Where Did My Hat Go?

In life, we wear many different hats. Some are parental hats, marital hats, career hats, relational hats. We may don a service hat, an educator hat, a leader hat. There really is no end to the headwear we can crown ourselves with. Now, obviously, I’m not speaking literally. I’m utilizing the metaphor of wearing a “hat” as an identity label. By the time I’d hit my late 30’s, I’d collected several hats that I was incredibly proud of…hats that made up the very fabric of who I was. I found my security in them. They provided me with my motivation and desire to reach even further in life.

My hats?

“Mom”, “Homeschool Parent”, “Church Member”, “Sunday School Leader”, “Missionary to Kenya”, “Jazzercise Instructor”, “Nutritionist”, “Farmer’s Wife”, “Daughter”, “Friend”, “Sister”, “Auntie”

Well, these days, I can’t seem to find my damn hat!! I’ve lost them all. My head is naked! And it’s left me feeling bare, vulnerable, and in desperate need of some sort of covering.

This whole blog project started from a very specific place. One of confusion, loss, change, loneliness… A total lack of recognition for anything resembling my life or what made me who I am. When my first child left for college back in 2011, I thought that was tough. I truly struggled with that first bird leaving the nest. But, as it does, time healed that hurt. A few years later, kid number two packed up and moved out. Then, January of 2021, there went the last one! We loaded the cars and moved her into her own place. I’ve never experienced such quiet as I did the night we walked back into this empty house. No kids. Just me and the husband. The silence was deafening.

The “Mom” hat – not gone, but it looks more like a headband now.

The “Homeschool Parent” hat – all worn out. It served me well, but time to say goodbye!

Then we lost our church; our second home; what we thought was our second family. This was another monumental blow to the gut. More confusion, more loss, more change, with an added side of betrayal from people we never would have expected to hurt us. We tried to hold on after the initial incident, but after several months, we were quite strategically pushed out. In the months that followed, we tried attending somewhere new, but we just couldn’t get past the hurt. It’s hard to know who you can trust after watching those you thought were friends and mentors dissect you from something you devoted your entire adult life to.

The “Church Member” & “Sunday School Leader” Hats – Blew off in the wind……..

Due to chronic stress, poor eating habits from complete lack of self care, an overflowing plate, and a crappy genetic pre-disposition, my health began to deteriorate right around age 40. For the full story, you can visit my website. But suffice it to say, my immune system went on attack…and on the GOOD body parts. I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Adrenal Insufficiency, and Fibromyalgia. I had to do a complete turnaround on my lifestyle and diet. The story gets drawn out, but the bottom line is this – I had to shut down my fitness business, stop the nutrition counseling, and I could no longer teach (and could barely participate in) Jazzercise classes. This was a massive blow to my identity, my ego…my happiness, really. I lost something I loved to do, was good at, and that provided me with a sense of belonging. I was part of a team. Losing that caused those friendships to slowly disappear…along with my confidence.

The “Jazzercise Instructor” & “Nutritionist” hats??? BAM!! Gone!

Enter Empowering Lives International…one of the most amazing outreach organizations working in East Africa to empower the lives of the people there and put an end to poverty. I’d been to Kipkaren, Kenya three times…on the mission teams in 2005 and 2006. Then leading the team in 2011. These trips were life-changing. And I came home having been blessed far more than anything I may have been able to do for them. It was an incredible gift. I’ve made life-long friends and a piece of my heart will forever dwell in that little village. An opportunity arose for me to go back a couple years ago. With my kids grown, my church work behind me, no more home-schooling, or business running, maybe THIS was what I was meant to do now!

My doctor’s response to this? Absolutely not! “Your immune system can’t tolerate a 30 minute strength class. You think it’ll manage a 3 week trip to Africa without completely reversing all of the work you’ve done to turn your health around?” I’d just completed my second year of getting IV infusions every week. Surely I could handle a trip to Kenya. I was assured that, in fact, I could not. Africa trips? Behind me.

“Missionary to Kenya” hat…SO gone!

Not long after the loss of our church, my husband was faced with a major career change. He’s an onion farmer, and very good at what he does. The difficult part of this is that it required him to be away about 7 months out of the year. As much as the kids and I disliked him being gone so much, it became our normal. We got used to it. When the career shift came, it left him unsure of what to do next, without work, and home all day, every day; after 25 years of living apart most of the time. This was an incredible shock to both of us. After nearly two years, he went back to farming at a facility two hours away, and year round. Which meant, now, instead of him being gone seven months a year, he was gone twelve. I only saw him on Saturday evenings. I was home in our house, living our life. He was in Lancaster, working 12 hour days, going home to an empty trailer, all by himself. He wasn’t even able to enjoy the life he was working so hard to provide. The answer? We sell our house and I move closer to his job. (More on this a little further down.)

The Farmer’s Wife hat gets a little tricky. I’m still a wife. Scott’s still a farmer. But the way our life functioned for 25 years was dictated by the demands of his job. We were without him nearly all the time, and so had to learn to function just the four of us – no dad. There was a rhythm to it that we were familiar with. And seemingly overnight, it was gone. The complete lack of familiarity with how Scott’s job functions now is where the discord comes in as far as this particular hat. So we won’t say it’s gone. We’ll say…

“Farmer’s Wife” hat? A new style. Maybe we went from a ball cap to a straw hat…but most definitely unrecognizable.

