Like most writers, I’ve felt a pull to put pen to paper since childhood. But it wasn’t until 2010, when I was a military spouse and a stay-at-home mother of two young children, that I found an outlet for a passion that only my stacks of journals knew about.

My blog Riding the Roller Coaster not only introduced me to other military spouses going through the same hardships I was, but it also led me to a job as a writer and associate editor at Military.com, where I continued to write about military family life and issues.

In 2013, I announced my divorce in The New York Times. After years of writing about my experiences as a military spouse, I shifted the focus of my freelance work to my new life as a divorced single mother, as well as parenting issues, women’s health, travel and the writer’s life while also writing about military discounts for my day job.

My memoir is about my loss of identity in the shadow of my husband’s military career and my journey to find myself after divorce as I approached middle age as a single mother. It’s a story about letting go and moving on, self-discovery and second chances.

I live in Virginia with my family. After living in Japan for three years I discovered my love for travel, stamping my passport in countries like Thailand, Costa Rica, Iceland, Belize and Curaçao. When I’m not writing, you can probably find me riding my bike to the beach or curled up on the couch with a fuzzy blanket and a good book.