After having a child, it became very important to me to move back to West Virginia to be closer to them. I want a better quality of life for my child. I want her to be able to play freely without human trafficking concerns. I want her to be able to run around with her cousins like I did. I want her to be raised with good values and not be surrounded by materialistic peers. I feel that the perspective here is not reality, not how I grew up, and not how I want her to grow up. I was raised in small communities of blue collar workers where children grow up with the “it takes a village” mentality.

Where kindness matters more than status. Where people care about each other. I am honest, loyal to a fault, secretly kind, and deeply invested in the people I care about. Over the years, I have been repeatedly shocked at how few people I find that value or possess these qualities. I do not feel I fit in here. I’m not great at the forced-fake-happy-everything-is-wonderful-positive-networky thing that everyone here does so well. As a small business owner, this is a necessity and frankly exhausting.

After my divorce, I have no option of leaving the area. I feel trapped. I feel like a hostage of my circumstances. I feel like I have no control over one of the biggest parts of life, where you choose to raise your children. This has been a huge emotional struggle for me for the last 10+ years and even more after having my daughter. I hate this feeling. I hate the feeling of hating where you are in life with every fiber of my being and I especially hate the feeling of having no control over the parts of your life that are the
most important.

Thankfully in recent years, I have found so many amazing, genuine ladies and a few men that truly feed my soul and make this life here more tolerable, even dare I say…HAPPY!

Here’s the thing. I’m not an idiot. I am fully aware that there are tons of advantages to living in LoCo. We live in an interesting area, filled with fascinating people, endless things to do, and unlimited opportunities. So Livin’ la vida LoCo was born as a way to force my brain to focus on these positives and find a way to gain control over things that are out of my hands. This is my personal journey to find more things to love than loathe about my life here in LoCo. If I can share those loves with others and it brings them a smile, all the better. This is me Livin’ la Vida LoCo…