There aren’t quite words to explain how this all feels. And if we’re being honest with each other (which we always have been), then I have to tell you not all the feelings are good feelings. Dread? Stress? Fear? Those all make the list. Along with joy, relief, and euphoria.

Records & Honesty the EP has taught me more lessons than I had expected it to. It taught me confidence in my music. It taught me to call myself an artist rather than referring to it as a “passion project” or “hobby”. It taught me patience. I’m often one to jump the gun and make a mistake, but this project took 2 years. Arguably, too long. But you only get to go first once – unless you’re me because this is my 2nd first album.

But it’s here. And even though I am writing this right down to the wire, and part of me wishes I had more time. I could stretch the seconds thin, until they were hours. And I could use those hours to film more Reels, Shorts, and TikToks. Run more analytics. Make more ads. Pitch to more playlists. Invite more people to my show. All the things that never end up fitting in the 24 hours of a day, I’m also just happy it’s here. I’m happy that this thing that has only really existed amongst me and a handful of people is out in the world. 

I think when you’re a small artist, you always have this pipe dream that someone will stumble upon your work and call it genius. You’ll become an “overnight sensation”. But as you dig further into your music career you realize that is a façade. There is no overnight sensation. The people who “blow up” have been grinding day in and day out. Spending pennies they don’t have on producers they can’t afford.

And I’ve had to remind myself over and over during this project that it’s enough. Everything I have is enough. Stable growth, a small audience, to headline a venue, all of that is enough. And I look back on the days I was begging to reach 1,000 followers on Instagram, and that seems silly now. Not a single song on The Blue Book Project reached 1,000 streams, whereas all my current songs have.

But most importantly, I look at this project and I’m proud. I wrote the song Records & Honesty in 2019 when I was in love with a boy who was never going to love me back. I wrote it raw and unfiltered and it reminded me how to be in love with music. Records & Honesty the EP follows close behind in its integrity. It holds no punches, and you really get to hear how my life has been, even when it’s not pretty. 

I want to take a moment to thank a couple of people. My mom and dad who have stood by me day in and day out in order to get this project done. My sisters who are simply my forever people. My best friend who came to studio days and music video shoots and has been my biggest fan since we were 13 and I was sending her voice memos on my Blackberry of just brutal fucking songs. My boyfriend who has listened to maybe 1 too many stressed rants over the last year. My producer, Dan Hosh, who made the record of my dreams. My friends for listening and streaming and sharing and coming to shows and being just 10/10 humans. And of course, everyone who has made it to the bottom of the page. I can’t believe she’s finally here. This is Records & Honesty.

From me, with love, to you,
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Victoria 

This is a hard one to write.

You may have noticed that while I have been very present on social media, this blog has again become an abandoned corner of dust and dreams. But as year three of the workout-iversary is here I think it’s time we talk about it.

To bring us all back to the beginning: On May 8th of 2020, I decided to start working out to support my mental health during the pandemic. I knew that the lack of social interaction and the threat of a deadly virus would not be good for me and decided to take a hail Mary pass and finally start working out. As of this year I have kept that promise to myself for three years. 

Over the last 365 days, I have learned a lot about myself – I have pushed myself to new limits and seen how strong I can be. In some ways, I’m proud of myself. This year brought a lot of turmoil and I have found ways to push through. But when I look back on this year of working out, I don’t feel as inspired as I had hoped to. I feel like I’m looking back on a year of struggle.

My panic attacks came back this year – and with a vengeance. I found myself responding to old triggers and it was really reminiscent of a life I never wanted back. I felt like I was becoming a burden to those around me which only escalated my stress. I found myself hanging out with friends and taking up all the air space with complaints and woes and it made me feel selfish even though I couldn’t stop.
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I was hyper fixated on my body. For months I found myself in the worst habit of calorie counting and my workouts felt like more of a support for a physical aesthetic than a mental health change. I felt uncomfortable in my own body and I’m dreading swimsuit season in a way I can’t quite verbalize. 
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And that’s not to say that this year was no fun. I ran my first race – a 5k for Youth Mental Health (hits home a bit). I met my boyfriend and fell madly in love. I released 2 new songs (with more to come). I found a new therapist and was able to update my mental health diagnoses to receive better treatment for my illnesses. I made a lot of progress.

