Chasing My Own Dreams

Let me start with this: when you're married to a wildland firefighter and raising kids, having your own dreams can seriously feel like a fantasy, like some distant little flicker that you’re not even sure is still real.

Fire season doesn’t just steal time, it steals predictability, partnership, and presence. While they’re gone for weeks, sometimes months, you're back home managing all the chaos. Being a mom, making social appearances like you’re still a functioning adult, prepping meals, washing laundry that seems to multiply overnight, and navigating emotional meltdowns (yours and the kids’). You are literally the glue holding it all together and honestly, some days it can feel like that glue is made of tears and cold coffee.

In the quiet moments, in the tired gaps of time between doing everything for everyone else, there’s still you. The woman with ambitions. With ideas. Maybe you once had a career you loved. Or maybe you’re still searching for that one thing that lights you up. Maybe you want to write, or go back to school, or open a bakery, or just finish a cup of coffee while it’s still hot. But the reality is that some days it’s hard to even hear your own thoughts over the constant swirl of others' needs and noise.

Being partnered with someone whose job is dangerous, unpredictable, and all-consuming means your life is shaped by absence. Not just the physical kind (though that’s definitely there) but also the absence of consistency, shared parenting, and, sometimes, even emotional bandwidth. It’s not that they don’t care, I know Josh loves us deeply, but when they’re out there, sleeping in the dirt and surviving on camp meals and adrenaline, they don’t have much left to give. And that means you’re home, holding everything and everyone together, while still trying to build something of your own in the cracks between.

And let’s talk about the guilt for a minute. Because it’s real. Wanting more doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful, but it feels that way sometimes. There’s this weird pressure to be completely fulfilled by motherhood or by supporting your partner’s career, but losing your identity in all of it? That’s a real thing. Your dreams slowly slide to the back burner, not just for wildland fire but now for motherhood, too. And soon, you find yourself wondering if that flicker you once felt was ever really there to begin with.

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I never imagined myself being a stay at home mom (even though that is what I am now-more on that later). I had always worked and didn't want to give that up. I felt like I needed to contribute financially and if I sat at home with a baby by myself I would just go crazy. I am not a sedentary person, by nature. I had gone to college and had a Science degree, I even attended graduate school and studied molecular biology, but I hadn't really established a career per se.

When we had first moved to McCall, I took a job at the small regional airport in town. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was grounding. I handled flight reservations for backcountry hunters and sightseers, ordered fuel, and kept an eye on incoming air traffic. It was a little bit of everything, and in those early days of settling into a new place, that variety gave my days shape.

But more than anything, being near the world of aviation, especially fire aviation, kept me tethered to Josh in a quiet way. If we hadn’t spoken in days and I had no clue where he was, I’d pick up bits of radio chatter or overhear talk between pilots and dispatchers. I’d catch fragments of names, locations, movement. It was never much, but it was something. A clue. A thread I could follow to imagine where he might be out there, in the smoke and trees. It made the distance feel a little less infinite.

After Susanna was born, everything shifted. The airport job, with its unpredictable off-season hours no longer made sense. I needed something steadier, quieter, something that allowed me to keep her close. I transitioned into a role at a local real estate brokerage, handling accounting and compliance work. It wasn’t the most thrilling job, but it offered something I desperately needed—stability. And for the first few months, I was lucky enough to bring Susanna with me to the office.

Those early days were a blur of spreadsheets and spit-up, emails and short naps in an infant swing by my desk. It wasn’t easy, but in its own way, it worked. I’d bounce her on one knee while reconciling accounts, take conference calls with her cradled against my chest. She'd scream occasionally and bother the agents down the echoed hall.

When she was about four months old, we started daycare. It was a milestone I both celebrated and mourned. I knew it was the right move, but I'd be lying if I said it was easy dropping her off that first day. I’d bring her in the morning with a lump in my throat, and then count the hours until I could pick her up.

Things were manageable… barely. The days felt long, the nights even longer. Sleep was elusive, stress constant. I was juggling a full-time job, full-time parenting, and the full-time emotional weight of a partner who came and went with wildfire.

I was burning the candle at both ends. And the truth was, it was burning me out.

I didn’t admit it at first. I told myself I could handle it. That I should handle it. After all, I had chosen this life, hadn’t I? But the cracks were forming, slow and subtle at first. Forgetting simple tasks, crying frequently, and that feeling like sleep was a luxury that I would never again have. A tight feeling in my chest formed that never quite went away.

I kept pushing through. Because that’s what we do when your partner is sleeping in the dirt, surviving on camp meals and adrenaline, it feels almost indulgent to complain about your own exhaustion. But the exhaustion was real. And it was building.

The 2018 fire season came and went in a flash. We visited Ireland in the midst of it to attend Josh's brother's wedding, Josh missed Susanna's first birthday and wasn't around to witness her start walking. He also missed his first Father's Day and our anniversary, which would become a common theme. At work, he was keeping up with his EMT certification and continued his on and off-season training. Susanna kept me more than busy and my job at the real estate office became mundane.

Years had passed fighting to chase Josh's dream and manage the chaos of his job. It felt like his career dreams would always take priority. Even though we were in a beautiful area, we had Susanna and we had stability, I still mourned a loss of connecting with my own aspirations and goals. What about my dreams? I had a dream, one I’d been nursing quietly for years. I always wanted to open my own dog grooming salon.

I started grooming dogs back in college in RI. It was just a part-time job at first to help pay the bills but I fell in love with it. Over the years, I worked at different salons across the country, from small-town shops to bigger operations, picking up skills, learning different styles, and getting better with each pup that landed on my table. It wasn’t just something I was good at, it became a true passion. I absolutely love working with dogs; they don’t care what your resume says or how your day’s been going, they just need patience, a gentle hand, and some loving scratches behind the ears. I missed that world more than I realized. I missed the rhythm of the work, the satisfaction of sending home a freshly groomed dog, and the quiet connection that comes from just being with animals.

So, I decided to go for it. I found a little spot to rent, nothing fancy but it had good bones and I roped Josh into helping me turn it into something real during his off-season. My husband has many amazing qualities, one of which is his unfaltering support in my silly ideas. He truly believes in me and supports me having my own dream. I had the vision, and he had the tools and the muscle. We poured ourselves into it, quite literally. It was exciting and absolutely terrifying. The money we spent on that space for plumbing, walls, paint, a tub, tables, signage, dryers felt like throwing our savings off a cliff and praying it would fly. And poor Josh, he was already worn thin from fire season, and instead of resting, he was staying up late cutting tile and wiring outlets, working unpaid hours to help me build my dream.

Some of our amazing friends pitched in when they could lending a helping hand in the construction, but man, building a business from the ground up is no joke. It was hard, it was messy, and it was so much more expensive than we thought. There were days I wanted to quit before I even opened the doors, but we pushed through. And in early 2019, with snow still blanketing McCall and the air sharp with winter, I opened my salon to the community. No grand opening party, just a sandwich board on the sidewalk and my heart pounding in my chest. And you know what? It was everything I’d dreamed — liberating, thrilling, and utterly, bone-deep exhausting. But it was mine. It wasn’t just a business. It was a piece of myself I’d finally brought back to life.

I was just beginning to find my rhythm with the new business when life brought us another surprise. I was pregnant again. We were ecstatic. But as it often goes, joy and fear walk hand in hand. At my 20-week ultrasound, Josh couldn’t make it, fire season of course. I sat in that sterile room alone as the ultrasound tech fell silent, her eyes narrowing at the screen. Something wasn’t quite right.

And just like that, our world shifted again.