When I got Covid, I couldn't smell the rain anymore, quite frankly I couldn't smell anything anymore but it was the rain I missed, and fresh cut grass, and the way a meadow of flowers smelled better than any perfume. Two years later, I still can't smell the rain but I can smell flowers. I've always loved flowers, but I've hated bouquets since they always die so soon. I've got a garden now, it's quite the collection of free flower pots, dollar store deals, and empty chip dip containers filled with dirt. Between that and the fact that most my plants have come from uprooted greenery I find and discarded cuttings, I'm always surprised at the tenacity of such small green things to grow despite all odds. In an attempt to get more exercise I've also started walking around as much as possible. While I like to take a different route every day, I like to stop in my communities garden and travel along the nature trails. With my odd work hours I often get the chance to watch a sunset or a sunrise on these walks. The beauty of the sun's fading colors have always intrigued me, a masterpiece made for none visible by all. Once, a long time ago as a kid I picked up a bird book from a cave tour. Ten years later I still love to take it out every time I find a feather and see if I can piece together which bird it came from.

I like to save small plants discarded from a weedwhacker or growing up through cracks in boiling concrete. I like to take them home and put them in a new pot, most often a discarded food container, and say hello to them each morning and praise them for growing so well. To be generous is also to be kind, and so very often I think we forget that part. When I am not a college student I am an assistant at an old folks home and they've taught me much about generosity. There's an older lady, she's about 92, and she likes things done in a very particular way. Having been around so many decades, I think she's deserved that right. I don't always get things done in the way she'd like and when that happens she often sighs and say's "Oh Lord". In the moment we're both a little frustrated at each other, but the next day she always apologizes in the form of some sort of snack. Despite the frustration, there's generosity in the act of her willingness to forgive and kindness in her wanting to feed me. To be generous is to give, but it's also to forgive. Sometimes when I'm at the nursing home I have the opportunity to work in the Alzheimer's unit. Back there, there's people that have a habit of holding on to things they don't want to forget about and continuously uttering names and facts about their youth that they don't want to slip away. When they finally do forget I'll hold their hand, take back out their photos, and tell them who their family is. In their last days and years they'll forget me too, and if I'm known at all it'll only be as that kind lady, and that's enough.

I remember the days when getting out of bed was the hardest thing in the world and I remember the day I finished my first ultra-marathon, that's running 31 miles all at once. The truth behind them both was at that time, they were each the hardest thing in my world to accomplish. It didn't matter whether the step I took was my first one after a bad night of dreams or that last one in a long practice run. At each point I was doing the best I could be capable of and it was enough. Depression along with running have taught me the psychological and physical needs behind setting realistic goals. Your best will never equal another's and that okay. As a public health education student I've sought to leave the world a little less broken that when it raised me. I've joined a wonderful company that has given me the opportunity to teach young 6th grade women and teenage students that health is multi-dimensional. We've talked about violence and just how hard it is to escape. We've discussed social media and how in its pursuit of connection it has left so many feeling disjointed. I've talked with these children of our next generation and I've found them ready to take on the challenge of creating a better world. My only hope is that through my classes I've left them with the tools they need to succeed in the goals they set. I'm also currently working with the Addictions Coalition of Delaware County to create an infographic to support sobriety advocacy in my local high school. As an individual who has struggled with addiction I know how poverty, food insecurity, childhood trauma, and poor medical access can come together as an impassible mountain. There are so many people at risk for a life of addiction, PTSD, anxiety, and depression simply because their community has failed to serve and to see them. I don't want to be a part of the quiet majority that let's so many other's slip away when I now have access to the education I need to be able to enact change. Right now my work is solely through volunteering but I'd be excited should an opportunity arise to make this a career in which I can lead a team of people dedicated to serving some of our communities most resilient fighters. During the pandemic I experienced just how heavy the toll of Covid was as I worked as an emergency aide for two of my communities' nursing homes and their Covid zones. As a healthcare worker I experienced the mental toll a continuous crisis takes after months of 50 hr work weeks where it feels like nothing will be accomplished and our patients keep dying. In some ways the post-shutdown days of Covid were even worse when the families of deceased patients gave a face to the grief of it all as they came to clean out their loved one's rooms. In some ways the pandemic has helped mental health by showing us the resiliency of one another and bringing about a demand for online health services that can be now utilized to increase healthcare opportunities for people with transportation issues or lack of access to in-person care. In so many other ways however, Covid has left us with a deep wound of the past and a new fear for the uncertain future. Despite this sadness and the mental health issues that Covid has brought I still see hope. I see hope that the world will one day not be so scary and so apathetic if I, and people like me continue to care enough to make change and follow through with our actions.

