With Love, Sassou

What is going on here?

Hello everyone! You may be wondering: “Excuse me Sarah, what are you doing here? I haven’t seen you blog since what…like…2014? What?”. Yes, it’s me, not AI and this is not a prank. And on all the platforms available, of course I would choose WordPress 😛

It was during the early days, the Blogger days, the Tumblr days. Facebook was for students, my friends were still on MySpace and Twitter was so new that nobody believed in it and thought it was weird. And here I was, blogging multiple times a week. My old blog is where I shared the best parts of my life, the parts that made me ME. The parts that were pleasant to write about. Now, looking back, it was our social media back then – A curation of our best times. My name everywhere was “I Love Sassou” or @ilovesassou, Sassou being my nickname that friends, family members and people who were familiar to me called me affectionately since I was a young girl. The “I Love” was what I thought was a cute way to incorporate my last name Desamours which means “lots of love” in French, my mother tongue.

But something – well A LOT OF THINGS – happened since my last blog post from my blog which no longer exists (that’s another story for another post, or not). 

I had a child. I moved to Miami full time. I did a major career change from banking to real estate sales. I became a single mom. I made new friends. Lost friends. Deepened friendships. Adjusted to a new, beautiful and superficial city (I am SO bittersweet about Miami). And I stopped blogging – I had zero time…well at the time I didn’t even know how to organize my time which I saw as chaotic back then, especially with a baby. I went through (and continue going through) the rollercoaster of entrepreneurship. I dealt with Breast Implant Illness (BII), auto-immune disease and surgery. Began speaking publicly, first on small webinars and then on stages in front of thousands of people. Inspiring others, transparently sharing my path to what others can define as success but for me, it is what I define as continuous growth. I had no money, moderate money, more money, less money, went through it all.  These are just a few things, amongst a million others which, in a nutshell, are part of this complex but beautiful thing called LIFE.

But most importantly, I grew. I became known as Sarah Desamours: The French Canadian Realtor selling luxury real estate in Miami. That’s how so many people know me! I can’t deny it, I can’t say “no that’s not what I do”…That’s what I have “been” for awhile now and I’m grateful for this business. The highs are SO HIGH and the lows…extremely low. Despite it all, this real estate career has given me and continues to give me opportunities to not only help others, but contributes to a life of flexibility, freedom and highly contributes to the abundance mindset I’ve always lived by. I do love what I do as a career, love most of my clients and appreciate my team so much I can’t even put it into words. 

I do have to keep it real and let you know that although I love my job, something was missing. Something deep. Something I couldn’t put my finger on and have been searching for YEARS. Whatttt was that missing piece? I’m doing relatively well right? Why do I feel this slight emptiness? It has been driving me insane, sometimes making me lose sleep. I kept having a lot of trouble envisioning myself SOLELY as a successful real estate agent. I wanted to help others, I wanted to do something else…but WHAT?

Over the years, although I was searching for the missing piece, I continued doing my absolute favorite hobbies which are traveling the world and anything food related from cooking classes to trying Michelin Starred restaurants. I’ve done many carnivals (IYKYK) and ate SO WELL and along the way, met the most incredible people including the love of my life Av (should I do a post about that? Let me know!). But most importantly, I have been able to bring my daughter Eva along the way. Watching her grow into a well traveled tween, speaking different languages and understanding different cultures has been one of my biggest blessings. On top of that, I also made important changes to my lifestyle by prioritizing health, fitness, posititivity, affirmations, gratitude, and more.

Anyways, back to that missing piece. I tried to look for it and tried doing different things in relations to my career. TikTok, Youtube, all real estate related things and it never felt COMPLETE. As part of my continuous growth, I’ve gone on multiple retreats (business and spiritual), have been doing therapy for years, read dozens of books, listened to hundreds of podcast episodes and even did Ayahuasca in Costa Rica. I’ve gotten many answers, I continue to grow…but something was calling me to Bali. I didn’t know what it was. Bali has been on my vision board for at least 3 years and I hadn’t been yet. In good Sarah fashion, earlier this year I bought myself the Assouline BALI book and laid it as the ONLY BOOK on my living room’s coffee table so I could be forced to look at it every day. I thought doing this could finally help me get to planning that trip I’ve longed to go on forever. Yes, Bali seemed beautiful and the nature is incredible there. But it was deeper than that. God was calling me there. I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to go. 

It worked! I planned the trip. Visualization is real ok? You can’t tell me otherwise.

