Welcome!

I am beyond excited to have found Vocal! This site gives me an opportunity to share my thoughts and ideas with other collaborators. Most of the content will be related to everyday life as it relates to current events; I would call it the intersection of me! I mostly enjoy writing essays and op-eds, I've always found it difficult to build characters and storylines, so short stories/fiction has never really been my thing.

A little about me, I'm 29 years old, I'm a new registered nurse, so health and wellness is definitely important to me. I've always had a passion for writing and communication, but life happened and I had to switch gears. So, I'm hoping 2021 will be the time for me to publish content and interact with writers and to improve my skills.

So, the question that I ask myself and the question you may ask of me is, why now? Why start writing now? What’s changed? Well, the answer is complex and loaded and I hope to work through that on Vocal. Writing for me was always something I enjoyed, my passion was first ignited in school, and the writing was mostly academic. As I went through high school, pursuing writing as a career became more of an option and I wanted to use my writing to tell stories, so journalism was the goal! Once I graduated high school, life came at me very fast and I had to figure out a way to take care of myself, so I pursued a career in healthcare.

As my life experiences continued, my passion to tell other people’s stories never faded. I always felt that there was power in sharing experiences; the exchange that happens between two people when a genuine connection is established is a beautiful experience. I have felt that each person has a story or multiple stories that can be shared to help, encourage, inspire or motivate someone else who is struggling on their journey. There have been times in my life where I have met people, who were sent to help me on my journey and I did not fully engage in the exchange. I did not take the time to listen to the things they had to share, looking back I cannot pinpoint a specific reason why I did not engage with these individuals. As a result of not engaging in the experience, I am left to wonder, was there a lesson I was supposed to learn that I missed? Of course, there is nothing like a missed opportunity to send me down the rabbit hole of should of, could of, would of! When I take the time to reflect, I try to commit to myself to be more open and more aware of what I meant to gain from exchanges with individuals who come in my life.

Now, I am so thankful for my experiences through higher education, both at the undergraduate level and the graduate level. As a first generation college student it is not wasted on me, how monumental it is to be able to graduate twice. There are many people who are smarter than me, more talented than me, and more deserving than me and I plan to use my education and the access that comes with it to help those that I can. And yes I took out A LOT of loans to pursue these ambitions; for most of my education loans were the only option, so I took what was available. Student loans and all that they entail will definitely be addressed at a later date, because hindsight is completely 20/20. Since my education journey has come to end, at least for the foreseeable future, I have more space and time to revisit passions that have been put on the back burner.

So, here’s to pursuing passions!

Note: I do not own the rights to the images used in this post.