we had to be the luckiest kids alive, i was sure of it.
ice cream, in the family, quite literally on tap- every, single, day. oh what a luck indeed!
my mother started her first business when I was in grade school. my father had a handy friend carve the bubblegum pink, teal & lilac wooden signage for her ice cream shop- they worked together to put it up one summer weekend.
at my young age, i could not have imagined the sleepless nights my parents must have had - worrying about everything from paying the rent to passing health inspections and where best to advertise. back then, they surely could not have conceived that 20 or so years later, the face of small business would be forever changed by this magical thing called the internet.
i looked on as my parents braved an entrepreneurial life, for pretty much the balance of my youth- ice cream was just the beginning. and while their expectations were that i would go on to become a lawyer or an accountant, what they perhaps didn't realise was that their example birthed in me a deeply-rooted empathy, even an admiration, for the sheer guts it takes to start and grow a business. a bravery i was sure i lacked.
my turn to be brave would present itself many years beyond afternoons after school at the family ice cream shop. in 2011 i plucked up the courage to move (site unseen) across the world to Canada- a new life, a blank canvas, a gift of opportunity. i wanted nothing more than to become the mystical creature of colour and invention that they call a designer.
what i didn't realize then, was that i wanted to be a designer for the people who are (in my view) brave in the way my parents had been. the ones opening ice cream shops and clothing stores. the ones teaching music and creating fabrics and baking pies and making jewelry and carving out a place in the world for themselves and their families, and for others to make a living.
and now, here we are- 11 years since the first store i ever created on shopify, many lessons and experiences later.
still trying to be brave.