After nearly 14 years in our Nuevo house, the place we raised our kids, we needed a new start. So we packed up our life and moved to a nice home up in the hills, surrounded by orange groves. It was closer to our friends, still near our families, and in a city we’d grown up knowing so there were no difficult transitions. For three years we lived in this 2,400 square foot home with a beautiful backyard, quiet neighborhood, and amazing citrus smell in the springtime. This is where we realized there was no real reason for us to live apart anymore. It was creating a bit of a struggle in the marriage department. As I mentioned above, Scott would work his crazy hours, and go “home” exhausted from a hard day to an empty trailer…eat dinner alone…go to bed alone. He would get to enjoy one, maybe two nights in our home with me and our youngest daughter who was still living with us. He missed his dog, his bed, never got to enjoy working in his yard…it was an unfortunate situation.

In November of 2020, we moved into our new home up in the San Gabriel Mountains. Two months later, our last kid moved out. And the following year had me searching for the “what now?” I found myself 90 minutes (without traffic, and in California traffic is unavoidable) from my friends, my sisters, my nieces and nephews, my mother, from all sense of familiarity. I had to find a new grocery store, new Target, get familiar with new streets, new shortcuts. I was the foreigner in our little mountain town. I didn’t know a soul. I would see people chatting in the local market parking lot, see neighbors standing in between their yards laughing over one thing or the other, waving at each other at the post office. I would watch the town Facebook page trying to get a feel for how this place worked. Everybody seemed to know each other. The loneliness kept me constantly driving down the mountain looking for some sort of “normal”. I kept shopping in my old stores whenever I could; clinging on to anything that I recognized…anything that made me feel like the “Kim” I knew. But this made it impossible for me to ever move beyond this empty feeling I was consumed by. The only way out of something is to go through it, right? So, I had to stop the constant trips back “home”. I had to make this new place my home. Slowly, my friends stopped calling, stopped texting…they moved on with their lives and I was no longer a part of it. I went from seeing my daughters on a very regular basis, to now sometimes not laying eyes on them for a month at a time. Went from being a regular part of my niece’s lives, babysitting, stopping by for visits, seeing my youngest sister a LOT, knowing that mom is just a short drive down the expressway, to having to make special plans to gather and spend time together. We have to navigate the I-15 traffic, make sure we travel in the proper time windows to avoid a 2 1/2 hour drive; pray there is no accident among the cars racing to Las Vegas. It’s not a simple 25 minute drive anymore. I’d left my community. I’d left what had always been there providing me with security. I hadn’t even realized how important all of that was until I no longer had it.

Friendships…nearly all of them disintegrated.

Sisters…busy with their lives and I’m too far away to pop in and say hi.

Nieces & nephews…no longer a regular rotation of them coming through the house, making a mess with the Legos, crayons, and other toys I kept displayed for their frequent visits.

My mom…not comfortable with the long drive and the crazy freeways.

Another weird hat analogy here, because I’m still a daughter, a sister, and an auntie. I still have friends. And I’ve actually made a couple new ones here in my new town. Again, it’s the fact that it looks completely different. I don’t recognize the way life functions these days. I think back to how it used to be and that life seems so far away.

The “Daughter” hat, “Sister” hat, “Auntie” hat…another shift of style here. They have gone from full blown hats, to maybe visors? Maybe just hair ties?

And the “Friend” hat? Let’s just say this is a HELMET…the kind you add stickers to. The headwear, itself, is sturdy; protects you from injury and mild concussions. But you can decorate it. Imagine a sticker that represents each of your friends. Sometimes they will wear off and fade over time. You can add a new one whenever you’d like. There are some that hang on for years and years, never wearing off. Others only stick for a few years, but they were great while they lasted. The look of the hat changes with the loss and addition of those stickers, but the helmet never changes. I like this hat! I’d be lost with out this one.

I think the bottom line in this post is that life is constantly shifting; sometimes faster than you’re accustomed to. It’s difficult not to hold on to those hats with an iron grip. My hands are holding on so tight the blood can barely flow. In this MIDDLE season, I need to learn how to loosen that grip, one finger at a time. It’s terrifying. I don’t actually know how to do it. But I have to try. Because I believe that there is still a lot of life ahead of me. There is so much good waiting…so many more hats to wear.

Are you holding on to your old hats? Are you feeling scared to let them go? Or scared to let them change? You aren’t alone. Let’s move forward together as we loosen that grip, hang our familiar hats up on a hook, and begin adding the new ones to our collection. Just imagine the beautifully colorful hat rack we could have by the end of our journey!

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Kim Smith is a Certified Integrative Health Coach who lives in the San Gabriel Mountains with her husband of 30 years. She offers health, nutrition, and weight loss coaching, as well as stress management training, and support for autoimmune disease and chronic illness patients. She has released her Membership Site providing her signature coaching as a self-paced program. Dive deep into all areas of life in order to find balanced health, reach your health & life goals, and discover a renewed sense of joy.

Visit her website listed below for more information.

http://www.resetihs.com
You can also contact her at (951) 634-1100 or email at kim@resetihs.com