It’s 8:00. Time to wake up. Since last March, the COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged many lives in many ways around the world and here in Montana. As I write this, the most updated numbers are reporting that 75 of my fellow Missoulians have died. 1,152 Montanans, including 64 residents in my hometown of Butte, have died. 420,000 Americans. As I lay in my bed at the beginning of my day, I think about a few things. Maybe what shirt will make me look collected over Zoom and who I will have the opportunity to meet today. But I always think about COVID. 

I have the privilege to be serving with Pursue Your Passions here in Missoula. We are committed to providing resources, support and education to female entrepreneurs and small business owners. Funny enough, I was a participant in a Pursue Your Passions course when I was in college and starting a new entrepreneurial journey of my own, so it’s exciting to be involved with the organization in a new way! We are part of a multi-organizational makeup of entrepreneurial support, community and educational resources at Accelerate Montana, alongside Blackstone LaunchPad and AMRII (Accelerate Montana’s Rural Innovation Initiative). We have strong ties around the Missoula community, the University of Montana, and the larger state of Montana. Because of our connections and because my leaders have introduced me to a lot of interesting, inspiring people, I have been able to learn so much from so many. And I am thankful that I am in my VISTA position.

Early in the morning as I lay in bed and think of the women that Pursue Your Passions serves; I can only imagine how their lives have been affected by the pandemic. I think about the students I have the opportunity to work alongside and how some of their college experiences have been upended. I think about my colleagues at Accelerate Montana and their families. I think about how I wish I could be with my team in person, in our offices – and it is this thought specifically that comes back time and time again. 

I have always been interested in public service and how community-centered work shapes the society we live in. I am proud to come from a town and a family that believes in the good in everyday people. I’m the daughter of a mail carrier and a public health official and they taught me at a young age that one of the best ways to create change in your community is to be part of change. I have a deep interest in our democracy and the ways in which our institutions work and don’t work. I thrive in team environments; working with and for people has always been my bread and butter. I love the accountability, the camaraderie – the focus of working toward a shared goal and making the journey together. Sometimes life can make this work hard.

I was diagnosed with clinical depression for the first time in high school. I struggled for years to find treatment that worked for me. I’ve lost friends and peers to depression over the years, and at times I’ve lost parts of myself. My diagnosis changed in 2019 after a stay in the hospital and reevaluation of where I was at with my illness. Severe, recurrent, treatment-resistant depression. I am writing about my illness in this space to convey a couple of things: 1. I will always put in the work to help destigmatize mental health illnesses and I think being candid about my experience helps people to understand that anyone could be sick or suffering. I am not ashamed to talk about it. Mental health is health. 2. I want to paint a picture of where I was in my life before starting my professional career, which includes being an AmeriCorps VISTA. 

I felt a deep sense of failure after graduating from college. I watched as friends seemed to be living successful lives and were making strides in their transition to the professional world. I was really sick and did not feel the same passion I had felt while in school. My recovery from this period of my life included healthcare, of course, but it also included redefining and regaining my purpose through serving. I had friends that were serving with AmeriCorps and Montana Conservation Corps and I had been somewhat familiar with the kind of work associated with national service. 

Then I went to a Pursue Your Passions event in February of 2020. I had just turned 24 and was excited that one of my best friends, a student in one of the Pursue Your Passions’ courses, had asked me to go to the annual Galentine’s Day event with her. I was excited to reconnect with Pursue Your Passions in a way that felt insignificant at the time – spending a couple of hours celebrating women on Galentine’s Day was not an internal breakthrough that I had. But talking with my old instructor and now host site supervisor at that Galentine’s Day event did help lead to my rediscovery of self. She told me that their VISTA position would be opening up and that I should think about applying for service with AmeriCorps. This conversation left me excited and like I had roadmap for the next stage of my professional life, which personally made me feel pretty good. I was ready to serve my community and my state, and Pursue Your Passions and AmeriCorps were ready to make the journey together.

My VISTA experience so far has been one of learning, growing, and getting creative. Our team at Pursue Your Passions has adapted to working at home and serving clients virtually. All of our events that we host and classes we offer are online as well. I think we do a good job of leveraging our resources to keep serving well in the pandemic. We continue to do the work that we are passionate about in communities that we are passionate about. 

So, when I wake up and think about the people that I work with and the people we serve, it’s hard for me to not think about what they are going through – what we all are experiencing in this historic time. We are united by this shared experience, by our losses, and by the good we have been able to do despite the challenges. While my health is challenging sometimes, I wake up knowing that there is good work to be done with the good people at my service site. I think about them in the morning and I get excited about what we will get to do today. I think about the women making tough choices for their ventures during COVID. My professional and personal development might have looked different today if not for my VISTA service, but I try not to focus on the hypothetical. I have very real work and service in front of me in a place that I love with people that I care about – and that is what I think about when I wake up.