follow your happiness? What happened?
OOTD: Dress – H & M | Heels – Aldo | Watch – The Horse
... S. xo
