It’s about time I tell you a little bit more about me. When I was young I had always felt like I was being judged. Judged because I was an Army brat, because there were 4 of us kids in the house when most of my friends only had 1 other sibling, because I was mixed and didn’t fit in with the Black girls, Asian girls, white girls, Hawaiian girls, you get the point. It was hard! Then coming from DoD and private schools only to be thrusted into the public school community where “no child left behind” was the norm was even tougher. My father always said stop worrying about what other people think of you. All you should worry about is what you think of you. Of course I listened to every word he said….not really. Who did he think he was? He wasn’t a young teenage girl in the 21st century. I didn’t even think he was ever a teenager.

Well now I’m a lot older and even as an adult I still have found myself feeling judged at times. As a young adult, I was always worried about not being the young immature one in the crowd. I was always worried about my parents still treating me like a child when I was young adult trying to find my role in the military and in the big scary world. As a young sailor, I didn’t want to be judged as a young female in a leadership position in a majority male-filled department. When I left the military, I didn’t want to be judged for following my boyfriend across the universe to Hawai’i. I was worried about being judged when I joined the FAA because all I had was military air traffic controlling experience and I didn’t think I would be good enough. I was worried, after I was facility rated at my first FAA ATC facility because I married my boyfriend and left the FAA to be with him since he was still active duty and stationed in FL. Worrying about being judged never stopped. No siree! It was harder! We married and was pregnant with our first daughter, then my husband deployed for 10 months 7 months after we had her. I felt judged the entire time because I was parenting alone and didn’t know if I was doing anything right. When he left she was almost 7 months and when he returned she was a young toddler, 17 months walking and talking.

After he returned I went back to work for the FAA only to feel like I was being judged because I had spent so much time away controlling, I was pregnant with my second daughter, then we found out we had to leave to move to Maryland. Oh, I felt like I was being judged left and right just because of things I had no control over. How’s that for a controller?!

It wasn’t until after our move to Maryland and I had hit rock bottom emotionally that I realized that I have to stop caring. We moved from the house we built, I had to resign from a job that I cared about (not truly loved), we moved 2 weeks after Kynsley was born (packers came literally the day after we came home from the hospital), I had no friends in MD, and post-partum depression was hitting me hard. I had to stop caring to take care of me!

I have always been one to speak my mind, but secretly I wondered what people thought of me. That was the old me! Honestly, now at 35, I could care less! I still speak my mind! I genuinely care about people, but I could care less what they think about me. Yep, my house is messy at times, but guess what, I have kids! Not big kids, little kids who hoard snacks because apparently they never know when the next feeding will be. I wear yoga pants most days because guess what…I don’t want my fancy ‘mom jeans’ to get apple sauce or whatever snack my divas have in their hands when they hug my legs. I try to be the best wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend I can be. I will give you my first and if you really need it, my last. I love hard but fight just as hard. I’m just me. Confident Me. All I ask is that you don’t judge me.