Having gone to school in Jamaica, I graduated from high school at 15 years old and migrated to the US to start college that same year; Maryland to be exact. I remember my classmates saying I was a little too young to be there, but thought nothing else of it. Where else would I be? Wasn't this the natural progression of things? Hmph! I took one year off and attended flight school in Jamaica, in hopes of pursuing my dream to be a fighter pilot in the Air Force. At the year's end, my parents wanted to know when I would be ready to head back to the US for school. Huh? Didn't they see I was living my passion and doing the flying thing? Oh well, I ended up living on my own in Miami and back in college. I was all of 17 years old.

By the time I graduated law school I was ready to take on the world. I hung out my shingle and started my own practice doing entertainment law. I was living another passion because I love, love, love music. Did I mention that I love music? I was flying by the seat of my pants, but was living life on my own terms and I loved it. Then I got pregnant. Having my son Kai forced me to re-examine my priorities and I realized that I'd have to settle into a more stable practice of law. He brought a whole new dimension to my life and in nurturing him I started learning more about myself.

Growing up with agricultural science (Pops) and nutrition (Moms) teachers for parents, I was always around good food. From the ground to the table, food was always a part of my life. However, I never grew up thinking of food or nutrition as a viable career choice. There was nothing magical about it. That was just the way things were. I was so wrong. How food and nutrition integrate with health and wellness are huge passions of mine. Something I rediscovered being a mummy. So I went back to nutrition school and graduated as a Certified Holistic Health Counselor specializing in nutrition. 

Here's where it gets funky...as an attorney, I'm in a profession that has a very "traditional" approach to the way things are done. There are many times during these past 9 plus years of practice that I've been made to feel that all the things in my life should be mutually exclusive. I've been criticized for not wearing my hair or dressing in a lawyerly fashion (and that's coming from my own parents). So I can only begin to imagine what my fellow attorneys think when they see me with my green nail polish. The average age of an entering 1L (first year law student) is 26. When I graduated I was almost 24 years old and my approach didn't quite fit with the "good old boys" or the "good old girls". (That in of itself is a whole other story!)

In establishing my presence online, I've been very conflicted about letting people know who I really am; especially with my other passion - social media. Hurling oneself into cyberspace like I have so eagerly done, means that people will be examining me and my personality. Which brought me to my “Aha!” moment while driving down I-75 today: I’m a young woman whose approach to the law and life does not fit into a standard navy blue suit with sensible pumps and pantyhose.

The things I am passionate about form the pieces of the puzzle of who I am. They are not mutually exclusive and I'm at a place in my life where I'm truly ok with that. In practicing law, there were times when I used to feel like I was wearing a "lawyer mask" and would just explain it away as: lawyering is what I do and everything else is who I am. Total hogwash. I'm ALL of it. The lawyer, mother, educator, nutritionist, chef, baker (no candlestick making, yet...), techno-geek, social media enthusiast…just to name a few.

Kevin Houchin, who is an attorney/artist/teacher/author, (sounds familiar?) told me this today: "Yes, you'll turn off some potential legal clients, but those aren't people that will fuel your spirit anyway. The people that "get it" will be the ones you're supposed to help anyway, wearing all your hats at once and truly just being yourself with them. There's nothing better than being 100% confident, and as long as you're just being yourself, it's easy to find that place."

Those words meant so much to me. Kevin totally gets it. I don't want 12 different Twitter accounts, 15 Facebook pages and a billion blogs in trying to be all things to all people. This is who I am. A puzzle is an enigma where one has to put together the puzzle pieces in a logical way in order to come up with the desired shape or picture. The shape of my life as jigsaw puzzle makes perfect sense to me. If it doesn't to you, there are a whole bunch of cookie cutter types that I'm sure will be happy to serve you.