Category: About Me

Going Back to High School Scares the Sh*t Out of Me

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Not an accurate picture of my high school

This past week I was invited back to my high school to speak at their Career Fair. Getting the chance to talk about my organization is a great opportunity and hopefully it will be a great chance to build a long-lasting and sustainable partnership.

I should be excited but instead I’m filled with dread and experiencing flashbacks from my adolescence. Most of my stress dreams from the past several years involve me having to go back to high school to take classes and being completely lost.

Like a lot of people, high school was a difficult time for me. I wasn’t out to myself yet but I knew that there was something ‘different’ about me. This made me a target for teasing and general meanness. For an all-girls Catholic school there were some progressive teachers, but we still had groups come in to say that Gay people didn’t exist because God didn’t make mistakes. And I won’t even get into the terrible abstinence only sex education I got. There was a lot of stress at school and at home – ten years ago I was dealing with self-harm, ignoring my depression for several years, and living with a recovering addict in the family.

Going back in its self is scary. Going back and being out is terrifying. I’m not going to be waving rainbow flags as I go through the school, but I can’t honestly go back and talk about my non-profit experiences without putting it in a queer context.

How I operate in the United States and abroad is greatly influenced by my sexuality, but honestly just the thought of being completely open around a bunch of nuns is giving me massive anxiety.

However, I know how oppressive that school can be if you think you are the only strange or different person pressured to follow a set of rules that just doesn’t fit who you are. It’ll be worth it if there is just one queer girl who knows that someone before her survived, and then thrived after leaving high school behind.

There are so many queer narratives that are blatantly ignored in Catholic high schools (and schools in general). Hopefully my presence and my stories can at least spark the smallest of positive conversations.

Putting Things on the Back Burner

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When it comes to my nonprofit sometimes I have too many good ideas. Let’s build wells at the schools… and playgrounds! Playgrounds would be great. Except for… one small problem. That those ideas would mean giant program expansion outside of the mission. Even if these ideas fit into our mission, my organization certainly doesn’t have the funding for these projects.

I pride myself on being a creative person who can come up a lot of interesting ideas for my organization. There are a lot of people who involved with my non-profit. So what do we do when we acknowledge that an idea is good, but it just doesn’t work right now?

My organization has come up with the “Back Burner” method. It’s really simple and it helps acknowledge great, creative ideas that might not work now, or ever.

Say you have an idea comes along and a lot of positive ideas are exchanged building it up. Then, whether it is a board member or someone who leans towards the more realistic side, points out the issues of implementing said idea.

These ideas officially go on our organization’s “Back Burner”. It’s a nice way of saying ‘hey awesome idea you came up with, maybe we can revisit it later’. Most ideas that have been put on the back burner never return to the front, but some seem to creep their way into new programs and ideas that are more in sync with our mission.

I don’t like the idea of completely nixing ideas. A lot of them may never come to fruition, but it’s hard to tell how these ideas will evolve over time and circumstance. Sometimes the best idea for a new program is something you thought of six months ago, but it just needed to sit for a while before it transform into something that flushes perfectly with your organization’s mission.

You never know… your ideas may surprise you.

All By Myself

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In April, my best friend and I going to go see a concert in Toronto. We’re both traveling from different countries to Canada, so this will be the first time I’m traveling to another country completely on my own.

Now, I would like to think of myself as an independent traveler, but I always have gone abroad with at least one person with me. From people I’ve barely know through People to People and with friends and colleagues, I’ve never left the country completely by myself.
Look, I know that taking a bus to Toronto by myself isn’t the most daring trip I could make on my own. And yet, it still makes me feel a little anxious.
I really don’t know why the thought of my first solo international trip makes me so nervous. It’s not like I’m just going to be chilling out in Toronto all by myself once I get there. The only alone time I’m going to have is on the bus.
The closest thing to an answer I can find is that I won’t have anyone to share the travel experience with. Which I feel like is very ridiculous, because a 15 hour bus ride to and from Toronto isn’t going to be earth shattering. I’m going to guess that there really won’t be an opportunity to do anything besides sleep, read, eat, and play games on my phone.
I think that it’s the idea of not having a person to share with, even though there probably won’t be anything to share. The only reason why I survived my return from studying abroad in college was I had someone to recall stories and memories with. Who got what I was going through and could laugh and cry at the same things when everyone else thought we were crazy.
I know I’ll survive my trip back and forth alone, and I know that not having someone on a ridiculous long bus trip is probably a good thing.
It will be a new travel experience.It’s always good to push myself out of my comfort zone everyone once in a while, but I’m glad that I have many people who want to journey with me to new adventures.

