Sometimes life takes you in directions you never would have imagined.

One day you're lying on the floor wondering what the point of life is anymore and the next thing you know you're waking up in a different state making pancakes on Sunday mornings with someone you've only known for three weeks.

That's what happened to me anyway.

For those who don't know, I've undergone some BIG life changes and if you haven't talked to me in the past few months you're probably wondering if I've just fallen off the face of the earth.

Or chances are you didn't even notice.

Either way, I'm here to fill you in on all the details.  I feel that I've reached the most exciting time in my life and that the next few years are going to be very, very eventful.  

So I've struggled with mental health for a long time.  It's not a secret and I have several blogs, videos, and podcast episodes about it.  There are times when I feel really good and I am genuinely content with my life, but other times...not so much.

The past few years I've battled with depression, anxiety, food problems, and other mental health issues.  It was never very serious, but I would experience those feelings off and on.  When COVID became a thing last year, all of those issues got worse.

I don't consider myself an introvert or an extrovert, but I do enjoy the company of people.  I enjoyed going to my job, going to class, and my other outings before COVID.  When everything shut down, obviously all of that came to an end.

Classes moved to online.  I couldn't go to work.  I couldn't see my friends.

Naturally, that did not help my depression and anxiety.  I, like many other people during the pandemic, suffered from depression and anxiety throughout the lockdown.

I have a video that goes more in depth about what I went through over the course of 2020, but I won't get into all of that here.

It's a new year.  A new slate.

And fortunately, I don't suffer from any of the problems I had before.

I met my boyfriend, Tom, on a dating app called Hinge in September.  During the pandemic, I got very lonely so I downloaded almost every single dating app I could find.  I wasn't planning on looking for anything serious, more of just someone to talk to.

Tom and I hit it off right away.  We had a lot in common and were able to talk so easily without any of that awkward "small talk."  After what I believe was two weeks of texting back and forth, we finally decided we wanted to meet in person.

That's when I discovered that he lived two hours away from me.  In Ohio.

What.

Now I know what you're thinking, and no, I didn't just blindly drive off two hours away to meet this random guy.

He drove two hours to meet me.

We met on a Saturday afternoon in Starbucks.  I will never forget the first time I saw him.  I was sitting at one of the tables outside (the inside was closed due to COVID) and this man is walking towards me with a bouquet of roses in his hands.

FLOWERS.

HE BROUGHT ME FLOWERS.

Please excuse my excitement, but listen.  I've been on my fair share of dates, but never once did I get flowers.

We clicked right from the start.  We talked the entire time we were together and at the end of the night, I knew I had found someone special.

Obviously, we kept talking after that, but it became difficult to see each other between work, school, and the fact that we live two hours apart from each other.

So naturally the only solution we came up with was for me to move in with him.

After only three weeks of knowing each other.

Normally I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, but fortunately, I got lucky and it worked out.

I've been here for four months now and needless to say, I'm probably one of the happiest people alive.

Moving from a small town to a bigger city has been quite the adjustment, but I'm so in love with it.

Get this: I could go to Walmart in my Pajamas but no one knows me here so who cares?

That's just one of the many things I love about living in a city.  Oh and also, everyone here is rich so people are a lot more pleasant.

Seriously, I am still surprised at how friendly people are like I walk into Target and just start making friends with random people.

There's also a Chick Fil A right down the street which is a huge plus.

Cons of living here:

1.  Ohio drivers

But, one of my favorite parts about being here is my job.  Tom works at a specialty grocery store and was able to get me a position there as well.  Let me tell you, I have never had a job that I looked forward to going to.  Never.  Now, I wake up every day and I'm excited, yes excited, to go to work.

That's crazy.  I never thought that would happen.

Next, you're probably wondering what it was like moving in with someone you barely know.  It was definitely weird at first, but we worked so well together that there were never any problems.  Living with someone changes your whole relationship, but luckily for us it changed in a good way.  Tom and I talk about this all the time and we both agree that we wouldn't have the kind of relationship we do if we didn't live together.

It's like having a sleepover with your best friend every single day and neither of you ever have to leave and go home.  Being in a bigger city means there are more opportunities for things to do and places to see.  Basically, that means I'm never bored.  There's always something to do.

