i wanted to take an email to introduce myself a little more

i am 33, i own a pizzeria with my partner g. his 18 year old daughter, c, lives with us. we’ve had some ups and downs but our relationship now is strong & is what i’ve dreamed of since i met her 10 years ago.

i have two college degrees, a bachelor of the arts in middle school education with specializations in math & history, as well as a masters degree in school counseling. i worked in a classroom full time for a year and a half. i taught 5th grade & loved my students but hated the pressure that was being put on both them & myself. my mental health started to deteriorate at a rapid rate and i found myself in the darkest place i have every been in my life. i was very upset & lost because i invested so much time & money in becoming a teacher & here i was hating it.

after talking to g about it, he provided me with a safe space to work through what i wanted & didn’t want. teaching was not what i wanted. at the end of the year i handed in my paper saying i would not be returning.

once fall time came again, i felt even more lost because all my friends were headed back to their teaching jobs & i was not. after having a discussion with g about what we wanted our future to look like, we decided to open a pizzeria. i had about 4 years of waitressing experience under my belt but he had 20 years of experience in the business. he handled the cooking & i handled the books.

after 2 years we moved to a different location and the demands i had to meet grew, i was now not just doing the books but also cooking, serving customers, & delivering.

i continued to balance all of this for 2 more years before falling into a dark place again. this dark place was different, it was out of physical exhaustion & lack of time to relax or do things for myself (we are open 6 days a week, 11 hours a day). i had to sit down with g again & tell him i was no longer happy doing it all.

we found help for the kitchen & my step daughter stepped in & started working nights answering the phone & helping customers. this has allowed me to take my time getting ready in the morning & filling my cup before i walk out the door to go to the pizzeria. it also has allowed me to not feel rushed when i am delivering peoples orders. it has also allowed me to take lunch time walks, read more, learn more, & really focus on myself during the down times in the pizzeria (which is when i am actually writing this out).

i’ve been on this journey for a solid 2+ years & i am still shocked when i find out new things about myself & where i wanna go & who i want to be. i am desperate to learn who i am and what i want, after YEARS of being what other people demanded, wanted, or needed me to be FOR THEM.

if you are trying to get back to who you are, what you love, where you wanna go, and what your future self looks like, you are definitely in the right place.

i’m gonna sign off with reminding you to visit the website to download my “journal prompts” to help you get started.

thanks for hanging around

xo kaitlin