The Other Shoe Isn’t Ever Going to Drop

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It’s hard for to keep a positive mindset.

After a streak of really good things, I have this terrible habit of waiting for something bad to happen. It doesn’t matter what part of my life, whether it’s relationships, work, my organization or anything else, I expect the positive streak to end in a catastrophe.
Ever since I was a kid I learned that the happier you are now the harder the fall is going to be when shit hits the fan. I’m not going to delve into my childhood, but through those events I conditioned myself to feel like happiness leads to inevitable pain. So to avoid feeling pain, and thus anything at all, I can’t let myself feel happiness.
I don’t want you to think that I’ve spent every waking moment of my teenage and adult life making myself sad and crying all of the time. I have experienced many happy moments in my life, but with the full-fledged belief that the other shoe is going to drop and smack me in the face. And when bad things did happen, they were a punishment for my happiness.
Thanks to therapy, medication, and my girlfriend, most of those negative thought processes have been put behind me. But sometimes those little voices come creeping back, preventing me from feeling happy or content. Because, according to them, if I feel happiness that some terrible is lurking behind the corner waiting for me.
One of my goals for this year is to focus on being happy and revel in my successes without expecting the sky to fall on me. Bad things happen. Sometimes in quick succession. But they don’t have anything to do with the positive aspects of my life. They never will. My success isn’t diminished by my hardships.
Most importantly, I deserve true happiness.

Getting into the Holiday Spirit

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I love this time of year and all of the traditions that come with it. Baking cookies, decorating the tree – it’s one of my favorite times of the year. Even in the midst of my depression, Christmas/Hanukkah/New Years was always a shining light, a chance for me to not wallow in my problems and really get into the spirit of things.

This year, however, I experienced something during the season that I haven’t probably felt in over a decade – joy. The feeling hit me while helping my girlfriend’s mom make cookies, while my girlfriend and her dad were setting up trains underneath the Christmas tree.

What did it take for me to feel this way? The simple answer is that I’ve been actively working on my recovery for the past year and a half. Working on my recovery isn’t just about working on overcoming the biological obstacles; it has also been an acknowledgement of the environment I had been creating for myself.

There have been many toxic friendships and relationships that I have cut out from my life. I no longer spend my time on people and drama that is doing absolutely nothing to support who I am, the work I’m doing, and my recovery.

I have also welcomed new and accepting people into my life, and I’ve realized the importance of those people in my everyday life. My girlfriend’s parents have always been friendly and welcoming, and have accepted me as a part of the family. It finally hit me a couple of weeks ago, and that’s why I was able to fully immerse myself in Christmas.

Often the end of the year and the beginning of the new one means shedding things or cutting things out. Which I think is extremely important. But when we cut the toxic out of our life, we need to be open and accepting to the positive aspects that are new or that we haven’t noticed in our life.

I’m not where I wanted to be at the beginning of 2015, but I’m a lot closer to my goals now than I was a year ago.

May the new year be full of positive moments and full of strength and perseverance to overcome negativity and challenges.

You Probably Thought Me Coming Out Was About You

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After dipping into a part of my coming out narrative last week I started thinking about all of the times I had to come out to friends, family, and co-workers and how they have reacted.

