“Go West, young lady”!
I left the humidity, water towers, and my friends and landed in Colorado. I went to work for ConAgra, a giant company that had many subsidiaries doing everything from “womb to tomb” in agriculture. Chemical and seed distribution, agronomy services, and food product manufacturing and branding were the bread and butter of this organization. At the time it was based out of Omaha, NE, and I spent most of my time on an airplane traveling to Omaha or anywhere else across the country. I worked with a team that worked with major farmers and growers across the USA to adopt an ‘ahead of its time’ technology product that tracked every element on an acre of land. The inputs, and the outputs, and we worked to distill this information into what a consumer at the grocery store would want to know. It was fascinating work and again, my role in managing sales/account management strengthened my skills in this realm. It was fun, interesting work and it checked a box that I always wanted in a career, to have a territory that covered the entire country. I had all the ‘medallion’ perks!
Little did I know this would come back to haunt me!
Given all my travels, I rarely had time at home. I did manage to connect with a chiropractor and started my path of discovery in holistic care by seeing my first naturopath. At this point I hadn’t really needed healthcare or had many issues, at least in my mind. I do recall going to the dentist in Iowa and needing more fillings. Yes, more fillings. And I do remember being physically ill after he placed amalgam fillings. However, I didn’t think much of it. I was not connected to my body at all. I didn’t know how to listen to the signs, I didn’t know what pain was as my mind/body had adjusted to always being in pain, and I had learned at a very young age to ‘suck it up, buttercup’.
The chiropractor adjusted my spine and the naturopath worked on food allergy symptoms and he started me down the path of understanding, asking questions, and researching my health. My only issues at this point were fatigue (from constant travel I assumed) and sinus infections, none of which slowed me down from being a jetsetter!
Since Colorado was a true outdoorsy state, I joined the pack. I began running, joined a master swim group, and set my sights on a triathlon. Looking back, I have no idea how my fragile frame handled the constant pounding during training, but it didn’t matter to me then. Suck it up, buttercup!
I also married to my college sweetheart as we had reconnected in Colorado. Soon thereafter Montana began calling us home. We had crazy jobs and it turns out “keeping up with the Jones’” was a real thing and not for us. We took our salary cuts and headed north, landing in Helena, MT.
