To Be Good with Them, I Had To Be Good With Me
Up until 2012, if I asked I would say the hardest thing I ever had to do was move across the country on my own in hopes that the Police Department I tried out for would be committed to their word and hire me. Either way, I was now living in Georgia and alone without any family. But then 2010 happened and 2012 was determined to be my biggest year yet. November 2012, two weeks shy of birthing my first child, my mother transitioned from this life. There was so much I did not feel ready for and did not quite know and I needed my mother there to guide me. Instead I have held on to our last conversation that Thanksgiving day like the air I breathed.
After birthing my daughter and co-coordinating my mother’s service back in Kansas, I did not have much time to figure out what a fourth trimester was or who I was now having lost my mother and becoming one in such a short time frame. I was still full-time, 12 hour shift employee of the US Government and working in a hostile work environment, while breast feeding and roughly still a newlywed. I dreamed about freedom. I day dreamed in my office of not having to be inside under neon lights, staring at a computer screen that was now causing me to need glasses. I did not want to die with the music that my heart sings trapped inside of me, still. But what did freedom look like?
I started to think of all the eco-friendly (or what they call crunchy) Momma things I wanted to do to raise my daughter and be present for my family and home. So I took off 4 months of saved up paid-leave to be home with my baby and figure out what freedom looked like. When I left the military, I dyed my hair both red and blonde (IYKYK) and painted my nails green (you know, something we could never do according to AFI 36-2903). I did my makeup daily and went to the gym at 4am to work with my trainer before he had to go to work. I was feeling good. Then my doctor gave me, what I thought was the worst news at the time, I was a repeat offender and pregnant, again (sigh).
Things moved fast and 5 months later, we were being stationed in O’ahu. I did not know anyone, the wives groups were useless, I couldn’t find a stylist to bless my hair with magic so I cut it super short and released myself of the first conditioning I felt, to always have long hair (more on this later). I also wasn’t good with styling short hair (because I never had it before)and turned out to be quite a feat. I was a SAHM now, while managing our rental property back in the states, pregnant and raising an infant. My hands were full and I still hadn’t figured out what freedom looked like for me but I was starting to feel a sense of it by not living so close to either my family or my in-laws.
Fast forward to 2014 and I was now Momming 2 under 2, heading to the gym as often as I could and starting to find some friends on base. I decided we should buy another house because the financial freedom we had allowed us to do so and we did. The next year I went on my first retreat to Thailand. I mention Thailand so much because this trip was the first freedom I felt I made for myself since becoming a mother and as guilty as I felt for it, I needed to make this decision for me. When I returned I knew it was time for me to become a yoga teacher and get these braids out of my head. LOL
This got wayyyyy longer than I wanted or thought so I have to comeback with a part two but it’ll be worth it.