I’ve realized a long time ago that whomever you are coming out to tends to make it about them, but under further review I realized that every straight person I’ve come out to has gone through virtually the same process in reacting and dealing with the my gayness.
The process, in my opinion, is absolutely hilarious.
Step 1 – How does this make them feel?
Coming out has really never been about me, which by itself could be its own blog post. I tend to get “Oh I knew” or ” Why didn’t you tell me sooner, you didn’t trust me? “I’m totally okay with it”.
Well… yes I figured you are a decent human being and you won’t completely reject who I am. As far as the trust “issue” I also find that extremely entertaining. Straight people have no idea what it’s like to be afraid of that kind of hate and rejection… but yes it’sdefinitely all about you.
Step 2 – They are totally accepting of the LGBT community
I’ve only had a few bad coming out experiences, so I’m not even going to touch on those experiences. After they get over the shock of me coming out and telling me that they don’t suck as human beings,I get showered with pro-LGBT centered articles. “I saw that New Jersey got marriage equality, isn’t that great?” ” Did you see the article on Huffington Post about that gay House representative?”
 
I really do appreciate them sharing all of this information with me, but especially when it’s my family sharing, I have usually read the article two weeks before someone emails it to me. I would much rather get emails about Doctor Who news, I’m not so quick on that.
Step 3 – Proceed to show me how open minded they are by specifically talking about my love life / girlfriend.
This step specifically applies to my extended family and general acquaintances. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I don’t want to be specifically catered to because of my sexuality. I get told to make sure I bring my girlfriend, when none of my siblings or cousins my age have that reiterated to them. I’m not offended by it, but making my relationship a special snowflake compared to the rest of them doesn’t actually show acceptance.
I do understand I’m dealing with cultural and generational differences when I’m coming out and navigating through my family. I certainly know that most of them are trying their best since I’m the first openly out person on either side of my family.
I know I need to patient with their processes, but it the meantime, I’m just going to laugh at how ridiculous my family is.

I’m Thankful for My Non-Profit Community

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Since it’s not that long after Thanksgiving, I wanted to focus on something I’m extremely grateful for – community. A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a non-profit panel hosted by my University. As an alumna, I was extremely honored to speak to former and current students about my experiences forming my organization and what it’s like to run a non-profit. Before I went, however, I wasn’t terribly excited. I had been dealing with some non-related issues and I just wasn’t feeling very passionate about anything in general. I had no desire to go, but when I make a commitment, especially when my organization is involved, I know that I have to suck it up and power through whatever I have to do.

I’m so glad I said yes to this opportunity, and that I went with an open mind. Speaking on of panel of former students, all of whom were women, was inspiring to say the least. We all come from different backgrounds and experiences, but we all have passion for what we’re doing, and know that despite all of the ups and downs, that we wouldn’t want to choose anything else.

It was comforting to hear that so many people struggle and overcome the notion that we need to work ourselves to the bone and without any compensation. I needed to hear how I wasn’t the only one who dealt with guilt over the idea of being compensated for work. That taking care of ourselves is taking care of our organizations and our constituents.

Without this experience I would probably be stuck in my angsty rut, forgetting that taking care of myself is jst as important as the work I’m doing. I’m so thankful that I have access to a supportive community which is passionate and willing to make sacrifices for those passions. I would not be able to do the work that I do without having the chance to voice my success and my frustrations within an open and understanding space.

We need community. I think sometimes I forget that I have this fantastic network, but I’m so grateful that I’m constantly reminded of its existence.

Missing My One Year Anniversary – An Accidental Hiatus

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The beginning of this month I celebrated the one year anniversary of this blog. I had grand intentions of writing a very in-depth recap of the blog, and what it has meant to me the past year. Unfortunately life had gotten crazy over the past two months, and I fell out of writing.

First off, I got hired to a full-time position which is great, because money, but it’s not in my field. I know that I’m lucky to have any type of job as a millennial with a liberal arts degree who wants to work in a nonprofit, but nevertheless it has left me with not much to write about. Really, I just haven’t had the motivation to write. I know I’m in a good situation, but I have honestly lost some drive when it comes to finding a non-profit job or funding for my non-profit.

Very long story short – having an infected tooth and having potential employment burn you really puts you off from writing about anything positive.

Which in reality, is exactly what I have needed. Focusing on the positives in my life and the work (non-profit and for profit) I’m doing helps me keep my head in the game and maintain perspective.

My goal for this blog to continue on, and for me to keep writing about the good things about being gay and working in the non-profit world.

If anything has taught be about working in the non-profit sector,  it’s that if you get knocked down eight times, you need to stand up nine. I can’t give up on myself or my writing just because I’m not exactly where I want to be, and just because opportunities don’t work out the way I wanted them to.

