::LAST DAY::

Locker clean out: check

Firearm, badge, and uniform turned in: check

Ten years of my life gone: check

Experiences that no one should ever have to go through, and some that no one should ever miss: Check check

If anyone had told me when I was five years old that I’d spend ten years of adulting doing this, I’d have run crying to my Mama. I was planning to be a ballerina. Or a veterinarian. But when Robert was gunned down in a drive by two days after my seventeenth birthday, I couldn’t find any other choice. My big brother was gone, a hole the size of the world was left in his wake, and I had to make sure that never happened to anybody again. Ever.

Applying to the academy was difficult. Admissions were grueling. I failed twice. But once in, it was even worse. I stuck it out, graduated, and for a decade I did what I could to keep good people alive. Even if it met traffic stops, stakeouts drinking bad coffee, or desk work when I was pulled off the force while an investigation took place over a cracked out kid I shot. You never want to kill them. You just want them to stop. Sadly, sometimes killing is the only way to make that happen. Luckily, the boy I shot survived … but was later shot and killed in a drug buy gone bad. He was on a dark path and just couldn’t get turned around.

I’m tired. And ten years wiser than I was when I set out on this crusade. I realize now that I can’t force people to be good, or to make the right choice. And nothing I could do – no matter what – was gonna fill that hole, or bring my brother back.

So today I officially disengage from law enforcement, and head into the world as a full blown civilian. I wonder if there’s a ballet class for thirty eight year old ex cops.