How It All Started…

On the bitter winter morning before the sun rose over the horizon, on lunar new year, February 4th, 1992 my journey began. 

I started out being really lucky. My youngest years were spent upper middle class, I had a stay at home mom who was like Martha Stewart on steroids, and my dad coached all the school sports I played and went on my field trips with me. Like most though, after I became an adult, I had to unwind my childhood. Some experiences were genuinely horrible, and some were a matter of perception and influence.

The first chunk of my life was just one thing after another.

I ended up 14, Homeless other than crashing on friends and my grandmothers couches and living out of black trash bags I kept on her porch.

How did that happen?!?

Well, in 2006 my mom died. My dad and I have a great relationship now… but he was a bit of a mess as far as parenting went after my mom was gone.

Being on my own so young forced me to sink or swim. I’ll be honest, at first I was DROWNING.

My high school years were rocky.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

I stumbled through my healing, the options all seemed to have such long wait periods for results. I didn’t feel present in my body, I was self medicating, partying, and totally out of control. I knew there had to be a better way.

I was looking for love in all the wrong places, I was desperate for attention, self medicated. Basically anything to feel alive or escape being me for just a little bit.

The one thing that helped me cope in a healthy way was going to the gym.

I would hide out at the local YMCA for 2-3 hours a day. I would putz through my routine, and it started helping me feel more connected to my body. I wasn’t aware of the mind body connection yet, so I didn’t understand how to make it go full circle in the connection. I just knew it was the one thing that made me feel okay without harming myself in some way or deep diving into a form of escapism.

So I had one healthy lifeline to hang onto, to ground myself.

Then I decided to try and learn to swim, using the gym as my crutch to cope, and went off to college, made it through one semester, and found myself pregnant.

At 19 I became a mother myself, and knew I had to figure out how to live the healthiest life I possibly could so my little girl never had to experience the pain I did.

I wasn’t great at this whole better job then my parents thing quite yet. But man did I try.

I became a preschool teacher and learned everything I could, determined to be the best Mama I could, and I was a pretty good teacher, and finally started getting traction, but still had a lot of financial struggles that kept me in the struggle.

During the summer of 2016, I met my first husband and ended up rushing into a really toxic marriage. I didn’t understand how love looked still yet, and I thought this was it. I just really wanted to give Reagan a healthy family. Despite how difficult it was, I had my son and his little Cancer soul taught me the true meaning of love and how to recognize it.

I finally found a feeling and sense of belonging and connection.

I met my best friend thanks to that toxic marriage, and found a community I knew was home. It wasn’t for nothing.