I come from a family where food allergies or intolerances don't exist. However, being raised in an African-American family, they were shocked when I could not eat shellfish or certain tree nuts. Imagine being in a household where butter pecan ice cream was a staple or having seafood broils on the July 4th holidays as a mainstay in your family, knowing you could not be a part of such food festivities. I felt isolated because I couldn't have a slice of pecan pie or eat seafood mac and cheese. Fast forward to my adult years, having vegetarian and vegan seafood options such as vegan crab cakes, mock shrimp, etc., allowed me to transition easier into healthier eating habits. My experience with veganism made me realize my intolerance to milk and dairy products. I have found great alternatives to shellfish, tree nuts, and plant-based milk products that I have grown to love. My food allergies encouraged me to find alternatives to foods I wanted to eat, and I don't feel so disconcerted about my food allergies. I am grateful that my food allergies were realized earlier in my childhood, as they helped me to navigate food products from a young age. My mom found out that I had a food allergy abruptly. It was around Christmas time, the season of giving, and unfortunately, while at church with my mom, someone was giving out walnut brownies. My mom could eat walnut brownies, but she would soon realize, very quickly, that her daughter could not eat walnut brownies. Imagine your children screaming, coughing, and saying, "Mommy, my throat itches, and it hurts." My mom saw my face and lips swelled up after eating just a tiny piece of a brownie. It was not only scary for me but scary for her. From a very young age, I looked on the back of food products and their food labels to determine if it was a product I could consume without the possibility of an allergy flare-up. This habit would serve me well when I started my vegan journey in my early 20s. Not only was I the kid that had food allergies I also had asthma. I had severe asthma when I was a child. However, as an adult, I don't have too many issues with asthma. I can leave my house without bringing my asthma pump with me. In my early twenties, I suffered from a severe asthma attack after having pneumonia. For weeks I had issues with phlegm in my lungs. At the time, I tried many over-the-counter products to remove the phlegm in my lungs. Then, one day, while I was working at T.J. Maxx, a customer started to talk to me about going to a vegan detox for ten days. I took that customer's advice, and the phlegm in my lungs was gone, and I breathed much better. I realized veganism that I was not too fond of the taste of milk, and I fell in love with plant-based milk like oat and almond milk. Out of my journey of understanding my food allergies and intolerances, I found that I prefer to be more nutritionally conscious of my eating. I would then become more aware of the macros I was consuming to help my weight loss journey. This scholarship would help me continue my education to receive my bachelor's in Nursing. After learning how to heal my body through nutrition, I aim to be a healing advocate to others moving forward.

My grandmother transitioned in 2019 after battling her fight with Alzheimer's disease. Not a day goes by that I wish she would have made better decisions about her health. For as long as I can remember, my grandmother had diabetes. My sister and I would go to her house and treat ourselves to an ice-cold glass of milk with a big slice of yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Fast forward to my grandmother's last days. My heart felt like it was broken into pieces seeing how diabetes had affected her significantly to the point where Alzheimer's accelerated, deteriorating her health. I realized as I was entering my later twenties that I needed to start taking better care of myself, especially regarding my physical health. I cannot say that my weight loss journey has not been easy, but I am grateful that I have come so far. At my heaviest, I was 240 pounds at 5 feet and 2 inches. I am currently 191 pounds and still going. My goal is to be at 150 pounds and at least 170 by my birthday on December 23, 2022. I knew my grandmother wanted me to be healthier as she saw my battle with weight as early as my pre-teens. I also knew I wanted to be a healthier version of myself. The COVID pandemic in 2020 forced me to reflect on many areas of my life that needed improvement, including my health. In 2022, I seriously decided to improve my healthy mindset. Since 2020, I have enjoyed starting to build a workout routine. I found along my fitness journey that I love weightlifting. It is one of my goals to start powerlifting. But for now, I will recreationally stick with using the gym such as Gold's gym and LA Fitness. But my biggest challenge was balancing out my nutritional routine. Recently, I started to understand what healthy routine is best for me. Purposefully maintaining my macros and understanding the protein I need to fuel my body has positively affected my weight loss journey. I also found that journaling my instances of emotional eating in a food journal has aided in healing the nutritional issues of my past. My weight training routine 3 to 4 times a week and cardio afterward has increased my cardiovascular endurance. I find myself having to drink less water during my workout routines. As a result, I can run longer without taking so many breaks in between. My consistency has encouraged me to move forward with my weight loss journey and the beautiful experience of feeling my body transform for the better. I am not only living a healthier life for myself, but I am also doing so as I believe my grandma is with me in spirit, supporting me in this endeavor. Healthy living is essential to me because it is now a part of my lifestyle and has brought peace to my life more than I expected. I can't see my week without at least three weightlifting training sessions. I enjoy eating healthier, and it has encouraged me to listen to my body, which it needs. I eat when I am hungry. But most importantly, through my choice to adopt a healthier lifestyle, I found passion in pursuing going back to school for Nursing in the Fall of 2022. I am an advocate for healthier living, and I also want to help others maintain their health as well.