But this year truly felt like “cracking eggs to make an omlette”. It felt tumultuous and turbulent. I look back on the year and am proud but drained. I look back and feel like I could’ve done better.
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However, there is one tiny note of positivity. I know that this is just my low. I have been lower, I have been much lower. I can still go to work. I can still take a bus. I can still go out for dinner. I can make changes to plans without it destroying my week. I am able to do all these things, and I think that working out has helped me from completely falling off the deep-end, head-first into the abyss. 
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I’m stronger and healthier. I ran over 100km in September. All the cardio has improved my breath-support and I can feel it when I sing. I was able to get up on 1 ski while waterskiing and my god that’s a lot of core strength. My downhill skiing is easier and I finally, after 20 seasons, have been able to out-ski my dad.

This year has kicked me in the balls (and then when I fell down it kicked me in the face, and then the back, and then the appendix, and then…you get the point). But I’m not completely shattered. I have some bruises and bumps but I think it’s just one of those years. My mental illnesses will likely be chronic conditions. And there will be times where they are easy to manage, and there will be times where I have flare ups. This year was just a flare.

I’m just going to have to dust myself off and keep going. Strap on a good pair of sneakers and go for a jog. Year 4 starts now, and it can only go up from here.
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From me, with love, to you,
Victoria 

Olive and Ruby is the tale of a song that almost never was. I wrote the song during the dark days of the pandemic after an annual visit to Vancouver.

At around Broadway and MacDonald in Vancouver there used to be a little coffee shop. The walls were covered in cacti and succulents with the opposite covered in a mural of a thousand colours. The chai lattes were served in obscenely large cups and the banana bread was worth selling your soul for.
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However, this shop – like many – did not survive the pandemic. It shut down and I was devastated. It was still early days and I felt like COVID-19 had taken so much from me at the time. After months of lockdown I felt nostalgic for any sense of normal, so I wrote Olive and Ruby, named after the very place that inspired it. 

When I was pitching songs to a producer to, well…produce, I never pitched them Olive and Ruby. I saw it as a thought exercise more than anything, not something to be mass produced. However, my younger sister was furious the Olive and Ruby didn’t make the short list of songs and I explained to her I never shared it.
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She had me send it to my producer and his note back to me was: “You should listen to your sister more.” 

But, Olive and Ruby continued to be a labour of love. I wrote and rewrote and rewrote (and rewrote) the chorus. Draft after draft of choruses (chori?) that would simply be pulled from thin air and left to the cutting room floor.
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And the verses were dense. They were wordy and long. I cut 4 sections out of the verses otherwise I would’ve ended up with lyric after lyric after lyric until I tired my audience out beyond belief. As we narrowed our short list down to a shorter list, I cut Olive and Ruby from the list. After all that work, I scrapped it. 

​Summer of 2021 (yes, this project has taken me 2 years), I sat down with my family to play the final shortlist of songs I was set to record. Olive and Ruby had been replaced by a song about a boy. I played through the tracklist on my guitar only for my family to vehemently dislike the replacement song. I ended up replacing that song with Olive and Ruby, finally settling on a track list after 4 months of song selection. 

And it continues to belabour me. Olive and Ruby is being released at a time when my life is fairly upside down. And I think sometimes that’s what it’s meant to be. Because I hear it and the world feels more simple, more manageable. It’s about reflecting on a time when life moved slower and trying to grab onto the memories and keep the tangible.

I love this song, despite the hairs that have turned grey trying to get it done. I love the people who worked on it with me. Thank you to Stu Weinberg, Dan Hosh, Tom Hammerton, Kirk Starkey, and Meg Contini for working on this project. And thank you to you for reading this far. This is Olive and Ruby.

From me, with love, to you,
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-Victoria 

For 5 years and some change I have carved out a small corner of the internet based around a project I did when I was 18. The Blue Book Project has brought me many things – joy, pride, sadness, embarrassment, laughs, and frustration to name a few, but as of next week that comes to an end.

As of next Wednesday, I will be removing The Blue Book Project from all streaming platforms. This announcement is bittersweet. There is something wholesome about the album, 18-year-old me had no idea what she was doing. She recorded it for pennies in someone’s basement with a bunch of friends from high school. It was created and promoted at a time in my life that was massively unstable and it provided stability. I was able to push aside all the chaos and create something. It gave me something to prop myself up with when the rest of my life was truly in shambles. It’s sad to take that part of the internet away.

