Growing up, my grandmother & I spent many hours cooking & baking together. This photo is the inscription from one of the last gifts she have me—a cookbook. When we were sharing these times together, we would discuss everything from family dynamics to racism to music. As young as eight years old, I can remember feeling outraged at injustices happening all over the world & for a time wanted to become a journalist to expose these issues to hopefully make a difference in some small way. As we would talk, my grandmother encouraged me to always act with compassion & empathy.
While my grandmother passed away when I was thirteen, these beliefs have never left me. That said, I faced some difficult times through my late teens & early twenties & my life almost went down a very different path. I was fortunate enough to make a decision at 23 that changed the trajectory of my life. I’ve spent the last seven + years working towards this goal, often meeting resistance, challenges & dead ends. I could be making six figures right now for a publicly traded, multimillion dollar company. I left that world, was offered to return for more money but declined to work for free in an internship, beginning the journey of learning the craft of building strong communities. After over a year of wondering if things would ever materialize, Monday February 27th, I finally am beginning the next leg of this journey. I will be working with a fantastic non-profit organization to evaluate various policies & programs such as HIV prevention outreach & public healthcare.
To say that I am ecstatic would be putting it lightly. I also am rather nervous because I’ve wanted this for so long & now that it’s here I feel a bit afraid that any number of things could go wrong. I have to continue to remind myself of all the people that believe in me & that I have put in the time, work & sacrifices to get to this point. & if all else fails, fake it till you make it.
There is so much more I have to say about this but for now I’ll just say thank you to everyone that has supported me throughout this process. I don’t know a lot of things, but I know this much is true: kindness & compassion should always be at the core of who we are.
