I learned the value of love and friendship and the value of community while living here in Alaska. I come from a very broken home in upstate NY to a single mother, I am one of four girls. I moved to Alaska to work in Healy during the summer seasons, but then moved full-time to Anchorage in October of 2020. I am diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder amongst other neurodivergent disorders. I grew up poor and essentially without parents, trying to figure out my life and my way in this world while I made and learned a lot of mistakes in the process. I have survived mental, physical and emotional abuse. I am an surviving drug addict and alcoholic. Moving to Anchorage, I have made this place my home. This state has been my home since my first summer season in Denali. Alaska is the first place that felt like home. In my time here so far I have found my community. I have found friends who are closer than family to me. Friends who I can call when I am feeling suicidal that will come to my rescue. Friends who love me harder and fiercer than my own blood has. My family here has shown me the real meaning and value of love and friendship. Traveling away from Alaska has made me realize how this state is compared to others in the lower 48. Alaskans have a sense of community. They help one another out, they might not be as friendly right away, but in the end, they are always willing to help someone out. I haven't experienced that in the lower 48 I am a non-traditional student, I am a 35-year old women that has to work a full-time job to fund my way through college. I don't have anybody else that is going to pay my bills. I take summer classes and still do fieldwork, just t be able to afford school, gas, food and other bills. I currently am employed with an environmental consulting company that does remediation work around Alaska. I am currently only able to go to school part-time, two classes a semester, because that is all I can afford, currently. I currently have a garden plot in the C street community garden. I snowboard at Alyeska and volunteer at Challenge Alaska during the week as well. I am a member to our local rock gym and in the winter, I also joined a pottery community at Turnagain ceramics. Besides doing these extra curricular activities that I love, I also am very involved in my vast friend group. Baking them birthday bakes or pies, watching their children. This past winter I helped clean a deceased friends apartment with a few other after Christmas. I partake in a GAYme night, with a group of homosexual men and others, we bring games and food, during Christmas we have a stocking stuffer sleepover where we make gifts and food for 30 plus people. I haven't ever experienced this type of belonging in a community before and I wouldn't change it for the world. They are my cheerleaders, they support me and lift me up and encourage me to keep going with school and tell me how proud they are that I am going to school for this degree.