When you come from a background where family or friends never really supported you in your endeavors, you become resilient regardless of your circumstances, overcoming obstacles that others could never imagine defeating with triumph. Once I figured out that it was time for a career change, the only person who would hold me back from doing so was me. So I started to set goals for myself to transition into a career that would be life-fulfilling. One of my goals is to start my semester at Montgomery College in the Fall of 2022. As a pre-nursing student, I look forward to passing my TEAS exam, as it is one of my goals to enter into the Montgomery College Nursing school program ideally in the Fall of 2025. My goal is to complete my Bachelor's via Montgomery College ASN to BSN (Associates of Nursing to Bachelor's of Nursing) at the end of Fall 2026. Besides my collegiate goals and career goals, I have my personal goals that I am achieving as well. Although I could not receive my Driver's license in my teens and 20s, I plan to obtain my provisional permit before 2023. In addition, there are several other goals that I am achieving in my spare time, including weightlifting and my weight loss journey. Eventually, one of my dreams is to enter a powerlifting competition and win, as I love weightlifting. I realized in my 30s that a career where I provide the necessary assistance to my family and my community is of importance. My confidence in my ability to accomplish my goals has been the most potent it has ever been in my entire life. What encourages me to remain driven is my determination and seeing the manifestations of my dreams come to fruition.

Choosing your peace is one way to live a long healthy life. My elders have told me don't attempt to change the things I cannot change; only what is within my control matters. By choosing peace even in a world of chaos, you will be the added balance instead of being a cause of imbalance. By focusing on how you choose to feel, such as feeling peace and happiness, you can control how situations, environments, people, and circumstances make you think and feel. For example, as I have gotten older, I have learned that stressing about things out of my control only increases my anxiety and stress. But focusing on something that has given me peace, I was able to find that many of the challenges that I had started to fall away, and life began to be more at ease. I have found peace by doing things I love, such as weightlifting. Weightlifting has brought me peace since I started back on my fitness journey in 2021. I found that over time, I looked forward to working out to decrease any stress that I had throughout the day, and at the end of my workout routine, the calamity that I felt was reassuring. Eventually, I could focus more on things that would aid my weightlifting routine, such as eating better and meditation. Weightlifting has been my saving grace and peace and has helped me remain in faith and gratitude that things will work better in my life. Through peace of mind, I believe it is easier to live a life of longevity effortlessly and indefinitely.

If I could time-travel back to when I was between the ages of 15 and 20 and tell my younger self that we'd be going back to school in my 30s for Nursing, she would not have believed in such a notion. After experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, my previous career choice didn't resonate with what my spirit felt called to do. It wasn't easy deciding to go back to school for Nursing, as I thought my decisions of yesteryear would prohibit and punish me from attending college again. You'd think that going through a pandemic would deter me from going into the medical field. However, while social media platforms such as TikTok and Youtube provided constant content of confessions of Nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers alike quitting from burnout, it has not given me a reason to walk away from pursuing completing my BSN in 2024. Instead, it made me question who would replace the mistreated healthcare workers for so long that the COVID pandemic was just the camel that broke its back. I questioned why there aren't better policies to protect healthcare workers and patients alike. I would research for hours roles such as "health policy nurse" and "occupational health nurse," wondering if I could become a voice of change while questioning my previous choices of attempting to have a career in the IT industry. In comparison, I believe that many of us during the COVID pandemic have had a profound reflection on what we want out of life. Therefore, becoming a Nurse has individualistic and collective importance for me. While I have enjoyed creating Pinterest boards to help manifest my goals of becoming of Nurse, choosing this path doesn't come without specific value in my life. I come from a family where I have recently seen health patterns that have encouraged me to heal myself. As an individual that had challenges with Asthma when I was younger, I am honestly grateful that I overcame contracting COVID in January of 2022 and survived. But it is not just what I believe is a "calling" for me. Books like "Medical Apartheid" and "The Immortal Life of Henretta Lacks" have opened my eyes to why there will always be a need for people of African descent to volunteer to work in the medical/health industries. It has propelled me to be the face of reassurance and comfort, especially for a person of color walking through the door of whatever healthcare facility will employ me. The possibilities seem so endless on what I plan on accomplishing in the Nursing industry. Because I believe nurses are king in the health industry, I intend to work as an occupation or health policy nurse. But in my heart, it's very near and dear to me to work as a neonatal nurse, as I also plan to become a birthing doula in my spare time. But I also envision myself being a health advocate for my community. It would be a dream to be a speaker for seminars relating to my health and nurse advocacy, as I am passionate about such topics. Maybe one day, I may experience having a TEDtalk conference. However, at my core, I feel that I should be lobbying for the "RN-to-staffing" ratio as it is essential for safety and efficacy for us all. I see myself as a Nurse, an advocate for both patients and healthcare workers alike, a healer, and a being who has found their humanitarian calling.