Have you ever felt like a small fish in a very large pond???
95% percent of my life I live it believing that nobody is really paying that much attention to me. After all I’m a mom of three, working away, mostly alone in my home writing, developing my muscle of word crafting and editing. Just a woman doing her thing. Thinking that what I’m doing, so far is inconsequential, meaningless, doing what my NYC editor is telling me to do, working at my writing until I’m making money with my writing. Believing, without ego, or self pity that things didn’t go how I had hoped or planned with my career, so I’m going just plug away, with faith that eventually it will; all the while feeling/thinking I’m a “small” voice in a very large world. I’m not sure if you ever feel like this, but I do, a lot. I’m not complaining I’m just stating a very simple fact, that I suppose I don’t “know my worth” in real time. Which is odd since I’m always reminding not only my hubby, by our three girls and any of my friends who are struggling to REMEMBER THEIR WORTH, yet here I am, apparently undermining my own all the damn time. Funny, isn’t it. Not really, since being married to Yannick Bisson is a very strange thing. For the most part it really means very little, he even said to me when he arrived home from Vancouver the other day; “It’s interesting, it seems like as soon as I leave the bubble of Toronto where everybody knows who I am, I’m just another guy eating dinner in a restaurant on his own when I’m not home.”
That comment may surprise you, but it doesn’t surprise me. Why not, well because I’ve lived that with him, and I’ve lived it on my own. Having the last name Bisson hasn’t been much of a help in the way of helping me go forward in my career, if anything it has for some strange reason done the opposite. Before I was Shantelle Bisson I worked quite a lot as Chantal Craig, my maiden name, the longer I had the Bisson name the more the work dried up. Why? Did I all of sudden no longer have the same talents I did before the name change, talent that was good enough to see me booking twelve jobs in just eight days? I think not. But, such is both the blessing and the curse of being married to Yannick Bisson. So I started other endeavors, other passions, of which I, thankfully have so many. One for example is that I contribute to Huff Post, I don’t get paid, I don’t see any comments, so I never even know if anybody is actually reading those posts, the same with my daily blog. I actually write my blog for me. It is a way to hone my skills as a writer, primarily in telling a story in less words and helps me learn the art, because it is, of editing. I don’t actually think, other than the same six of you who comment regularly, that anybody is even paying attention to the the things I type here, all alone in my home.
Why not you ask?
Well it’s because I don’t have tens of thousands of followers, anywhere, on any of my platforms. I’m a small voice in a large world. Not in a “oh woe is me sort of way but in a real live truth that I’m a small voice in big world. But over the last 72 hours I learned that perhaps my voice isn’t that small after all, and that I should do well to move forward not only with my blog, but in my life understanding that how I feel in the world isn’t the reality of the situation. The reason this isn’t my reality, because even if having the last name Bisson has actually closed more doors for not only me, in the industry that I love, but for my girls as well, having that last name is a burden to carry in that I am not quite as anonymous, or small as I believe myself to be.
Which is a challenge because I’m strong, opinionated, loyal and as I’ve said an incredibly passionate person, who “runs hot.” I find it quite fascinating the way I’m built. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve spent years, and thousands of dollars trying to fully understand myself, and I’m not sure that I ever really will. It is interesting though how one person, in this instance me, can be so deeply thankful, content, with a deep and true sense of being blessed, and yet can still struggle with the darkness that is jealously, envy, and bitterness that will rear its ugly head, at the strangest of times, as is the case with the rant I went on about the Frankie Drake marketing strategy, by coming across to some as petty, or cruel.
