This is a little bit of a story! My mom, brother and I moved outside of Ocean City, NJ when I was 15. My father died tragically by a hit and run driver while on his Harley when I was 12. I think my mom really wanted a new start; this was an area her and my father had always loved and vacationed during the summers. I think it was meant to be, I’ll never forget the day my mom and I had found the house in Marmora. The owner of the house had just put the for sale on the lawn, and I said to my mom, wow mom I would love to live in the house like that. We pulled over, she talked with the owner of the home at the time and they simply made a deal that day. Still to this day, 30 years later, my mom and her are still good friends.
After graduating high school, I started working for the Tuckahoe Inn (yes funny name, we have heard all the jokes lol) but really it is named after an Indian Tribe that resided there before the Beesley’s Point Hotel was built and became the Tuckahoe Inn restaurant. When I tell you I love working at Tuckahoe Inn I truly mean it, I loved every single day working there. The owners are like family to me and it is where I learned so much about the hospitality industry. I feel I worked with the best people ~ so much skill, so much talent, so much drive and we all loved the hustle and bustle. I started as a waitress and was willing to do any job to get shifts. Later in time I became part of their bookkeeping department, adding in banquet coordinator, and assistant manager to my brother in the front of the house. Working on banquets with Chef Tyson (owner) is truthfully where the passion ignited. He trusted me and I would grab fish boxes (no worries they were clean) to put under table clothes to give multi dimension on the tables, then would add lights to make the tables glow, It was constantly always evolving and growing. I had co-workers that were so creative and we would all get into it to see what we could do next to create these lavish buffets. There is simply no greater feeling then seeing someone’s face after creating something beautiful for them.
Working for the Tuckahoe, I met their CPA, Robin Shields who I also worked for 20 years doing tax preparation and audits. Robin and I grew extremely close and to this day she is one of the biggest inspirations in my life. I was so timid and so so insecure and she would yell , “Melissa we all put on our pants the same way everyday” such a simple thing to say but the words were so big to me.
I wore many hats for two places. In 2012, I was standing at the host desk greeting our guests, and in walked my future husband. I was 34, had my career(s), loved what I did, worked a million hours a week and was completely content with not being in a relationship. But something changed when I first saw him. Nothing I had ever felt, we ended up talking that night and then we kept talking almost every night for hours. He lived in Pa about an hour and half away. Our first day we decided to meet half way in Philadelphia and simply had the most magical first date. We ended up marrying in 2017, we lived apart for 2 years after marriage and in 2019 I decided to move to Pa. I made the move in October and it was such a huge adjustment for me. Where we live there’s a much larger population. Down at the shore i can walk into any store and see someone I know, I had tons of friends and I had my work that always kept me so busy and so needed. I slipped into a depression. You go every day for over 20 years with all your different hats you wear and then no one needs you. I was sad, confused, I had so much anger, so much resentment, I felt like I couldn’t breath and I gained a ton of weight. Ill never forget, when the covid restrictions were being lifted I was so excited to get back “home” to see people I had not seen. In my mind I was still Melissa, which I was but on the outside I obviously looked different and it gave people something to talk about, which I heard and that felt awful.

I was later let go at one of my jobs and I felt like a complete failure. I had to collect unemployment for the first time in my life. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but it made me feel a way I did not like. I felt like I let my husband down, my mom and my brother. The three people who loved me harder than life and I felt like a complete embarrassment.

I was scrolling FaceBook one day and saw some friends that had joined a group E2M. I did some investigating and they had this 8 week challenge, I figured why not and I lovvvvve a good challenge. The first week was so hard but then it got doable each week. I got stronger, healthier but the biggest thing was my mindset. The energy is positive, it had done so much good for the way I felt about myself. And slowly from there I learned about living for myself, loving this gift of life and actually living.