This morning, as I was driving away from my house, I realized that in exactly one month from now, I will have left my spouse and daughter for a year. It hadn’t hit me until recently but now, every time I am alone, I just want to bawl like a baby. People have asked me, said, “I don’t know how you do it…?” The reality is, I have no freaking clue myself. I know that I need to do it, I know this is what I signed up for and continued to sign up for. But honestly, that doesn’t make it any easier when I haven’t left my family for well over 12 years, and definitely not while I have been a mommy.

I am also grateful for this upcoming experience. Everyone around me knows how hard the last five years have been for me. And getting a chance to mentally reset away from those I love and are waiting on me, is truly a blessing. It’s like the movie Eat, Pray, Love, where the ex-wife takes a trip to “get her groove back;” only difference is that I will be working and getting paid while “getting my groove back.” These past five years have been filled with optimism, excitement, wonder, as well as, heartbreak, times of despair and defeat, and failures. Some of these have come in the last two years. My latest assignment honestly has been one of the toughest. I had just moved from a position where everything was subjective, but the things being criticized about were measurable. There were people who I could rely on and talk to, who had been treated in the same ways I felt that I had been treated. I knew I was not top caliber and while I continued to pursue it, I ultimately found my rhythm and was comfortable and confident. I was excited and hopeful for the future and my next assignment. I came back to the career field that I loved and the job I truly enjoyed. I had done this before, I had killed it before. All I needed to do was be me, but that was not enough. Never seemed enough. My previous assignment showed me that I needed to allow myself to grow and develop. I came back to my career field ready to be reacquainted with the changes and ready to show that I have become better. This was then shown to be that I was not ready. I was reminded that everything is subjective, just not always measurable. I ended up being told that I just wasn’t cutting it, for what I was trying to achieve. Maybe I never will be enough. But damn, am I going to continue to try.