When I Grow Up

When I was in 1^st grade, we had an assignment from our teacher asking us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I listed 5 different things at the time. Actress, model (lol), singer (The Spice Girls were huge at the time), manicurist (I think I really liked the colors and art work when I would see my mom get her nails done), and for some reason, cleaning lady. Well, for the amount of laundry I do between my home and gym academy, I’d say that last dream was a self-fulfilling prophecy. As I grew older, my dreams changed, but my grit and determination stayed the same. As I approached high school, I went through a phase where I wanted to become a doctor, probably because I was obsessed with the show House. The idea of so many years of extra schooling and all of that debt was a strong deterrent. Too bad though, because now as I am battling mystery health issues, I almost wish I had gone that route.

I played soccer for most of my childhood and teenage years. It basically consumed my life at one point, and clearly began the deterioration of my knees. I played varsity soccer, travel soccer, worked coaching and reffing soccer, and would have even joined some summer training and Olympic programs if they didn’t cost money which was not in my family’s financial situation at that time. All of my friends were from soccer, my life revolved around practices and games, and I thought at one time that my future career would be as a soccer athlete. Well, I eventually did get into professional sports, but not soccer. I just found myself really not looking forward to the game anymore by the time my senior year came around. I no longer had love for the sport that once consumed my every waking moment and even, sometimes permeating in my slumber as I dreamt. I turned down scholarships for various colleges because I saw a future where I was committed to a team in a sport I no longer enjoyed, and it terrified me enough to cut ties playing soccer and never look back. If only I could reverse the onslaught of damage my knees endured.

Then I remember filling out one of the security questions for my iCloud account for my iPod (yes, I’m old). I was 16 years old and the prompt asked what my dream job would be and I said “professional MMA fighter.” Check that one off the bucket list, but I’ll get to that later. I went to college, where at first I thought I would like to maybe go into some sort of psychoanalysis therapy. I ended up switching to studying both Criminology and Psychology as I really enjoyed studying human behavior and why people go on to commit heinous acts or predicting future patterns of criminal activity based in both biology and circumstance. I actually joke around that I have a 6^th sense for reading people, but I do seem to be a good judge of character on the people I meet, knowing right away if their shiesty or have some lingering negative aura. Now whether I choose to ignore those red flags or not, as I have gaslit myself in the past assuming I was being paranoid for not liking someone when they hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet. Because sooner or later something ends up happening and I am just like I knew this person was sketchy. I am currently batting a 1.000 perfect batting average on my people judgements.

Toward the end of my college career at FSU (Go Noles!), I started to look into human rights courses and International Law. I was fascinated by the work of one of my professors who fought for people seeking asylum when they fled their home countries due to such things as forced marriages, religious persecution, childhood slavery, and female genital mutilation. I, of course, then wanted to go into basically the one type of Law where you make almost no money and do a lot of the work Pro Bono as a Human Rights lawyer. I even began studying for LSATS and law school. Right around this time though, I jumped at the chance to begin my martial arts training as I moved to North Carolina where my brother was already a new blue belt in BJJ and had been at an MMA academy. I was freshly 22, worked as a bartender, and just graduated from college. This free time allowed me to train two to three times every day, and the rest as they say, is history.

I threw my whole heart into training. For one, I am competitive, and it drove me mad that my brother had about 18 months of a head start. And for two, I knew I had a finite amount of time to make my MMA fighting dreams a reality, and knew I needed to spend as many hours in as many disciplines as possible in order to succeed. I began Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai Kickboxing, and Wrestling practices. Wrestling I think was my favorite, as it was the hardest, and I always loved a challenge. Because I trained in all 3 arts, my progress was slower than those focusing on one area, but I knew I wanted to fight and needed to be well-rounded. Because of my MMA career and time spent on the mats, I ended up having 11 amateur fights, 1 kickboxing fight, 4 professional fights, plus one professional exhibition on national tv for Invicta MMA for a grand total of 18 striking bouts. All the sacrifices, blood, sweat, and tears made me the person I am and I do not regret a single moment.