This I suppose is what being human is all about. Well I mean if you’re human like I am; which is that you feel things deeply; the good things, and the not so good things. That’s me. That’s how I’m built in fiercely loyal, idealistic, and hopeful package. I’m forever hopeful that it’s going to be my turn next; and so maybe, it has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t like the marketing campaign of this new show. Which by the way I will say that what I do love about writing this blog, and sharing it on Twitter is the fearlessness in which some of you share your opposing opinions to mine. I love, how some of you are no BS and no nonsense and flat out disagree with how I see it. That frankness in this situation really caused me to take pause, as it has done in the past, which is the beauty of the little things that make me go “hmmm” community that we’ve built. I mean I’m not blogger of any consequence, I don’t have people knocking down my door to advertise here, I get hundreds of views on a blog, not millions, hell not even thousands. I guess for me I’ve always just thought this was like confessing all the things inside my head to a good girlfriend. It wasn’t until today and a lengthy chat with Christina Jennings, (yes we talk on the phone, because yes she is a woman I admire, respect and want to be like when I grow up!) of Shaftesbury that I realized that in large part because of who I’m married to the things I say carry some weight, and therefore I might want to think before I rant.
Which is an odd thing for me to process, so I shared these thoughts with her; “it’s strange to me that when I’m trying to get work, create work, build something for myself being the other half of Yannick Bisson is a detriment. As if the industry already thinks because I’m married to him I “have enough.” How it feels is that obody wants to work with me, it’s a daily struggle to get one step forward as Shantelle Bisson. Yet, I type one blog about how I don’t like a marketing campaign and all of a sudden I’m somebody to keep an eye on?” I’m going to tell all of you what I also told her; and that I’m sorry, but for me that doesn’t feel at all fair; an it also doesn’t feel good. And although my marriage to him has yielded so many blessings that I honestly never dreamed I would have, it has also caused me a lot of grief.
So before I sign off today I want to let all of you who read my daily posts that make me go hmmm to know these three things:
- If any of you took what I wrote as anything against CJ, her company or the CBC (who by the way is a national network being entirely run by women; yet one more reason to be so fucking proud to be a Canadian)it wasn’t. It was actually more personal than all that, which is something I have zero interest in getting involved with here. But me, I’m thankful for the life that Christina casting YB as Murdoch, a character he loved from the first time he read the scripts, has afforded us. And I have a very dear friend way high up at CBC that I would rather walk over hot coals for than lose because of a misinterpreted rant on this blog. This was not directed at them.
- This is my blog. These are my words, my thoughts, my feelings, my opinions, Yannick doesn’t agree with them; certainly not this one. Yesterday he even asked me to remove it, but here we are, I won’t remove it because I wrote it, and I must stand up under any consequences that it might bring me. And after nearly thirty years together he knows he won’t change me, or stop me from being how I am, anymore than I can stop him from buying mountain bikes like candy, or throwing himself down said mountains for fun. Yannick loves his job, loves Murdoch, and has no issue with the things that I had issue with.
- I’ve said this in so many blogs, and it is literally the guts of my How To Raise Your Kid Without Losing Your Cool book, it’s never to late to say you’re sorry. And when it’s brought to my attention that something I said upset, or offended somebody who I don’t only admire, but actually like; then I will always say I’m sorry. And for anybody who read that blog, who read anything in it other than what it was intended to be, which was a woman (me)who has worked for so many years to make something of herself, who has been promised on too many occasions to count that those career advancements were coming, posted all of that out of sheer personal frustration at what, for me was a moment of being petty, and looking at all that I don’t have rather than looking at what I do have.
I said it then and I’ll say it again, thank God we at least have the CBC, and production companies like Shaftesbury who are fully committed to getting Canadian programs not only on our airwaves, but around the globe. It’s a big job, that most other production companies don’t have the stomach to fight for. So whether or not I agree with the marketing, although I know get, after others shared their perspectives of it: NEW detective in town is because she’s a woman, and back in the 20’s women weren’t afforded those positions. Without looking at that tag line through eyes of frustration, I can see now how it actually is meant to be taken, and I for one (since I won’t be in Canada at the time of airing) will PVR that new show Frankie Drake and wish for its success, because after all we are all Canadian, and Canadians stand behind, and beside one another always.
Love, love, love SB