I was born in 1984, which means my childhood unfolded in that pre‑Y2K world where neighborhoods shaped you more than screens ever could. I grew up in Northern California in a neighborhood where Spanish was the soundtrack and Mexican flags flew proudly. As a kid, I truly believed I lived in a Spanish‑speaking country and that school would eventually require me to immerse myself in it. When they insisted on English instead, I felt disappointed, but I quickly realized I had been given something better. I had been given a community that knew exactly who it was and celebrated it unapologetically. My childhood smelled like rice, beans, and tortillas. Selena played from garages, driveways became practice stages for mariachi bands, and before I ever knew the macarena I knew the Mexican hat dance. I was surrounded by a culture that was vibrant, generous, loud, and fiercely proud.
I was an odd child with a devotion to the outdoors. Summers meant Fort Bragg and Mendocino, blackberry thickets, sand dollars, the peculiar terrain of tide pools, Junior Ranger badges, raccoons and skunks, and sitting in the freezing Pacific until my legs went numb. My exposure to hypothermia was calculated though. Before hiking to the beach I would ask the park rangers how cold the water was that day and how long I could safely be in it. I loved to kiss the boundaries of life.
I also possessed an imagination that refused to obey the rules. I believed movies could be rewritten into happier endings if I imagined them differently, and I approached books the same way. If a story disappointed me, I revised it in my head and carried the improved version around as if it were canon. I applied that same logic to everyday life. I thought learning which shoe went on which foot was frivolous. If someone told me they were backwards, I crossed my feet, spun in a circle, and announced that the problem was resolved.
Church added its own layer of wonder. There was a framed photograph in the lobby that I studied every Sunday. It showed Jesus descending from the clouds, suspended halfway between heaven and earth as if he had started the rapture but never finished it. My five‑year‑old self was stunned. Why had he changed his mind. Had he forgotten his chariot. I decided the only reasonable solution was to invite him to earth myself. He became my literal imaginary friend. He preferred the far back pew of the sanctuary and was always looking forward to the next potluck.
Middle school was the moment I realized we had been poor all along. Name brands, vacations, and hair trends revealed an entire social economy I had never participated in. I watched it, but I never joined it. Individuality was the only thing I could afford.
I wanted college, but my pockets were empty and my family had no idea how to approach it. My mind was hungry, but the path toward higher education carried a heavy ticket price. College became an even bigger impossibility when I got pregnant at nineteen. With college unapproachable, I did what nobody respected and became a self‑taught adult homeschooler. Unwilling, but relentless. If I wanted to understand something, I found a way to learn about it.
Motherhood chose me early and it made me wish away my youth. I did not want to be mistaken for the babysitter and judged unfit when people realized I was the mother. Despite the insecurities my young self carried, I went on to have four boys I cannot imagine my life without. They have taught me more about life, love, patience, chaos, and myself than anything else ever could. Motherhood has left me feeling happily indebted to them.
In full transparency, I lived years of my adult life hidden away and excelled at becoming whoever everyone else needed me to be. I did not just try to be what they wanted. No, I tried to be what they never expected from a child who grew up like me. When people glanced at my past, their eyes often carried a quiet disappointment, and I never wanted to move beyond observing that look and making eye contact with it. I overcorrected as much as a child raised in the wild could. I became as responsible, agreeable, and impressive as I could. But after my fourth child, the performance collapsed. It was a charade I could no longer keep up with. I had to stop being the version of myself that made everyone else comfortable and return to the girl I had been all along. Strange, inquisitive, full of questions, and full of stories. By thirty five I finally felt like I was returning home to myself.
Since my late thirties, life has been filled with road trip adventures. With our van methodically packed, my boys and I have visited all of the lower forty eight states, collecting memories across thirty two national parks. We have crossed deserts, climbed mountains, stood in forests older than our country, watched the sun rise over the ocean horizon in the east and set under the ocean horizon in the west. We have watched the sky change its mind a thousand times and reveal stars and planets that the lights of suburbia would never allow us to see. I wanted to teach my little 2020 hobbits that it is possible to live adventurously before life expects you to. If there is a life you want, why wait. Seize it now.
But every adventurer needs a place to return to, and home right now is wherever my children feel safe. At the moment, that place is Franklin, Tennessee. It is suburban, quiet, and roomy enough for four boys to escape one another when necessary. Our home also houses three dogs: a lab and German shepherd mix who still believes he is a forever puppy and is fluent in husky, and two dachshunds with personalities far larger than their bodies. It is not the witch cabin in a forest that I dream about, but it is ours, and it is steady, and it is the place where my children exhale.
I will not leave a monument. I wish to inspire permission instead. Permission to be curious, to be strange, and to make something beautiful out of the life you have. I spent far too long learning that I could not afford to be like everyone else before finally admitting I did not want to be. I want those parts of me to be the life lessons my boys do not have to live. My greatest hope for them is to live freely, however the hell they want to. I hope that for you too.
Notes on Being and Becoming 