Welcome to Life As Whits

Life As Whits was created at the beginning of the March 2020 – the beginning of the pandemic – as a way for me to celebrate life and all that it has to offer as a lot of curveballs were being thrown my way. The pandemic has been hard on a lot of us. It has derailed plans we took months, years, or even decades planning. It had a lot of us working from home wondering if life will ever get back to normal.

For me, the pandemic has been had a lot of lows and some pretty amazing highs. I lost my job when everything shut down and I had to find a way to continue to pursue my passion for athletic therapy and injury rehabilitation while at the same time continue to make a living. During this period of uncertainty, there was this desire to make the best of the situation we were in. As stressful as that time was at first, I found myself being grateful because for the first time in a really long time – I could focus my energy and strength in creative goals I had pushed aside because I thought that was what it meant to be an adult.

I am an athletic therapist, which means that I work in the injury rehab and strength and conditioning field. My career is one that I am very proud of and I can see myself doing this job for the rest of my life. The best thing about being an athletic therapist is that I get to help people achieve their goals and sometimes to do that- I have to be creative.  A creativity that came from being able to see the world and capture the beauty that is in it. A creativity that came from loving to play dress up as a little girl and pretend to go to all these amazing balls. A creativity that came from embracing every single part of me that was feminine and strong.

When people think of femininity – they often think of the being classy or being cute or being sweet. With all the adjectives above comes this visual in mind. One that unfortunately for the longest time, didn’t always include someone that looked like me. No, I’m not just talking about being a woman of colour. I mean a woman who is muscular, a woman did track and could out run a lot of people. A woman who goes to the gym and lifts quite heavy because she loves to challenge herself. I grew up in a world where people wondered in Serena Williams was a man because she was muscular – a role model I look up to so much because I see myself in her. I grew up in a world where wanting to keep up with the boys and being able to hold your own was frowned upon because “You would get scars on your legs, and no guy wants a girl who has scars on her legs.” There always seemed to be a dichotomy of being able to be classy, cute, sweet while being physically strong.

Thankfully enough, I have outgrown those comments and I have learnt that who Whitney is, is exactly who I was created to be. I can’t hide the athletic part of me because I want to embrace the sweeter side more just the way I can’t hide the sweet, caring, absolutely cheesy part of me because I want to embrace the athletic side.

Life As Whits is a combination of those two things. Its a combination of my love for fashion, travelling,  capturing amazing shots while also being able to write a strength and conditioning program for a professional athlete.

Life As Whits is for that little girl who struggled so much to pick a side of herself that she missed all the amazing things that combination could do.

Thank you for stopping by and being a part of this journey. I hope it inspires you and encourages you to embrace every single aspect of who you are.

Whits