It's crazy because I never thought I would leave my hometown.  I thought I had the most hometown pride out of anyone and I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.  It turns out though that leaving it was one of the best decisions I've ever made and has been the cure to finding joy in life again.  We can't hold onto things forever, eventually, you have to let go and see the rest of the world.

So that's what I did.

It's funny because people ask me all the time if I'm homesick, and the answer is....no.  I'm not homesick.  I know I am where I'm supposed to be right now and there's nothing I would change about that. Now that doesn't mean I don't think about home from time to time, but it's not like I can never go back and visit.

I feel really good about this year.  I'm praying it will be full of health, happiness, and joy.  At least I hope so because I think we all deserve a break after last year.  I know there will be some big things happening in my life, which I can't wait to share with you all.

But I think that's all for now.  Thank you for taking the time to read this and don't forget to follow me on all my other platforms linked at the top of this page.

This year has been very unpredictable.

Full of disappointments.

And to be honest, I’m beginning to think there will never be a “normal” again.

Just to recap the last 5 months: I turned 19, I wrapped up my freshman year of college (online) and started a podcast.  I also had an internship over the summer, which is what I want to talk about today.

    This will probably come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but my internship this summer was through my local Purdue Extension Office (the ones who coordinate the 4-H program.)  If you’ve been a dedicated reader for a while, you’d know I spent many years in 4-H; and this was my first year of not being in the program.  As you can imagine, I miss it a lot.  So, when the opportunity to be a summer assistant came up, I immediately put in my application.

    This was probably at the beginning of March, right before COVID really took off.  I did not hear anything from the extension office for a long time, and when April came around I had started to assume either I didn’t get accepted or it just wasn’t happening due to the pandemic.

    Then finally, I got an email asking when I could interview.  I was so excited, considering at that point I had basically given up.  The interview, which took place on zoom, went very well.  A few weeks later, I had a start date.

    My job as a summer assistant consisted of many miscellaneous tasks; including helping prepare newsletters, program planning, making social media graphics, and working on the virtual fair.  Our normal fair was cancelled this year and moving it to a virtual format was a learning experience for us all.

    Aside from myself, there were two other interns working at the office this summer.  I was so lucky to be able to work with Ashley and Hannah.  We got along right from the start, and I honestly think working with them is what made this experience a million times better.  Before this job, I was used to working with people who are at least two or three times my age, so it was quite refreshing to be around some people closer to my age. 

    Our first big task was putting together a virtual camp for the mini 4-Hers.  I’ve had so many good memories of being a counselor at mini camp, so I was looking forward to planning and putting together this year’s camp- which was obviously very different than usual.  Ashley, Hannah, and I spent a full day looking up crafts, science experience, and other educational projects for the kids to work on at home.  We created a google site and put all our videos and projects on there for the families to access.  Later in the week, we also did a zoom call with the campers and counselors.  Even though we only had two campers join us (and both were very camera shy), it was still fun to see their faces and play some games with them over zoom.

    After mini camp, we worked on a few smaller projects over the next couple of weeks.  One of those tasks was creating social media graphics for the Facebook page.  Every year, photos of the 10-year 4-H members, along with a short biography about them, are displayed at the fair.  Because the fair was cancelled this year, we created spotlights for each of the members (and this year even non-10 year members were included) to post on the Facebook page.  We had about 22 seniors this year, so this project took a while.  In the end, I was very pleased with how the graphics turned out.  Judging by some of the comments we received on Facebook, the parents were happy to see their kids get recognized for their accomplishments.

    The next big project was creating a few more miscellaneous social media graphics for the Facebook page.  Because the fair was virtual, we wanted to share some tips for exhibiting in a virtual format (such as having good lighting and making sure the subject is centered.)  This was probably one of my favorite projects we did because it involved designing and social media, which I love doing and learning about.

    The virtual fair was another experience on its own.  Our county had never had a virtual fair before, so this was new to everyone.  The way it was organized was through a website called Fair Entry.  On that website, members could submit pictures/videos of their projects and the judges could log in to the website to judge them.  The system worked well for the most part, and we received over 800 entries.

    There was much discussion over how we would display the projects for the public to see.  Because it was all closed judging, we knew that friends and family members would want to view all the projects.  We finally decided to create a virtual showcase video that displayed all the entries and their results.  In the beginning, I honestly didn't think it was going to be too difficult.  However, after spending one whole week on just downloading every picture from the website, I quickly realized we had our work cut out for us.