A broken, yellow smiley faced stress ball and a drippy ceramic dinosaur. The plants I've grown from cast aside cuttings and my new used Subaru I bought all by myself. The school project I'm proud of and crooked drawings on the wall. A sunrise and a sunset. Frisbee with friends and the smell of summer, the smell of rain, the smell of flowering trees. A swim in a pool after a long long time and that baby shark song. A good playlist on a long road trip and sand in my toes. Frogs hopping around and baby geese in tow of mamma. Warm hugs, long hugs, and a good long cry. Best friends and siblings. Dad's favorite stories and yearbooks of memories. Old journals re-read and coupons. Bills paid by insurance and a surprise dollar bill found in the wash. Spring flowers on the cracked sidewalks and the smell of laundromats. Knick knacks at goodwill and a trash bag full of hand-me-down clothes. Volunteering, helping, serving. Snowmen made chaotically and the perfect snow angle. Baby toes and grandparents hands. Breaking a good sweat and running in the rain. Slowing down. I don't always notice these small moments. Sometimes just the big one's stick out, a new kiss, signing for a house, finishing the school semester. Sometimes I miss the happiness of slowing down for life, and sometimes these moments catch me off guard. A sunset after a 16hr shift, a nice conversation with the cashier, all green lights when I'm late. I don't always take the time to see these moments but sometimes they catch me anyway. I'm lucky for that, I'm happy for that, and I'm going to do a little better taking a moment out to feel the peace.

Mental health issues are like a broken house. The windows are sharp and jagged and the floors threadbare. Every move you make away from the house trips you with pulled up carpet and stabs at you with overturned furniture. I know the house has its dangers but a roof is a roof and the openness of the outside is almost scarier. Sometimes the house collapses and you have no choice but being trapped. Sometimes good people walk by with good resources and good intentions, but with each step they make towards you they drive the old pieces of the house into you, crushing and stabbing. Somewhere along the way hope becomes harmful and we get lost in the darkness. I remember my old house well. I remember the days when I thought hope would never come. I remember the days when as a child I knew the word trepidation long before I knew of excitement. I remember these days and what I needed to get away from them. I needed healthcare, a car, a job, an education. I needed not just tools to build a new house but the knowledge to use them. As a student of public health education and a person with various mental illnesses I know we have quite the way to go in the world of mental health. We have stigma, marginalization, and lack of basic resources all to overcome before we can even dive into the issue. But we also have people who despite all odds overcome mental illness and lead lives of success, advocacy, and service. I want to be one of these people. I'm trying the best I can as a high school educator of personal health habits and a member of a dedicated group focused on creating a crisis center in my community. I've designed a covid education guide for my university and I've trained many nursing aide's. I've run marathons and an ultra marathon to remind myself of what my body can do and I've come a long way in my journey. I want to continue achieving and learning and teaching. I want to learn how to walk into those broken houses and not hurt as I heal. I want to not only give tools to those battling mental health issues, but I want to teach them how to use them as well. I want to be a part of the many who are seeking to lead a better generation. One where we know of mental health struggles and embrace them and not judge. Our generation has survived a pandemic together I want us to survive mental health issues. I want us to thrive. I want us to build better houses and I want us to embrace our neighbors. I want us to love a little better than we did when we first learned to love ourselves.

1. Community on its own means statistics and data. Population, education levels, percentage with addiction, heart disease, and mental illness all define a community and detail out its people. Belonging to a community though, that's another meaning entirely. When that barrier is crossed and I go from outsider to member, data becomes real. Suddenly population becomes best friends and open porches, education levels are found in the classmates I've spent too many long nights with, and those people with their problems become opportunities for service. I belong to my community because I give back to my community and I've earned my place in their story. As an aide at a nursing home I've fallen in love with my collection of old folks. Over the past couple years I've been their family when visitors were barred due to the pandemic. I've been their best friends when the years have left them older than buried friends and family. I've held them in my arms when Covid took too many and crippled so many more. I've toed the line between a member of a college community where Covid barely strikes, and a member of a nursing home where Covid has taken nearly everything. I've tried to bridge these worlds while designing a Covid safety facilitation guide for my local college. I wanted the students to know their decisions matter, their health matters, and that Covid's affects are there even if it's not their community that sees them. 2. When I'm not working at the nursing home I'm a student and a teacher. Over the last several years I've taken on several positions as an educator. I've been both a climbing instructor for an all girls camp and a secretary of my schools rock climbing club. Between both, I encourage community, strength, and I love teaching and watching my campers and friends develop new skills and goals. Outside of that, I'm an avid runner and with the help of many friends I was able to run my first ultra marathon, that's 31 miles! The years have shown me that the most valuable thing I will ever find is community and as such I want to serve every community I come in contact with as well as I can. To do so I am pursuing a career in public health education so I can have the skills I need to give people the skills they need.