“It's the booty wiggles,” Kimberly said, “especially on Australian shepherds. It’s my favorite thing in the world… to watch the dogs when I'm walking them to their owners at the end of the room - to see the excitement that the dogs get and the happiness of the owners when they see how beautiful their dogs are.”

Kimberly has been a dog groomer for over a decade, and she loves the work that she does. 

“I'm really good at my job,” she said. “I love grooming. I feel like I'm good with animals. At work, I am the only person who is willing to take aggressive dogs because I love the challenge. I love being able to take in a dog, work around their aggression and be able to get them finished. Not a lot of groomers are willing to groom aggressive dogs, and that's one of my favorite things to do.”

For the first five years of her life, Kimberly lived with her grandmother. At age five, she was placed with a foster family. From then on, Kimberly changed placements and moved into a new home almost every year until she turned 16. That was when she moved in with the family that would eventually adopt her at age 23. 

“I've [lived] in foster homes since [age] five, and it was fairly traumatic,” Kimberly said. “[When] I got into this home, they treated me like they were my parents and not just another kid looking to make money off of.”

She continued, “When I got [there], I was very shy. And I remember one of the first things they told me was, ‘Look, you're respectful and you're polite, but teenagers have to be disrespectful at times. And if there are times where we upset you, and if you wanna cuss us out, just do it.’” 

“I've never had anybody just tell me that,” she said. “And they brought me out of my shell. I was very reserved, and I didn't like talking to people. I didn't like going out or anything. And I believe that they made me who I am today.”

Today, Kimberly is a groomer and salon manager, where she supervises several people. She cares deeply about them deeply, even if they frustrate her at times. 

“[I look out for my team] the way any manager would,” Kimberly said. “I chime in when there's an upset customer. I buy them food on a weekly basis. I buy cleaning materials. I help them finish their rooms.” 

She continued, “I have a few associates who I can tell are not doing too well. You can kind of tell when somebody comes in and it's just the look in their eyes. I have one worker, he will clock out for his lunch and not eat anything sometimes. So I will be like, ‘Hey, here's some money. Can you grab me something to eat? And, while you're at it, grab something for yourself.’”

“I know what it's like to grow up not being able to do things for myself, not being able to eat or have good hygiene,” she said. “So I like to make sure that my guys and my girls are taken care of. I know how it is to not have what I need to live.”

Most of Kimberly’s frustrations with her employees actually stem from her relationship with her supervisor, the store manager. 

“Unfortunately, I have to be the middleman between my boss and [my employees],” she said. “My boss likes to come in and try to undermine me in a lot of ways. He [also] tries to take advantage of the associates.”

“My associates have told me [that] they see how much he disrespects me,” she continued. “And I have an associate who is like the mother figure. She comes to me and tells me, ‘The girls don't respect you because your boss doesn't respect you.’ That kind of made me go in there and rip him a new one.”

“I told him, ‘This company is paying me to manage a group of people. Why am I getting paid to do nothing? You need to let me manage my own team and stop undermining me.’ And that worked for a day,” she said.

Kimberly has worked at the salon for about a year. She started as an associate, and then the store manager (who is now her supervisor) recruited her for a management position. He told her that she would be able to choose between two locations with open positions. But he chose for her and hired Kimberly for a specific location without asking for her input. 

When she started at the new location, the employees told her to run. The salon had not been able to keep a salon manager since the store manager took over. 

Kimberly wished she would have left sooner, but now she’s considering an alternative to running. She wants to fly. 

“I am going to go to flight school to become an airline pilot,” Kimberly said. “I recently went to Spain with my parents, and I just remember looking out and seeing all the different types of clouds. And I just got this feeling. I was happy.” 

As a pilot, Kimberly would be able to travel and her salary would more than double within her first two years in the career.

“I've thought about [flight school] off and on for the past couple of months. Then I decided, ‘Stop thinking about it and do it.’ Now that I'm pretty much all but accepted, I'm extremely nervous, but I feel like [that] is more of the self deprecating part of me. I know I can do it, but then there's a little voice in the back of my head that's saying you'll never make it.” 

Kimberly struggled with school when she was younger. She’s grown a lot since then, but it’s still intimidating and feels vulnerable to try school again. 

“There was always some kind of mental block with me where I just couldn't function well in a classroom,” she said. “That's why I dropped out of college twice. Now, I think I dropped out because it wasn't interesting to me. Now that I found this and it's very interesting, I feel like I can retain that knowledge.”

When we spoke, Kimberly had already bought four aviation books, and had called her mom to talk about what she’d learned. 

What does she want for the future?

“I just want to be happy,” she said. “I want to be able to get up and not feel depressed or anxious. I want to be able to go on with my life and not have to worry. I want to be able to support myself without having to ask for help. I want to get to the point where I can be the one helping instead of needing help.”

“I don't want to pull the wool over anybody's eyes,” she continued. “I feel like I will always have something to work on. The kind of childhood that I had, I will forever be traumatized [by] certain things. I can work on it, but no matter how well I'm doing, I will always have fears and anxieties about certain situations because of my trauma.”

None of that may go away, but the next time you look for Kimberly, she’ll be flying in the clouds.