I Am Who I Am

I know it seemed as if I've dropped off the face of this earth, but this last month has been one laden with change and transition! After making the decision to leave my company, I gave considerable thought to what it is I wanted to do with my professional life. As much as I love dynamic nature of communications, I don't always enjoy the BS of working in corporate America and I could no longer ignore the tugging on my heart that was leading me to begin to work with children. Having been a nanny in undergrad, a teacher at a daycare during the summers and volunteering with children in countless capacities, for me, it's never felt like work. At the end of the longest, hardest days, there was always that sense of purpose and accomplishment that trumped any temper tantrum or potty training accident. And for a moment, I was so certain...

Certain enough to quit my job and begin to actively (and quietly) pursue educational advancement opportunities in elementary counseling and employment opportunities as a nanny. Through an agency, I was connected with a family in Roswell that had three smart and energetic children and during the interviewing process, I think I really bonded with this family. After a couple of 3-hour long working interviews, they extended me an offer to come work with their family full-time.... and then something happened. That certainty all but dissipated and I was back to wondering.

It wasn't the money because the offer was about $10K beyond generous. It wasn't the children, because I clicked with the entire family almost immediately. I really agonized about the possibility of leaving communications and even the hustle and bustle and corporate America. Even with all of its frustration at time, I love my career. I love being able to bring clients ideas and out-of-the-box communications solutions that they didn't think possible. For me, there is real satisfaction in envisioning a product and going through the necessary steps to bring it to fruition. In a sense, it's like watching a child grow from conception to delivery. Even when interacting with the most difficult of clients, I'm fascinated by observing work styles and personalities and I enjoy pushing myself to work outside of comfort zone. During the last couple of years, I've been able to translate lessons learned in the work place to successes in my personal life. Although my professional situation during that time was not working, there were too many tangible positives that I loved about my career to walk away so effortlessly. I've worked extremely hard to get to where I am now and I think I'm in a unique situation to be a 24-year old woman. In that, I have also found accomplishment, pride and purpose and I'm not sure why it's been so hard for me to say that.

If you browse some old entries, it's clear that I've often wondered if I were picking money over happiness or if I were choosing the life that others wanted for me rather than that which I wanted for myself and for the first time, I knew that I wasn't. I was simply doing what I love doing although I don't always enjoying it. Even with this newfound confidence in my decision, it broke my heart to turn down the employment offer with the family and I still wondered if I would be perceived as a "sell out." I was talking to a friend who encouraged me to not only accept my decision, but to be proud of it. He said, "You are who you are and that's nothing to be ashamed of." Although simple, his words resonated with me. Indeed, I am who I am.

This being true of many things, as soon as you make the decision to follow your heart, situations have a way of working themselves out. Shortly thereafter, I was extended an offer from a large company here in Atlanta to be the manager of human resource communications in their corporate communication and external affairs department. One component of my job is to work extensively with our community affairs department, which oversees more than 500 charities - many of which focus solely only the betterment of the world for children. I think this will be an opportunity for many of my passions to come together and I'm optimistic that the results will be something amazing and fulfilling.

I may not be working directly with children daily, but I can use the gifts that I have been given to affect change in equally impacting ways. It's so important for young girls, especially African-American girls, to see young woman really trying to make a mark in corporate America and I will continue to reach out to those girls and hopefully impress upon them that life is nothing more than a series of choices.

I'm beginning to see that perhaps the real key to happiness is to stop viewing it as a finish line or expecting it to look like what I thought it would look like and to accept and appreciate it for what it is.