Short YouTube video by Sandi L Boucher (Red Thunderbolt) in which she recounts growing up in a small Northern Ontario town, describes her childhood vision of becoming a financially independent businesswoman, and reflects that she has realized that vision—framing this as the meaning of the phrase “I’m me.” The video encourages viewers to recall childhood dreams and pursue them.
Chapters
If you were to say the phrase I'm me to a friend or family member, what kind of feeling would that invoke? Would you be saying it as an excuse for something you're not doing that they're trying to get you to do better? Would it be something that makes you happy and you're proud of? How would it make you feel? It's something I wrote a blog post about recently, so I am me, and I wanted to share with you what that means. Let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And as I mentioned in the opening, I. I'm me. But what does that mean? So to give you a little bit of backstory here, I grew up in a very small Northern Ontario town, like the Streets. What's that country song? You know you live at the end of a dirt road. The street I lived on was a dirt road. The main street of our town had the center line painted on it because it was part of the highway. We had two stop signs and we were proud of that fact. Get the idea? Incredibly small town. It was like 400 people when I was living there. Pretty sure it's even smaller now. The house I grew up in was filled with love and happiness with my parents, but it didn't even have running water. My dad worked in the local sawmill and he did everything he could for his family, but money was tight, we didn't have luxuries. But I can remember spending many an hour during the summer swinging in the tree swing out in the front yard. And I'm talking the stereotypical piece of wood held up. We had chains, not rope the dad had attached to this ridiculously large branch of a ridiculously large tree that happened to be in our front yard. No manicured lawn, by the way. Our yard was the part of the bush that had been cleared and like three feet away from the yard was bush. So that was my upbringing. But if you sat in that swing, you could see out over the lake and it was the perfect place to spend the Sunday afternoon, you know, singing, pretending that you could, or imagining what my life would be like. And I never imagined a small town life. I just didn't. I imagined living in, like, a high rise. I just knew that when I looked out the windows, I was going to be looking over other buildings. I knew I was a businesswoman of some type, that I had ridiculously nice clothes and nails and high heels and that I was financially independent, wasn't worried about paying bills. I was worried about whatever challenge I had taken on. And this is the life I dreamt of on that swing in our front yard. Well, last weekend, I was puttering around my apartment. It was evening. It had been an amazing day. And I went over to the windows to close the blinds because it was now time to tuck in for the night. And as I closed the blinds, I looked out over the buildings that I was looking down on. And I realized I'm a businesswoman, financially independent, not worried about the bills, because I'm focused on the next challenge I'm taking on. That's what I mean by I'm me. So again, if I could wave a magic wand and have something come true for you, that's what I would want it to be. Think back to that crazy idea you had as a kid. How much of it has come true? And how much more of it can you make come true? One more blog post for this week. I'll see you tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.
