Kimi Taylor has been living the military life since 2007 when she married her husband, Brandon. They married right after Brandon’s West Point commissioning ceremony, which Kimi attended as his fiancée. “The West Point graduation ceremony is phenomenal,” Kimi says. She adds, “Most military ceremonies start to run together after a while. They’re so similar and you attend so many over the years, but Brandon’s graduation from West Point is something I’ll always remember.”
How Kimi and Brandon met sounds like one of those serendipitous, meet-cute stories that Hallmark movies are based on. Or so Kimi has heard countless times over the years when she recounts it. “I attended Seton Hall for college. I had a partial academic scholarship and played soccer there, but after two years I transferred to the University of Hawaii, where I received a half academic/half athletic scholarship. That first year in Hawaii I was missing my friends from back in Seton Hall so much that my parents gave me an airplane ticket to New York as my Christmas present.” Kimi goes on to relate that she flew to New York in early January that year and had a great time with her Seton Hall friends. She’d been telling them that she wanted them all to go to New York City for a day, but when that day came all her friends bowed out. Kimi, not to be deterred, went by herself.
At New York City’s iconic Penn Station, Kimi stepped onto the up escalator and Brandon stepped onto the down escalator. Their eyes met and they stared at each other the whole ride. Once she reached the top, Kimi stepped off the escalator and a few seconds later heard a voice talking to her. It was Brandon, who had turned and run up the stairs as soon as he got to the bottom to catch her before she could disappear from his life forever. After explaining that she lived 6,000 miles away, the two exchanged phone numbers and somehow managed to make the long-distance thing work until they could be reunited post-college. The rest, as they say, is (military family) history.
In the 17 years the Army has been moving her family around, Kimi has endured multiple deployments. “My husband’s battalion deployed one day after our first son was born,” she recalls. “They gave him two weeks at home and then he had to leave to join his unit.” He deployed again when their second son was just under one year old. For their third child, Brandon was there, but the family PCSed from Arizona five week later.
For Kimi, whose father was a police officer, the idea of service, protection, discipline, and sense of duty that we associate with military members wasn’t too difficult to adapt to, but everything else about military life came with a steep learning curve. “Both of my grandfathers served in the military, one in the Navy and one in the Air Force, and my uncle was in the Marines, but all were retired by the time I came around,” Kimi explains. “So, I had no concept of what military life was like. The acronyms alone are like learning a foreign language!” Still, the most surprising thing for Kimi has been that the military moves you wherever you state you don’t want to go. “You fill out your wish list of where you’d like to go next,” she says, “and if you’ve listed your top 40 choices, the military comes back and says we’re sending you to your 41st choice.” It’s consistent, she adds. None of the seven duty stations they’ve had so far has been one of their top choices.
The other challenging aspect of military life (besides multiple deployments, countless TDYs, and never going where you hope to go) has been finding gainful employment. “I have to work,” Kimi says. “Everything is so expensive, especially where we’re stationed now in Hawaii.” For Kimi, freelancing has become so much easier today, but it’s still hard to consistently find remote work. Kimi herself has basically started a new business each time they’ve moved. She’s worked as a graphic designer, a photographer, an illustrator, and a seamstress for customized baby carriers and wraps, plus she has taught herself to weave. “I bought my first loom and taught myself how to weave baby wraps. Sometimes I still look at the pieces I’ve kept for myself and marvel that I made them. I love creating with my hands and weaving just seemed like a natural fit.”
Since moving to Hawaii, Kimi has sold all but her most beloved loom. It remains in storage in the continental U.S. since Hawaii’s climate is too humid for it. Plus, given how expensive the cost of living is there, they don’t have space in their house for it. Which means Kimi is reinventing herself professionally once again. “Since moving to Hawaii, I’ve started another business, Fate Whispers Graphic Design. I work with authors and the bookish community. It’s both a full-service graphic design business and a nerdy bookish merchandise shop through Etsy where I am licensed by various authors to create merchandise using quotes and ideas from their books.” The business allows her to use her graphic design skills and love of literature in new, creative ways. It’s just another avenue Kimi has found to create professional opportunities wherever the Army sends her family.
While military life brings significant challenges to professional life, Kimi adds that making friends is challenging as well. “Most of my friends live inside my phone,” she says, meaning it’s rare that her close friends are physically present in her life. While technology makes it easier to maintain connections over long distances, there’s nothing like having friends who are right there. Instead, Kimi has seasonal friends. Friends who come into her life because they’re stationed together or because they have kids in the same activities. She adds, “It’s hard to find like-minded people even when you’re all military.”
It’s not all bad, though. Her family is close, and Kimi’s favorite memories of military life are all wrapped up in the family moments: “I already mentioned the West Point graduation, whic
h is a highlight of military life, but my favorite memories are the Christmases we’ve all been together as a family. The best memories are the small ones. The ones that are ‘just us’ being together as a family. No guests, no other people, just our family hanging out together.” Speaking of Christmas, Kimi’s family doesn’t have many holiday traditions they insist on, instead letting where they are and whether they’re all together or not dictate their plans, but they do have one tradition that Kimi misses and hopes to start again. “Somewhere along the way, we started going together to a movie on Christmas Day. We stopped during COVID, but I’d really like to start up again. That, and my husband always insists the tree go up the day after Thanksgiving. Those are probably the only traditions we really try to make happen every year.”
When we asked her what advice she’d give new military spouses, Kimi doesn’t hesitate: “Be flexible. You have no choice. Be as flexible as Gumby.” Something will always come up. Plans will change. So don’t plan, she adds. Or if you do plan, expect that there will be changes.
Kimi offers another piece of advice for milspouses: “Always ask if a place has a military discount. It might be awkward, but ask even to the point of being weird about it. You never know when it might work.” She also recommends the Veterans Transition Association. You have to apply via an Eventbrite application, but they offer free Coursera courses to military spouses. Kimi has taken advantage of that opportunity as well as the seven free Coursera courses military spouses can access through Hiring Our Heroes. Coursera can help you stay relevant, whether it’s in a career field or just new avenues you want to explore.
Finally, when asked what her military spouse motto would be, Kimi laughs and says, “’Yep, sounds about right.’” She adds, “I’m not sure how many times I’ve said that over the years, but it’s a lot. Although, it’s probably better to say, ‘Just roll with it’ for a motto instead.”
Kimi participated in the Empowering the Homefront 2023 Entrepreneur Cohort hosted by Powerhouse President Jessica Bertsch and has recently joined the Powerhouse Planning freelancer team. We’re excited to have her on board and look forward to all the amazing contributions she will bring.
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