The Work Is the Point: How Labor Became My Liberation

There’s a lie that gets whispered to people when they leave the military, especially enlisted folks like me: This is as good as it gets. Be grateful you made it this far.

But I never believed that.

When I retired from the Air Force, I didn’t just want to transition…I wanted to transform. I was determined to prove that I wasn’t just some enlisted nobody. I had a plan: Find a job that paid me $20,000 more than what I made in uniform outside of the Department of Defense, and build a name for myself in the political world.

And I did. I became a political commentator, had my work syndicated, and was invited to speak on national radio and major podcasts. My husband Beau reconnected with his love of art. Together, we opened a boutique that showcased and sold his work. For a brief time, it felt like we were not only living the dream…but building it from scratch, brick by brick.

Then everything collapsed.

A year of deceit from people we should’ve been able to trust…my own family…led to the loss of my writing job, the closure of our small business, and financial strain that shook us to the core. We were stuck in a house we didn’t want, clinging to a life we hadn’t chosen, barely keeping our heads above water.

But pain has a way of forcing clarity.

Eventually, we made it out…out of the house, out of the debt, and most importantly, out of the emotional and spiritual bondage I’d lived in for decades. We started dreaming again: I would become a published author and serve my community back in Las Vegas; Beau would become a galleried artist and share his story through his work.

But something had shifted. We weren’t working with the same joy and determination we had back when we first moved out to Virginia. We were paralyzed…not by failure, but by fear. Fear of being burned again. Fear of giving everything only to lose it all.

We blamed everything: timing, distractions, fatigue, other people. But the truth was simpler and harder to swallow…we weren’t doing the work.

It wasn’t until we found ourselves back in church, praying intentionally, fasting, and confronting the pain we’d buried that we started to see what had been missing. We thought we needed success. We thought we needed safety. But what we really needed was to labor.

Not busywork. Not hustle for hustle’s sake. But meaningful, honest, daily effort.

The kind of work that demands your whole self…your heart, your faith, your sweat, your trust. The kind of labor that is the reward.

We’re not “back” to our old selves. Thank God for that. We are better. We’re rebuilding…not from fear, but from joy. Not from desperation, but from devotion. We’re working again…not to prove something, but because the work itself is sacred.

Our goals haven’t changed. I still want to publish books that entertain and delight. Beau still wants to show his art in galleries across the country. But now we understand: the outcome isn’t the point. The work is the point.

There is joy in the labor. There is healing in the labor. There is purpose in the labor.

And we’re all-in again.

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