Gems North of Ordinary

I am GEM.  For 27 years I built a successful Permanent Make-Up practice in Johannesburg, South Africa: a career, a client base, a life I knew how to navigate with my eyes closed. 

And then, in my sixties, I decided to take it all apart and start again.

Gem's North of Ordinary is where I'm documenting what that actually looks like — our family's emigration from South Africa to the Niagara region of Ontario, Canada to be closer to our family.  Told with honesty and raw vulnerability - for sure without gloss. 
The paperwork, the waiting, the grief of leaving a country I still love, the practical mechanics of moving a life across an ocean, and the quieter question of who you become when the identity you've held for decades no longer applies.

I'm not a guru and I'm not an expert. 
I'm a 65-year-old who decided enough was enough — proof that it's never too late for a plot twist.