The Wonderful Phases of Life, and How They Shaped Me.

At not quite 40 years of age, I can reflect on my life and the phases I’ve gone through. I find it interesting how much of who I was as a person was tied to each phase. I have my hyper religious junior high and high school phase, my college years, where I started seeking answers for long-held questions. After I graduated, I moved into my “overly invested in my career phase.” Which led to the 2021 burnout. When I look back on each phase , I can acknowledge that at its core, I was looking for who I was as an individual, and a lot of the time I was letting those around me tell me who that was. 

I grew up in a very loving and supportive home, and I was given a lot of opportunities. Even though things weren’t always easy for my parents, I had the privilege of going to a private school, which also exposed me to religious extremists in the form of teachers.

The things I was taught there have had a long-lasting impact on my life, and to this day, I’m still unraveling a web of bias and harmful thinking that was created there. At the time, I didn’t resent the environment I was in—it was all I knew, and I was being told that it was the only safe environment.

It instilled a lot of fear, anxiety, and judgment towards those who didn’t think the way that I did. Throughout my high school years, I picked up on the fact that adults around me were only willing to have surface level conversations.

They would always seem to stop short of answering difficult questions fully, or at all. Certain topics like other religions, cultural experiences and evolution were not permitted or entertained, and I never fully understood why.

When I entered college, my love of animals pushed me into a field of study that I didn’t understand. My naivete allowed me to enroll in a major, not realizing it was about to challenge my entire worldview.

The first class was Anthropology 101. The professor was a kind man, who had been teaching the subject for many years. He was always dressed in bright colors, while reciting dad jokes that he reused every semester. He captivated me with his sense of humor intertwined with knowledge, and his willingness to answer any and all questions, even those he may not have the answer to, was refreshing.

At that same time, I had decided that I needed to learn about other religions. My own ego led me to a world religion class, where my intention was to learn the plot holes of other religions, so that I could defined mine against people with different experiences, and belief. I wanted to prove them wrong.

The combination of anthropology 101 and a world religions course in the same semester would end up being the first of many threads to be pulled, and this started my religious deconstruction.

Also while in college I was given the opportunity to work with chimpanzees, this experience exposed me to the fact that humans are not as unique as religion would want you to believe. I would spend my days with the chimps, talking to them, playing games, serving meals, and occasionally getting kisses on the hand from them. It blew my mind how much they were like us, they showed kindness, friendship, silliness and occasionally anger, fear and concern for each other. During this time, some of my most favorite core memories were created.

Fresh out of college, I met the person that would become my husband. He was everything that I had been looking for, he was kind, loving, and attentive to me and committed to our relationship. But he was also an atheist. Everything I had been told an atheist man would be, he wasn’t. In fact he was the exact opposite of what I was told. This realization was the second thread to be pulled. 

I had grown up in the purity culture movement. I had done all the ceremonies, I had the certificate, I had a ring. I made all the promises in front of my parents, the church, and I pledged to be the type of woman they told me to be.

When I met my husband, he had no interest in telling me who to be, or what to believe. He was a provider from day one. He loved me for me, and allowed me the room to grow as a person, and never judged me. He was a partner, and I was an equal. Something I had never experienced from the young men in my life before him.

With the freedom to be who I wanted to be, and a man who loved me by my side, I set out to find who I was going to be as an adult. And once again, my love of animals took the lead, and I started working at a non-profit animal shelter.

I ended up being there 12 years, and when I look back, I can acknowledge that it came into my life at a very pivotal moment. It was a time when I was completely unsure of who I was as a person, or the beliefs I held about the world, politics, or really anything in life.

I was fortunate enough to be dropped into an environment that, although extremely stressful, surrounded me with some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life. The job often felt like it was us against the world, and the supportive, collaborative environment we created made it feel like nothing was impossible.

I loved being there so much, and I loved being around the people so much, that I allowed it to become who I was. I would often work long hours, bringing work home with me, struggling to fully detach because it felt so much a part of me.

I had planned to be there for the long haul, and I aspired to achieve some big goals. In 2021, I was given the opportunity to apply for a position I had long awaited. I felt extremely qualified and oddly completely unqualified all at the same time. Looking back, the latter prevented me from being overly confident about my skills and qualifications, and ultimately, I lost out on the promotion I had long dreamed of.

This loss was devastating. I had invested so much of my identity into my career that it felt like a personal attack. This promotion was everything to me, and in a flash, it was gone.

After that, I struggled to find a path forward. I continued to work in my position, but 2021 was a challenging year as it was the first year coming out of the pandemic, and stress and turnover were high.

Because of this, I actually started creating again. In July of 2021, I picked up a brush for the first time in 10 years and painted a watercolor painting. I realized that the stress of the shelter had taken away all of my creative drive for many years.

Paired with the stress of new leadership, lost dreams, and no plan for the future, I had to find something different, and I had to find myself.

In December of 2021, I resigned after 12 years and felt like I had left a portion of my heart and soul in that building when I walked out

The beginning of 2022, meant the beginning of a new me. I had to rediscover the things that brought me joy, and decide where my life was going to go from here. Which brings us to today, and this website. I want to create a community of people who are still trying to find who they are, as artists, or even just humans. I want to make this a safe place for me to share my stories, and for you to share your experiences as well. I would love to hear if any of this resonates with you in the comments below. Thank you for reading and until next time I’ll talk to you soon. 

❤️Kelly