Eva’s birthday gift was a trip to Japan and I thought “Hey, since will already be in Asia, we may as well go somewhere else. Why not Bali?”. First of all, Eva was like wtf is Bali (not her exact words but I’m sure that’s what she thought) so that was a whole other thing. I made her look at the coffee table book, watch YouTube videos etc. She was still like “MEH I PREFER JAPAN”….but at the end of the day, although I was excited to go, Japan was more HER thing so adding MY thing was only fair, right? Especially since I WAS FUNDING THE TRIP…. SOOOOOOO! We ended up going to Bali before going to Japan because with the amount of stuff I knew I’d be buying in Japan, I didn’t see myself carrying all of it to Indonesia. 

I booked our flights from L.A. so I could spend some time with my mom and with my dear friend/soul sister Taya before leaving to Asia. While I was with Taya before leaving, we had the most amazing conversations (I love you Tayadosia) and she asked me what my spiritual goal was for Bali. I simply told her “I’m going there with the palms of my hands open, willing to receive whatever God has for me”. In other words, I had no specific goal but my ears, eyes, heart and intuition were WIDE OPEN. 

It was a beautiful trip. Much better than I thought it would be and trust me, I had very high expectations. Eva ended up loving it and being pleasantly surprised, too! I’ll write more about it on another post. But on my last day there, I woke up before Eva and as I was journaling by the pool at our AirBnb in Seminyak, I burst into tears. 

That one thing I was missing….I finally felt it. I knew what it was. 

Along the years of trying to fit in and becoming “successful” in society, I changed everything to “Sarah Desamours” which is my formal full name. Most of my things are curated to fit into this mold I’ve created by some standard of what felt “right” for me given my successful real estate agent identity: The luxury Miami agent (NGL it’s a little weird writing this). I’ve shared a bit of my travels here and there, mostly on my disappearing stories. Same for food, same for lifestyle. It’s all VERY hand picked and I’m ashamed to say that there are some trips I didn’t even post about smh. But guess what? At the end of the day, I’m Sassou. If you know me, you know I’m not the most formal person. I laugh a lot and am kind of a clown. I’m brutally honest. I’m a nerd. I love being efficient and am a good planner as I travel a lot…I actually grew up traveling the world as my dad was an expatriate. When I became an adult, I started traveling on my own and went from the cheapest flights to countless trains and hostels to staying at guest houses through AirBnb. Finding the cheapest but best foods in each city became my thing back then. As I grew and was at different points in my life, the hotels and experiences became different. It was another change when traveling alone with my daughter. Landing in a foreign country at 8PM and taking a train at 11PM isn’t ideal with a 10 year old ok? Let’s keep it real.  

It was the same for food/gastronomy and lifestyle. I remember getting better at cooking because I was limited financially as a full time University student. I remember how my restaurant reviews were from my one restaurant splurge per month or when I would go with my parents who would thankfully pay for me. I remember how I got a part-time job at a high end gym in Montreal so I could get a free membership. Things have changed. I am now the parent paying for her kid (LOL) and because I’ve grown, my taste and experiences are now a little different.

What I love…TRULY LOVE….deep down inside, is helping others. I love giving tips & tricks about traveling, lifestyle and food. I love sharing hacks. I also love sharing about my mistakes and what I wouldn’t suggest based on my experience. I love being authentic and sharing openly. And I have ALWAYS loved writing and speaking!

So I decided to get back to blogging. Sharing…helping others….is one of the things that made me very happy back then and what I know will continue to make me happy now and in the future. Daily journaling has been the biggest healing action I’ve done over the years and now, I will be sharing some of that journaling with you all through my blog and sometimes videos. 

When you call someone by their full name, it’s super formal. When you call them by their nickname, it’s informal and more friendly. So although I will ALWAYS be Sarah Desamours, you can call me Sassou now 🙂

Remember when I told you my “blogger” name back then was “I love Sassou”? I’m going back to that but because I’ve grown, I will only be using Sassou. And just like back then, everything, every article, every video will be done with love, always. This is why I decided to call the blog “With Love, Sassou. 

WELCOME TO MY NEW BLOG!

Get ready to read more about travels, food and lifestyle. Some posts may be long like this one and some super short.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading this long ass essay I wrote on the plane back from Japan to Florida. I have an annoying layover in Atlanta because I didn’t plan my return flight how I usually do, oops. But I’m still grateful to be going back home after such an incredible trip. Right now, I’m in economy in a middle seat with Eva watching anime next to me and my noise cancelling headphones on top of my head, playing Joe Dwèt Filé radio on Spotify. I like listening to music while reading or writing sometimes. This is a very ME moment and I am sharing it with you authentically.

With Love, 

Sassou