To my baby girl on Letting go.

To my angel girl, at 10 months old I can already see the free little spirit that lives inside your heart. Your dreams are big, and if I have anything to say about it you will know that you are capable of achieving them all. However, with big dreams can come big heartbreak and that is what I want to talk to you about my angel.

            Baby girl, there will be times in your life when you know without a doubt that you want something more than anything else in the whole world. You will dream about this thing daily, you will build this thing up in your mind to be the unicorn of all things special. This thing that you desperately need will be the only thing between you and happiness and you will stop at nothing to have it. Then you will get this thing and you will realize that this thing, whether it’s a person, place, or object, was not actually what you envisioned being at all. This thing that you just knew was going to be the best thing ever, was not the thing that your heart dreamed it would be. Baby girl when this happens you will have two choices, you can choose to stay with this thing, and try to force it into being what you had wanted it to be, or you can love it, and let it go.

            Baby girl, so many people choose to stay and force it. They think that somehow if they stay long enough, fight hard enough, this beautiful thing that was just not right for them will morph into what they needed all along, but it never does. Instead that beautiful thing that you longed for, for so long becomes ruined. Love is replaced with resentment and desire is replaced with hate. You fight and fight to force this thing into being something you wanted until it is an unrecognizable version of itself and you no longer care for it at all. At this point my baby, its ruined. It can no longer be beautiful to you and when you finally leave it you will have no memories of love to look back on. Don’t do this baby girl. When faced with the decision to force something that you know is wrong, or leave it and let it continue to be beautiful, let it go.

            It can be so incredibly hard to walk away from something you thought you needed for so long, but sometimes that is the only way to truly love something. Knowing that something wasn’t right for you doesn’t mean that it isn’t beautiful in itself, it just means that it wasn’t what your heart needed to grow. Don’t hate this thing for not being what you needed, love it, make your peace with its new role as a memory from your past and continue on with your future. When you look back at this thing look back with love, remember how much you wanted it, remember how beautiful it was, and be reminisce for just a moment about how things were. Then look forward and continue with your new dreams.

            Baby girl, when I joined the Navy there was nothing in my life I had ever wanted more than to leave the small town I was from and see the world. I wanted to push myself beyond any limits I had ever known before, and go to places I never knew existed. So that is exactly what I did, and I LOVED IT. I loved every single minute of my experience in the Navy. I grew from a small town girl, to a woman who had seen an done things very few people will ever get to experience. I was at the top of my game in my Naval career and well on the path to success. It was everything I had ever wanted…until it wasn’t. When I became pregnant with your brother my heart shifted. I no longer desired the deployments, the pride I felt when gaining a qual or launching a jet. I no longer had the urge to stay late and come in early to be the best I could be. I just wanted to be a mom. My heart had left the Navy, but the Navy didn’t change.

            Baby girl when this happened I could have done one of two things, I could have stayed in the Navy and tried to force myself into loving this thing I had dreamed of for so long, or I could choose to love it for what it was, and let it go. I choose the second option. I left the Navy on July 17 2014 to chase a new dream, of being a mom. While my heart no longer longed for the life the Navy could provide me, but it didn’t stop loving it either. When my old ship pulled into port in my new town, my heart grew heavy and my eyes filled with tears. I desperately missed the life I had once lived. But then I looked in my back seat and saw my beautiful angels and I knew that if I was still living that life, I would be forcing a love that was no longer there. I would be miserable and want nothing more than to be with my babies. The nostalgia I feel when thinking of the Navy is the love that I didn’t lose from not forcing what I knew was no longer right. and if I had to do it all over again I would do it the exact same way.

            Baby girl your heart is filled with dreams, and I want you to chase them all. Some will last months and others will last your lifetime. Go for all of them. Love all of them. And when its time to move on, do so with love and grace. Do not step on others on your way up. Keep your roots but never stop growing. Places, people, things, they are all beautiful even if they aren’t what you need. Appreciate them for what they are, but listen to your heart and go where it guides you. You have wings baby girl. Do not be afraid to fly.