In Practice

At 24, my life and career have been far from linear. I grew up in North Carolina and was thrust into musical theatre early. By eleven, I had already been in eleven plays, at which point I decided, for whatever reason, that hockey was the natural next step. That lasted until high school, when I traded it for debate, student government and serving as junior class president.

I started college at seventeen and spent four years studying international politics, diplomacy and economics. Somewhere in the middle of that, I spent a year in Barcelona learning Spanish and a semester in Prague studying film. After graduating, I returned to Spain, this time to Madrid, where I taught English to primary school students.

When I eventually returned home to Asheville, Hurricane Helene devastated the region. I joined World Central Kitchen's response effort, helping distribute food to communities that had been cut off or badly affected by the storm. From there, I moved to New York, worked in Michelin Guide restaurants, coordinated artists for an arts and music festival organization and picked up work in fashion production on the side. Eventually, I found myself back in Europe, interning at Vogue Scandinavia in Stockholm, where I happily took on more responsibility than I ever expected and worked across editorial, social media, events, partnerships and production.

On paper, none of this makes a tremendous amount of sense. To me, there is a pretty clear throughline. Teaching made me more patient and caring. Studying film made me more inquisitive. Diplomacy and years spent living and travelling abroad made me more interested in how other people see the world. Hospitality taught me how to read a room. And becoming fashionable remains a work in progress despite my time in the fashion industry. (I am hoping my budget eventually catches up with my taste.)

More than anything, I have learned that I do my best work when no two days look quite the same. A new project, a new problem, new people from a completely different industry to coordinate with, figuring it out has consistently been the part of my work I enjoy most. I think of myself as something of a Swiss Army knife. Every job inevitably comes with its share of mundane and repetitive work, and I am perfectly happy doing that too, but I come alive being the person who can step into something complicated and figure out what needs to happen next.

What I want now is, somewhat paradoxical, stability. I want to establish myself at a company and within a community, do work I am proud of and build a life that gives me the freedom to remain curious outside of it. I want to travel to places people don't often go, speak with people whose lives and perspectives are completely different from mine, learn more languages and keep finding things I know nothing about. Most importantly, I want to take with me a part of each of those experiences to share with the community I have built.

I don't necessarily want to stop being an explorer. I want to build a life that makes it possible to remain one.