    Because I was the one with video making experience (this is a great time for me to tell you to go check out my YouTube channel), the others asked me what the easiest way to go about this project would be.  In my head, I knew I could easily throw the content into my Adobe Premiere Pro software (the program I use to edit all my videos) and make a great quality video, but I also knew it was going to be difficult for the others to learn everything and to be able to do it quickly.  Thus, I proposed the idea that we create PowerPoint presentations, which we would then convert to videos in Premiere.  I figured this would be the easiest and quickest way to go about it and would not require everyone else to learn every in and out of the more advanced program. 

    I knew making the PowerPoints and grinding out these videos would be time-consuming; however, I did not expect it to take over 70 hours (and that was just me, the others worked equally as hard on it.)  The most annoying part of the process was converting the PowerPoint files to an MP4 format because the Premiere software would not accept the PowerPoints (very technical but that is what set us back.)  Additionally, some of the members had submitted private YouTube videos which could only be saved by screen recording, so that took up a lot of our time as well.  Finally, we were able to insert the files we had made in PowerPoint into the editor to put some jazzy music with it and render out the videos.

    The whole process took about a week, and let me tell you, I was finals week type of stressed.  It was such a big project and there were many times when things did not go to plan, so we had to go to plan B or even C.  Although I was very happy with the end result (and got great feedback from the 4-H families), I knew if we had more time I could have made them 10 times better (that’s the perfectionist in me speaking.)  All in all, I think it was remarkably successful but hopefully something that will never have to happen again.

    After the showcase week was over, our final project was putting together awards packets for the 4-H members to pick up.  All the members still received their well-deserved trophies, banners, and plaques as they normally would have.  Due to the event restrictions, we decided to have a drive-by pickup to distribute the awards and other goodies.  The other interns and I spent time putting together bags for each member and making sure everyone got the correct ribbons and awards.  That was a task in itself and took several days to finish, but it was well worth it when the day came to hand them all out.

    One of the worst parts of everything being virtual this year was not getting to see all the kids with their projects or showing their animals.  Instead, I only got to see their names on a computer screen.  However, I did have the small chance to put faces to some of the names at the project pickup.  While we requested that everyone stay in their vehicles, we still got to see the smiling faces of some of the 4-H members as we handed them their bag full of ribbons and other awards.  Those moments are what made all the hard work pay off.

    While this was certainly a different experience than I had originally anticipated it to be, I still enjoyed myself.  I was dealing with some hardships in other areas of my life during the same time as the internship, so going to the office and getting to work on these projects with such amazing people was a huge distraction for me.  With all the disappointments this summer brought, being to do this was such a blessing and I will forever be grateful for this amazing experience.

I first want to preface what is going to be a very heavy post with the fact that I don’t have a plan for anything I’m about to say.  You guys know I am probably one of the most organized people on the planet and I usually have a detailed outline for every blog and video I post.  However, today is going to be a little different.  Today I want to speak from my heart.  I’ve taken the last week to watch what has been going on in the world and collect my thoughts before posting this.  In case you didn’t know, I’m not one to publicly share my opinions on politics and other controversial topics.  There was a season, many years ago, when I was more open and routinely joined in on Facebook debates.  After a while, I decided confrontation was not really my thing and I fell silent.  Despite the fact that I have multiple blog posts about topics such as gun control and LGBTQ rights, as well as a 20+ page research paper on abortion, I haven’t shared any of that.  Many people around me have said it is best not to share your thoughts on topics like those where people might judge you and your reputation might get hurt.

Someone once said, “Nothing will ever change unless you talk about it.”  And right now, we desperately need change in this country.

I am not here to talk about George Floyd.

I am not here to talk about the police officer who killed him.

I am here to speak for every single black life that has been lost at the hands of the police.  I am here to bring to light the serious issue we face in America, every. single. day.  I have a question.  If slavery was abolished in 1865, why is there still a divide between black people and white people?  One-hundred and fifty-five years later, I am still more privileged than a 19 year old black woman.  Why is that?  You know, one of the things I hate the most about filling out any kind of paperwork or survey is when they ask what your race is.  Why does it matter what the color of my skin is?

