Becoming an Eye of the Scallop

This is a story that begins with an ending.

My last quarter of college was not the celebration filled last hurrah I was expecting it to be. The very first week of the quarter was full of firsts and lasts. It consisted of my last first day of school and the last day of my granddad’s life.

My granddad was my favorite person. He and I shared a connection I’ve never had with anyone. We were alike in a way no one else was. After his death, I rapidly descended into a spiral of despair as my heartbreak and grief conglomerated into one indistinguishable mass of pain. I felt like I would never be the same person again. How could I be when someone who I felt a piece of me lived in was dead?

The rest of the quarter, I tried my best to stay busy, but I mostly just walked around in a haze, wanting nothing but to spend time by myself so I could learn who this person I had become was. The mass continued growing, collecting new sadness as it expanded. I was scared to graduate, I wasn’t hearing back from any jobs I applied to and I all of a sudden felt out of place among my peers. Deeper and deeper I sank into a darkness I thought would never lift.

I begrudgingly moved back home after graduation thinking it would only be temporary, I would surely hear from something soon. I feared never getting out of the unhealthy head space where looking at everything around me reminded me of only what I had lost, of the person I couldn’t be anymore. I woke up to vacant days and did not see an end to them on the horizon. I would wake up with nothing to do but sit and think. I could not get out of my own head, and I felt trapped. I felt like no one believed in me, and I surely didn’t believe in myself. I was my own worst enemy.

December passed. January mostly passed in a similar way until one day I looked in the paper and saw a job opening for a public relations specialist at Center for Human Services. I applied and received a call for an interview on January 22, what would have been my granddad’s 90th birthday. I took that as a good sign.

I was offered the job, and I knew on my very first day that this was an amazing place. Everyone I met made me feel welcome and like I had something to add to the team. I could tell how passionate everyone was about the work they were doing. The work I saw being done at the main office, Hutton House, Pathways, and at family resource centers was work that was important and was truly making a difference in the community. CHS was helping people in so many ways and I couldn’t wait to do the same.

In just the two weeks I have worked here, CHS has helped me to get out of my own clogged up head space and think about ways to help my community. CHS means a lot to me. They believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. They gave me a chance when no one else did. They opened up conversation where before there had only been silence. They saw me when I felt too small to be seen, and I will never be able to say thank you enough.

This is a story that ends with a beginning.