So I guess this post will be an homage to the first year of this blog. There were road bumps, but I kept writing. I got busy, and I kept writing. So now after an unintended break, I will keep writing. I will keep trying. I will keep working at making the world a better place.

Valuing Myself Over My Non-profit: Struggling with Depression in the Non-profit Sector

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As someone who has been dealing with depression for most of my adolescent and adult life, and now who is finally dealing with said depression, I’ve been realizing that my thought process on certain topics has been skewed, to say the least.

I have mentioned in a previous post that my organization can’t go on its annual trip because of health and safety risks. More specifically, we are concerned about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. There haven’t been any reported cases in the country we would be traveling to, but we are greatly concerned about the traveling to and from. It would most likely be a non-issue, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

That is what I keep telling myself: even the smallest chance of getting seriously ill isn’t worth it. That I could accomplish so much more staying stateside and postponing the trip.

My depression made me believe that it was better to risk my life to do something that would just maybe make me feel better. Even now, I finally admitted out loud (to myself and my girlfriend) that if we weren’t together I would be extremely tempted to go ahead and just go, ignoring all the obvious risks and leaving it entirely to chance. Why does it seem so easy for me to think that my life could be expendable for the sake of my non-profit? That everyone involved, including myself would be better off if I took the risk? I understand that it’s important to be self-less at times in our line of work, but when that crosses over the line into self-destruction it’s terrifying. I never saw myself cross over that line; I can’t pinpoint when the notion that my non-profit appeared to have more value than my existence.

Sometimes I honestly don’t know whether I’m actually being selfless, or just not valuing my own person. Looking back, it’s much easier to see the times where I was chipping away at myself “for the sake” of my organization, all in the name of being passionate and hard working. I don’t think there is anything wrong with working hard and making sacrifices, but when that becomes a part of everyday life, when you are constantly forsaking your mental and physical health for the benefit of your organization, it’s too far.

We owe it to ourselves to take care of ourselves first, and our organization second. It might seem selfish (it definitely has to me in the past), but your health and safety are worth so much. Throwing it away isn’t going to make yourself or your organization better. It’s just increases the chance of pain and burnout.

It’s even hard for me to write this, but my life is more important than my organization. My health is more important than my organization. My safety is more important than my organization. I will keep saying that to myself, over and over and over again, until hopefully it becomes as natural to me as breathing.

Dressing the Part

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Luckily I have been going on several interviews for positions in the non-profit sector. Unfortunately, I haven’t been offered any of these positions. Feedback has shown me that my resume , experience, and interview answers have been on point. Which is great… and extremely frustrating at the same time. If I was doing something obviously and inherently wrong throughout my job search I could fix it. Is there something about how I’m presenting myself that is working against me, at least on a subconscious level?

I don’t think that any person interviewing me is actively thinking that I don’t ‘look’ experienced enough, but I do have a younger looking face. Also, I’m always extremely aware of how I look going into an interview as a woman. Women who wear no make-up are sometimes deemed unprofessional while women who wear too much make-up are written off as air heads. I feel like this dichotomy  is intensified in the non-profit sector. If I don’t wear make-up, its assumed that I don’t look like I’m taking the interview and organization seriously, but if I do wear make-up it could seem like I don’t fit into the non-profit culture. Is wearing a dress too girly, but wearing pants not professional enough?

Also, when I’m wearing pants and a button up shirt (my favorite go-to for interviews), I’m starting to become more concerned that with my short hair, that I look too gay. That if I don’t look feminine enough, that there is a bright sign over my head that is flashing LESBIAN in big bold letters.

Again, I really don’t think any of my interviewers are actively think that way, but it’s still something that is probably hindering my job search.

However, are there subconscious decisions  being made about me that are ruining my changes of getting a job in my field? I don’t think that my appearance is the only reason I haven’t gotten a job, but constantly being selected as 1 of 5 people interviewed out of 120 applications, then not getting the job over and over again, it makes me wonder.

Hopefully the tide will turn, and my efforts will pay off soon. In the mean time, I just have to keep plugging along, and wishing for the best.