Oh, hey. Hi. I’m still here.
The thing about military life is that it comes with a lot of strange emotions.
Just over a year ago, I launched this website after months of working on it with my designer. Brandon and the girls threw me their own little launch party. I was so excited to step into a new season of my business: my own app, better coaching, fresh programming, and more real life to reach more people.
Behind the scenes, though, I was carrying a sadness I had never felt before. I still can’t fully explain it. So much good was happening around me, and I felt numb to all of it.
In 2024, Brandon spent the year in Korea. It was so hard, but I also learned how wildly capable I am. The girls and I made so many memories in our home. We traveled. We kept living.
Then we lost our dog. I sold a house, packed everything up, and said goodbye to the best years of our lives so far, alone.
Germany was supposed to be an exciting new season. I’d get to revisit places we’d lived a decade earlier, and we were finally together again. Instead, I shut down. I cried every single day.
I remember Rowan, my youngest, telling my mom on the phone, “When I hear Mom crying, I know I just need to go give her a hug.”
An 8-year-old whose whole life had just been turned upside down too, comforting me. The guilt was unreal. And I couldn’t explain any of it, except that I desperately wanted my old life back.
After 16+ years of military life, I had finally hit the point where I just couldn’t adapt. It turns out that, for me at least, the longer you do this, the harder it gets.
I was longing for the roots we’d been lucky enough to plant in Florida for five years. But I couldn’t go back. It felt like my nervous system had simply shut down after a full year of running on high stress and doing everything alone.
But we don’t get to dwell, do we? This is what it is. We sacrifice to keep our family together. This is “what we signed up for.” Right?
I cried all day on the 4th of July, pulled myself together for a concert that night, and left for London the next morning. That’s what it looked like: amazing things happening all around me while I fought just to get through the day.
EMOTIONS NEED MOTION
Even with all that heaviness, I kept showing up the one way I knew I could: through movement.
Some days I cried on the way to the gym, cried while I was there, and cried on the drive home. But I kept going, because it’s a habit I’ve built over the last 14 years. I show up for this even when I’m just going through the motions.
We have a saying around here: emotions need motion. I live and breathe by it, and it has carried me through so many dark days.
Just keep moving.
And guess what, friend? It works.
You keep going until one day it feels a little more intentional and a little less like checking a box. You keep going until the fog is a little lighter, your spirit feels a little brighter, and you can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I’ve always said this is about more than fitness, and the last few years have proved it to me. Movement is how I always find my way back to myself.
I still miss Florida. I still long for roots. I still have no idea how I’ll handle another damn PCS. But it doesn’t feel like a constant weight anymore.
If you needed a little glimmer to keep going today, here it is. It can be dark. You can tired. But you cannot stay there. It doesn’t stay dark forever.
We are so back.
#worththework
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