Why I’m Here: A Story That Starts on a Farm and Goes Places I Never Expected | by Pink Monkey | Jul, 2025

I never thought I’d be the type to share my story online. Honestly, I’m not even sure anyone will want to read it. But here I am at 55, a VP at an environmental engineering company working on housing safety for low-income families, business partner in a SaaS startup, mother of four kids and one stepchild, grandmother, and someone who still sometimes feels like that poor farm kid from Arizona who doesn’t belong.

If you saw my LinkedIn, you might think I have it all figured out. Success story, right? Poor farm girl makes it big in business. But the reality is messier, and I’m learning that maybe that’s exactly what needs to be talked about.

I never finished high school. I was pregnant at 14, married at 15. I survived childhood sexual trauma and an abusive home. My dad died at 40 after he and two coworkers were accidentally sprayed with agricultural chemicals meant for a different field. All three developed the same cancer; two, including my father, passed away. His final paycheck — the most he’d ever received for his calloused hands, smashed fingers, and broken body — was a mere $325.

We lived in farm labor housing — trailers, shacks, campsites provided by farm owners. We moved constantly. As kids, we didn’t dream of big houses or fancy cars. We dreamed of not rationing our food to last until month’s end. To this day, I still crave the taste of that brown box government-issued cheese that brought such joy to our home.

At 30, with three kids and $600 to my name, I loaded them in the car and drove from Arizona to Kansas City, Missouri, chasing the hope of a better life after meeting someone online who saw something in me I couldn’t see in myself.

That drive across the country was terrifying. I had no idea what I was doing, just knew we needed something different. We spent 10 years in Missouri, and eventually I made my way back home to Arizona — but as a completely different person than the one who left.

Even now, working to ensure safe housing for families who remind me of where I came from, I sometimes feel like someone’s going to figure out I don’t really belong here. But maybe that’s exactly why I do belong here.

This blog is my attempt at therapy, honestly. But it’s also for anyone else who’s trying to figure out how to keep moving forward when your story doesn’t look like what success was supposed to look like.

Thanks for being here. I hope something in these stories resonates with you.