Asters & Dandelions

Raise your hand if you know every facet of who you are. No? Me either. Now, raise your hand if you grew up in a home where you were told exactly what happiness was supposed to look like, success, beauty, wealth. You see, I grew up in a home with lots of black and white answers to lots of gray topics. When you’re young, adult voices are always truth. As you learn what the world is made up of outside of your comfort zones, you begin to question everything. If you don’t, you are not only part of the problem, you are the problem; but that’s another blog post. So why is it that we continue to long to have it all figured out? Continuously we see “empowering” articles, instagram pics with captions longer than the screen, the woman who posts all the selfies with just the right formula of emoji and cliche quotes. Are we feeling empowered by these things filling our screens and our minds? Sometimes. But also sometimes, it may feel like you’re the only one who doesn’t have it all figured out yet. What a daunting task it is to know exactly who you are going to be for the rest of your life.

18 year old me was so sure I knew exactly who I was. 25 year old me was equally as sure. Now at 29, I’m accepting that knowing exactly who you are is a societal trap I don’t want to be a part of any longer. I definitely am far more sure of my hard limits and boundaries than my 18 year old self and I am infinitely more kind to myself as an imperfect human than 25 year old me but I’m still not done growing. I have decided I don’t want to decide right now, or ever, who I am going to be for the rest of my life.

Think of all the hardships and successes you’ve endured. Think of all of them you still have ahead of you. Now imagine refusing yourself the right to change through these events. Of course you will change! So why are we, as a a society, so set on figuring it all out right the fuck now? As if we don’t run enough laps on the wheel of this rat race between trying to take over the world professionally, filling your spouse’s every romcom fantasy in your love life, finding the balance between being a gentle parent and not raising entitled assholes, destroying the patriarchy, obliterating systemic racism, perfecting a god damn skin care routine, creating a diet that leaves you guilt free, going to the gym and the doctor for your best possible body, going to therapy and breaking down generations of trauma. The list can continue infinitely and yet with all of these stressors, we still find space in our dangerously fragile egos and our forever abandoning time to intricately define exactly who we are.

When I was young, I only knew who I was through the eyes of my addict parents. To my mother, I was like a winter coat on a summer day. Sure everyone needs a winter coat at some point but I was always a bit too much and she was forever trying to find a metaphorical closet to tuck me away in until she needed the warmth again. It was a constant cycle of not truly being wanted and yet her leaning on me for some source of validation that she had accomplished something after spending the entirety of her adult life with no accomplishments. To my father, I was a mirror. And just as everyone does within themselves, some days that meant he was proud to see all the things he liked about himself in me and on other days, he had so much hate for all the darkness and chaos I carried just as he did. Imagine if that woven pattern of a person was who I defined myself as for the rest of my life.

When I graduated high school, I had some roommates, I worked 2 jobs but I was very alone. Not alone in the sense of I wanted a partner in life but in the opposite sense. I knew, as a matter of fact, I did not want to share all the things that made me who I am with another human. I was very content creating a life alone. . and then I saw my husband for the first time after his deployment and it was like meeting him for the first time. I saw him with brand new eyes and I am so very thankful I didn’t let post high school me be who I was defined as.

Fast forward to moving to the other side of the world and enduring a high risk pregnancy that defined every part of my day. I raised my two year old son from bed as my house grew filthier and my babies grew within me, unsure if we’d ever meet earth side. Meanwhile, the darkness that filled me defined every piece of who I was. Those 2 years in Korea I filled 6 journals and every page had detailed reasons of why I was unworthy of happiness and good things. Excuses for why I was vastly overweight and underwhelmed with life as a whole. And again, I am thankful I did not allow myself to be defined by that darkness.

We moved back stateside and things were suffocatingly still. We were happy enough but those first few months were the equivalent of an economy flight on spirit airlines. We were getting where we needed but there was no thrill and minimal comfort. I began my weight loss journey eating only 2 boiled eggs a day the first week, then graduated to 2 boiled eggs a day and a salad for dinner. I began my weight loss journey not because I loved my body but because I hated it. How could you love something that brought you so much darkness and could barely keep your babies alive in their own womb? Surely that was not a thing to be taken care of or loved. I didn’t begin my journey to better my body, I began it to punish it for all of the deficiencies I was positive it had brought to my marriage and life as a whole. I moved on to lose 96 pounds and become stronger than I had ever been. I came to the realization that my body was the house I grew up in and that I refused to burn it to the ground. I chose to accept my body’s strengths and scars and flaws and beauty. All because I didn’t decide to let that begrudged, overweight, insecure, version be what I was defined as.

My heart was full of days with my children, and workouts with my husband. I longed for our nightly conversations after work over a blunt; decompressing from our day to day annoyances. Home life was pure bliss and yet something was still missing. I still wasn’t where I wanted to be. All the pieces of the puzzle fit together perfectly yet there was still that one piece making the puzzle incomplete: my professional progression. At this point I had been by my husband’s side since he was a specialist. I helped him move out of the barracks and into our first home, all the way to watching our son pin him E6. I had seen all he had built for us in the Army. He’s my best friend and my ultimate role model. I, to this day, want to be just like my husband. So I decided that version of me was still not who I was defined as.

All of my followers know, in depth, what my journey has looked like thus far so without too many details I will say the Army is equal parts fulfilling and defeating. Sometimes, I put on my uniform and feel like I am one step closer to taking over the world and other times I put it on and feel like a complete traitor to my home and family. I still don’t know what I want out of this Army life and that’s okay. I’m learning as I go and I’m growing and experiencing life in different ways, and making connections in different ways, and speaking to humans more kindly than before, and trying to become my best self and it’s all exhausting and overwhelming.

Today I share with you my story of defining moments and I know your defining moments will look vastly different. The point is, we all are continuously growing and changing. You don’t owe the world a definition of who you are and definitely not an explanation of why. Not defining who you are does not make you less of a force of nature. Even in nature, trees decide they will be full and beautiful today and bare and empty tomorrow. Let’s make a choice to stop making humanity harder than it already is. We will define boundaries. We will define goals. We will define destinations. We will no longer be defining humans.