The Uniform Wasn’t Supposed to fit this well...

They gave me the uniform on Day 1.

It was stiff. Foreign. Heavy in places I didn’t expect.

The boots weren’t broken in. The badge felt like someone else’s.

I wasn’t ready.

But over time, something shifted.

I learned how to stand in it.

How to speak with confidence even when my knees shook.

How to walk into chaos with shaking hands and a straight back.

How to wear the pain, the loss, the doubt and still clock in again.

The uniform started to mold to me.

Or maybe I started molding to it.

It saw my first save.

My first loss.

The moment I froze.

The moment I broke.

It held me when I was soaked in sweat, tears, and someone else’s blood.

It knew when I didn’t sleep. When I was numb. When I was barely holding it together.

But it made me show up anyway.

And somewhere along the way…

I stopped taking it off when I went home.

I wore it in my silence.

In my relationships.

In my parenting.

In my insomnia.

In my therapy sessions.

In the way I saw the world and the way I couldn’t unsee it.

I was no longer the person who put on the uniform.

I had become the person who didn’t know who they were without it.

But I’ve learned something since.

You can love the uniform without losing yourself inside it.

You can be proud of what you’ve done

…and still give yourself permission to be more than the job.

You are allowed to take it off.

To rest.

To heal.

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