That was a lot of questions, and I’m sure none of you who are reading this have the answers.  But if you do, please enlighten me.  One of the reasons I chose to discuss this today is for the black people who have impacted my life and inspired me.  I’m sitting here writing this thinking about the people I know who have influenced me in the best ways possible, started and run successful businesses, and who are academically smarter than I will ever be.  They are some of the most amazing people I have ever met and they are black.  They have accomplished so much, and yet they are still treated differently.

I think one of the biggest issues in this case is the stereotype of black people that has changed many people’s perception of them.  They are often seen as criminals.  Think of a time when you have been in a store and see a black person nearby and subconsciously squeeze your purse or belongings a little tighter.  Why do we do this?  It may be because the media publishes so many criminal news stories about black people.  The media loves to twist our views and perceptions.  Furthermore, we have seen many black celebrities at the center of media attention.  Chris Brown faced charges of battery as well as robbery in 2009 and 2012.  Rapper Meek Mill was convicted of drug dealing in 2008.  We know this because those stories are the ones that make the headlines.  For some reason, seeing “black man” in the title makes it more of a significant story. 

But let’s talk about the fact that just as many white people have criminal records.  We just don’t hear about it as often; because again, having “black man” (or woman) in the title is much more significant for some reason.  My point here is that just as we are equal in our strengths, we are also equal in our weaknesses.  There is no denying that.

While doing some research to educate myself more on this topic, I read Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech.  I know, it might seem dumb to reference such a widely known speech, but I highly encourage you to read or listen to the entire thing.  When I was reading it just now, this one part stuck out:

“We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.”

We cannot be satisfied, he said, until police brutality is stopped.  That was fifty-seven years ago, and we are still seeing police brutality just as much, if not more, than back in the 1960s.  Walter Scott, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Eric Garner, the list of victims goes on.  The question is this: how many more lives are we going to have to lose before there is change?  When are we going to be satisfied, as Martin Luther King Jr. put it?

We have to remember the reason the police exist.  They are here to protect Americans against criminals and keep people safe.  And as long as they are murdering innocent American citizens merely because of the color of their skin, they are not serving their purpose or their country.  The officers that commit these acts of hate are abusing their power and taking lives that did not deserve to be taken.  I would also like to add, however, that is definitely not the case with all police officers.  In this case, the officer who killed George Floyd had a dozen complaints against him, which means he should have been fired a long time ago.  But we cannot place this stereotype on all police officers, just as we cannot say that all black people are criminals.  It goes both ways.  I feel as though it is important to mention that, even though we are talking about police brutality, there are so many officers out there who are serving our country in the right ways.

I’ve seen many people on social media claim that the protests taking place are not going to do anything.  I mentioned at the beginning of this post that nothing is ever going to change unless we talk about it.  And that’s where the protests come in.  We show the government leaders that this is something American people will not tolerate.  We show them that we cannot normalize this kind of hate in our country.  We show them that we will not tolerate the murder of our brothers and sisters.  Many are saying that the protests are not doing anything, but they are.  As of today, after a week of protests, all four officers who played a part in George Floyd’s murder have been charged.  They are hearing us.  So please, keep speaking up.

However, protesting and rioting are two vastly different things.  Protesting is speaking up in a civil way to get the message across.  Rioting is the opposite.  It is retaliation and destroying property that is not yours.  I do not in any way believe rioting is going to spark change, but protests will.  I definitely do not think rioting is the right action to take and do not encourage such acts.

I have been thinking a lot about all of this and just soaking it in over the past few days, and one thought I cannot get out of my head is how much I don’t want to raise my children in a world like this.  I don’t want to have to explain to them that it is not right for the people to treat others differently because of the color of their skin.  I believe my generation is the generation of change and we have the power to make a difference.  I believe we can bring a light to this world that is full of hate and make it a place where we accept every single person no matter what their race, religion, or sexual orientation is.  Because every life matters.

But there will only be change if we keep talking.  We cannot stay silent.

 

Resources:

https://blacklivesmatter.com/

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march-washington-jobs-and-freedom

https://jenbokoff.com/2020/05/31/13-lists-of-ways-to-learn-and-show-up-as-antiracist-in-this-world/

https://medium.com/@courtwrites/where-do-i-donate-why-is-the-uprising-violent-should-i-go-protest-5cefeac37ef9

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/ahmaud-arbery/611539/