Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself

I first started blogging in 2012 on a Blogspot blog called “Sweet Tee Said It.” As a university student who had not long moved out of her mother’s house into a basement apartment with her live-in boyfriend, my life at the time was a testing of the waters of my new-found independence, and my blog was no exception.

In those early years, I wrote bold and passionate blog posts about the world around me, focused especially on the social ills and injustices like police brutality, racism, and consumerism that kept me awake at night. I also wrote deeply personal posts about the world inside my head, as I tried constantly to become the best version of myself with varying degrees of success.

Those early blog posts were honest, raw, and unfiltered. Some of them are embarrassing as all hell now. Some are still among my favourite things I’ve ever written. But all were the product of a twenty-something Caribbean black girl with a big mouth and a head full of opinions trying to make sense of her world.

By 2016, I had grown up a lot, and my blog grew with me. I had graduated university, started freelance writing and editing (and making decent money too!) and needed my piece of internet real estate and the place where my stories and truths lived to match my new-found boss-babeness. That’s when this site you’re reading first began. The first day of Spring; a new beginning.

That year was one of the hardest of my life. My boyfriend (now husband) had begun his military career and I was truly alone for the first time in my life. I was almost a year out of school with no job in my field and pissed about it. The home healthcare call center job I did have tested my patience and my mental health, both of which were shaky on even my best days.

That was also the year I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Learning that I had such a fun little cocktail of mental health issues devastated me for obvious reasons, but it also brought relief. All the symptoms and sadness I’d been hiding behind a bright smile and a laundry list of achievements and ambitions finally made sense. My life was disorderly because I had disorders.

With that knowledge, I began to heal and I began to build. In 2017, I got married, moved to a new city, began freelancing full time, and ghostwrote my first book. In 2018, I landed my first print byline, went to my first out-of-country conference, and chopped off all my hair. And last year, I became a multi-hyphenate entrepreneur, travelled to three countries, and took a massive step towards improving my mental health.

But in those healing and building years, I lost touch with my own writing. I had begun writing to pay the bills and it consumed me. I’m proud of everything I accomplished in those years, but I miss writing purely for the sake of sharing my stories and truths and connecting with other people, people like you.

So, I’m back. Please allow me to reintroduce myself.

I’m Talia Leacock-Campbell, and words are my magic. I am fiercely opinionated, unapologetically candid, and passionate about self-care, mental health, and creative entrepreneurship.

I am a recovering perfectionist learning to find beauty in the mess and a millennial woman defining success on my own terms.

I love yellow and sunshine and bold patterns and prints, I can’t resist a beautiful pair of shoes, and I’d happily spend all my time and money in Chapters.

Most of all, I love connecting with people through the stories that have shaped my life and remind me that we are all more alike than we ever realize.

I am grateful that you’ve chosen to tune in, and I’m excited to share my stories and the stories of other incredible Black women with you.