I guess I would be remiss to say that MMA also helped lead me to writing, as training Jiu Jitsu had me end up meeting my husband, aka the love of my life, who supported me in every single season of my life. He helped train me, eventually earning my black belt under him, he saw me at my lowest of lows and highest of highs, being beaten to a bloody pulp, and winning title fights, and any time I was feeling particularly worn down during my strenuous 20 lb weight cuts to 105 lbs and true ass-beatings. He was always there for support and even tough love. He is also the one who encouraged me to pursue blogging as he had read lots of my prior writing which even led to me writing for a Jiu Jitsu magazine for 2 years and having one of my articles published on a fairly popular website. For some reason, writing is the only thing in my life that I never had to “learn” as it came extremely natural to me. I won every writing contest I ever entered, but I was always shy about putting myself truly out there until his encouraging words gave me the strength to do so. Hence why I still continue this weekly blog.

When my fight career ended due to health, I was utterly distraught. My knee (6 surgeries later), just couldn’t take the brutal wear and tear and arduous training sessions any longer. I still miss it terribly, but my body has betrayed me and can no longer keep up. I still compete in Jiu Jitsu, and have had more matches than I can count, but it’s not the same as a true fight. I get to coach now too but it can be frustrating. When I was fighting, you never had to tell me to show up to train, and in fact I was driving hours for outside training, and doing extra training on my own for cardio and meeting with strength and conditioning coaches too. You have to really want it to dedicate so much time and sacrifice so much just to make it happen. Right around the time of my last fight is also when all of my more serious health issues started to crop up, beginning with the debilitating migraines. If my knee hadn’t failed me when it did, something more serious could have occurred, so perhaps a blessing in disguise.

But all of a sudden, I didn’t know who I was anymore. If I wasn’t a fighter, who the heck was I? Just another dime a dozen Joe Schmoe? I won’t lie and say I was at peace with that decision. I was actually severely depressed for quite some time, and didn’t know how I could pull myself out of that dark hole. Sure, I still had Jiu Jitsu, but it’s different than punching someone and hearing their bones break as their face connects with your fist and the blood spurts all over the canvas. I threw myself into marketing for the gym, helping with the website, maintenance at the academy, and teaching classes and coaching, but I still yearned for more. I still suffer excruciating knee pain (just got the results of my most recent MRI, and holy sh*t, I have sustained a lot more damage than I thought between ligament tears and bone fractures, but I digress). I decided I needed to do something else, so I began pursuing a new great love of mine, being in the kitchen.

I’ve always loved to cook and bake, but not until I stopped fighting, did I really have the time to throw myself into it and practice more difficult and fancy bakes. Once again with the support and encouragement of my husband (which may just be because he gets to taste test everything I make), I decided to pursue a side hustle baking business. I do lots of things, but my main focus is sourdough and using my started to make various items like pastries, breads, bagels, biscuits, scones, cinnamon rolls, and even using my starter in cakes and pastas. I began selling my items up at the gym, and also greatly looking forward to handling the entirety of Thanksgiving and having the whole family over to taste my food. Most recently, this has led to other possibilities where I have been offered access to a commercial kitchen for my bakes, where it looks like I will be able to sell my sourdough creations at a local coffee shop here in my town. An incredible opportunity that I can’t believe someone with zero culinary training (unless you count religiously watching The Great British Bake-Off), has been able to achieve. I guess you could say I am in my professional baking era.

I’ve clearly gone through many different phases of my life, changing what I wanted to be when I grew up numerous times, and even changing those dreams after I have already grown up. Who’s to say that we only ever get to be one thing though? I am actually proud to be defined my multiple different titles. Wife, stepmom, former pro MMA fighter, Jiu Jitsu black belt, coach, professor, writer, and now baker. I kind of like that I live for ambition and the pursuit of various adventures. I have learned not to be defined by any singular title, because when that phase of my life ends, as it did with fighting, I do not want to allow myself to retire to such a dark place once again. I spent far too much time crying and in my feelings when I should never let emotions take me down like that. My life may not have turned out as I originally envisioned, but I know that with my drive to pursue new tasks, take on challenges, live for adventure, and never be content, I will always have something to look forward to. Even as a grown up, I am living multiple lives and loving every minute of it. Besides, until I’m 99, I won’t consider myself to grown up to ever switch paths again.