But if we’re living in a space of honesty, I’m relieved to take it down. The Blue Book Project is equal parts nostalgia and embarrassment. I have not yet aged out of “embarrassment” as I look at that album. Listening to it reminds me of all the thing I would have changed. My sister described it as “Nice, but you can tell it’s homemade.” A wonderfully accurate sentiment.
However, embarrassment aside. I am excited.

This removal is nowhere near impromptu. It is the culmination of a lot of hard work over the last TWO YEARS that is finally coming to fruition. I want a fresh start and the best way to do that? To take down my old friend and make way for bigger and better things.

Maybe one day I’ll repost it. Maybe one day I’ll even get around to rerecording it, Taylor-style. However, for now, it is time to retire The Blue Book Project.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows exactly what is coming next. Frankly, I am banking on the fact that only my family and friends read this blog. I’m not really breaking the internet with my virality. That being said, I did want to provide a formal warning that in 7 days, The Blue Book Project will disappear. If you still want to own this corner of the internet, below I have provided you with some ways to stream. Or if you are truly committed to the ownership of Victoria-Embarrassment-Bait, you can hunt it down on iTunes (if anyone still buys music anymore).

I love you all, let’s get ready.

From me, with love, to you,
Victoria ​

​This past November I ended a 4-year relationship and I want to talk about it.

I broke up with my therapist.

I had been seeing my therapist since 3rd year university and she changed my life. I can say with 100% confidence that the person I am today is in part because of my therapist. She was a sounding board, a source of logic, and an incredible source of advice over the last couple years. However, it was time for that relationship to end.

This past weekend I attended Boots and Hearts – a country music festival in Southern Ontario. It was everything I love – loud music, strong drinks, and sociable people. The atmosphere was lively and despite the scorching heat, people had a fantastic time. The festival featured some of the world’s top country artists and was headlined by music icon Shania Twain.

And I was miserable.
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I had two panic attacks – one in preparation for the event and one during the event. The number of people had me on edge. The heat and the sweat aggravated my eczema. I spent one particularly colourful afternoon crying beside the car while I desperately tried to calm my brain, so I didn’t feel like I was going to explode in a field in front of thousands of people.
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Late August, my sisters sat me down and we talked about my growth over the last 4 years. Where I was, where I wanted to be, and what might be a barrier in my life. They brought up that over the past year, maybe I had reached an end with my current therapist. My older sister phrased it this way:

“If you’ve never run before and you’re training for a marathon, you’re going to need some help, possibly a coach. At first it will just be about how to run. How to run in a way that is safe, so you don’t hurt your knees and ankles once you start taking on longer distances. You need to train incrementally. However, as you get to longer distances, you may need a new coach. Someone who is more experienced with long distance runners. It’s not that the first coach isn’t crucial, it’s that you’re needs have changed.”

And at first, I was horrified. It took me forever to find my (at the time) therapist and I never had any intention of leaving. Therapist shopping is long and exhausting and I didn’t want to explore that path. But as autumn came, I started to realise there were a couple more breaks in my brain than I had originally thought. One week in October brought three panic attacks and a sick day at the office to recover.

Which brings me to the breakup. I talked to my parents, my sisters, my friends, and my boyfriend to make sure I was making any rash decisions (also because of my inability to make a decision on my own). But here’s where we landed – I was breaking up with my therapist for 3 reasons:

1. My sister’s running analogy. Ultimately, she was right, I had moved into a new phase in my life and that would require a new coach.
2. I wanted someone in Ontario. My therapist is still in British Columbia and while that made sense during the pandemic – where everything was online – I wanted to start taking advantage of in-person visits. This meant I needed to find someone in Ontario.
3. I wanted someone covered by insurance. Your girl is not made of money. Enough said.

So, while visiting Vancouver for my birthday I ripped the band-aid off. Like any good breakup, I did it in person and brought flowers. I cried like a baby and thanked her profusely for all the support she had provided me. I left with a heavy heart, but knowing it was the right decision. 

And all this brings me to today, less than a month until the end of 2023. I am without a therapist for the first time in about 6 years and I am terrified. I feel a little bit naked and it’s unsettling. But I am sharing this uncomfortable experience because I think it’s important. Finding a therapist is hard. Mental health is hard. And realising you need a change is hard.

Part of me has thought about chronicling my experience finding a therapist. In a world that lacks enough mental health resources I think it may be important. But I’m split between that and my desire for a touch of privacy. I believe only time will tell which side of the argument I end up on.

But for now, wish me luck. I’m not just shopping for Christmas gifts this season.

From me, with love, to you,

Victoria ​