A State of Mind…

2012 will be the end of an era for me. It is the last official year of my twenties.  I am not sure how or when it will hit me that I am about to enter my 30’s, but I hope that I can take it in stride. Age is just a state of mind though, right?  That is actually the idea that  I have been taught from a young age. You are the age that you think you are. Several role models in my life have proven to me that age is just a number and whether you are 20 or 100, you can overcome that number and do anything that you put your mind to.  However, it isn’t always about what we can or can’t do, sometimes it is about what we have or haven’t done.

Pressure! I believe that all of us feel it as we age! Yes, you know what I am talking about. It is that moment that you think about your age and where you are in your life and you freak out. (I have done it before)For someone like me who is 29 there is that pressure to reasses my life because I am ALMOST 30. Numerically the number 30 seems so far away from the number 100, but when you are talking age, for some 30 is a huge number with just as much power.  30 is the age where we all face our first mid-life crisis.  We start comparing ourselves to our peers and asking ourselves what have or haven’t we accomplished. In other words, we start putting pressure on ourselves. Many of us set benchmarks at a young age such as the goal to be married and have kids by the age of 30. I believe that is a great goal, but it can also hurt us too. In life you only have so much control over things like that. You must accept that everyone’s timing is different. We will never all reach the same goal at the same time. Therefore, I believe the most important thing is to sure that we are happy and have a sense of accomplishment about  our lives. Perhaps that accomplishment at 30 isn’t marriage, but instead maybe it is the fact that you have moved up the ranks to manager at your job.

After 30 then comes a second mid-life crisis around the age of 50. From what I can gather, (since I have not reached that point) it is that age where you realize that the first half of your life is now over and you start feeling old. While I can see why those are two solid reasons to start freaking out, I believe you must put everything in perspective. I am lucky because I have so many influential people in my life who are over the age of 50 and have not age get in their way. They have put it in perspective.  In fact, a few of them still live life the same way they lived it 10 years ago when they were 40. They are living life to its fullest and making the most of what they can still do. I really admire that quality about them and think it is one we should all strive for as we get older.

We don’t all have to be in such a rush when it comes to age.  As a good friend of mine once said, “ you have the rest of your life to be married, have kids and reach those accomplishments and if you start at 20 then you have 80 years ahead of you, why rush?”  To back up their thought, they also pointed out that the life expectancy of a person today is much longer than it was 20 years ago. I think that they were on to something there. We all need to be thankful for the time that we have and take advantage of it. Again, we don’t have to be in such a rush.

From my perspective, life is too short for us to let a number negatively affect our attitude and outlook on it. It is a fact of life, we are all going to grow old. Why dwell on it?  Instead push forward.  It is part of a new year’s resolution that I have made.  I promised myself that each year as I grow older, no matter what age I am, I will keep on celebrating my life and be thankful that I am still capable of accomplishing all of the goals that I have set for myself.  It is, as I said before a state of mind.

Lessons From The Past…

I never thought that I would be able to live up to their expectations. I remember going into the room and seeing a small crowd of many new people. “Hi, It is so good to be here,” a guest said to me. “I heard to look for the lady in the pink suit, but I sure wasn’t expecting you to be so young”, she went on to say. I immediately started to feel the pressure on me. I had to prove to this audience, that was for the most part at least 20 years older than me if not more, that I was a reliable and responsible leader that could lead a meeting just as well as someone in their age group.

I had to refocus my nervous energy. In my past experiences, I have learned that the best thing to do is to take any nervous energy that you have and use it to motivate you and make you stronger. My nervous energy would either lead me in a positive direction or it could also lead me in a negative direction if I let it overwhelm me. The first example that came into my mind of this was my tennis matches. My nervousness got the best of me during the first match that I ever played and the next thing I knew, I  hit a wall and it wasn’t easy to overcome because I was telling myself that I couldn’t do it.

While building on my past experiences to help lead this meeting in the right direction, I remembered what I had learned in Toastmasters over the years. Okay so what is Toastmasters you ask? I find a lot of times that people hear about Toastmasters and think that the only reason that they would ever need to join would be if they wanted to become a professional speaker, but that is not the case. I’m not a professional speaker by any means and do not really have the desire to become one, but because of the profession that I am in, it is very important that I am able to approach and speak to the public with confidence. Toastmasters has helped me with this.

When I joined my first Toastmasters group 4 years ago, I never knew what I would learn or the doors that Toastmasters would open for me. Yes, part of being in Toastmasters is practicing your speaking skills (and believe me getting through those first ten speeches wasn’t easy), but I learned that there was much more involved. I was meeting a lot of new people that came from so many different backgrounds. I was also so impressed with their skill level and abilities and they also had some really inspiring stories to tell. I thought of Toastmasters to be kind of like a workout. You may not really want to do it at first (I mean really, who likes public speaking?), but after I would attend a meeting I would literally feel like a different person. I felt more confident and like I had learned a lot.

I also realized that Toastmasters not only taught people how to speak for personal and professional reasons, but I also it also helps teach people how to lead. I always admired the leadership of the Toastmasters clubs that I was in and I also admired the fact that our meetings were never chaotic because of the wonderful leadership. Each person in the club got to serve as a leader in the meetings by leading different segments of the meeting such as the evaluation portion. It was a chance for all of us to learn and grow. There was also a much higher level of leadership that you could tap into as well and that I got to be a part of last year. I was able to serve as Area Governor which meant serving several different clubs in the Greater Columbia area. It was one of the best leadership experiences that I had ever had because of the fact that I learned so much from not only my experience, but also from the other leaders who I worked with.

All of these past experiences in Toastmasters had now lead me to being named the State Regent of the South Carolina Magna Carta Dames and Barons. I had not scouted out this opportunity either. My grandmother had served as State Regent for 8 years and had asked me to attend a meeting with her. We were seated at the head table with the State Regent at that time and apparently I made quite an impression on him because that summer he asked me to take over. Me? Really? Why?

Before the meeting I started to feel like the little engine that could (remember that story from childhood?). I think, I can. I think, I can, I thought to myself. One person had the faith in me (the past State Regent) so therefore I had to have faith in myself. I won’t go into the logistics of the meeting because that may bore you, but I will tell you that the meeting went better than I expected and I got a lot of good feedback.

Infact, the lady who approached me at the beginning of the meeting and couldn’t believe that such a young person was taking on such a major role came up to me and said that I handled the meeting with class and elegance. It may not seem like a high compliment to some, but to me it was a very high compliment. Class, that is a word that says a lot in today’s society which at many times I feel is lacking class. (That is another blog.) I also received other compliments though on how well I handled the meeting, but I’m not here to brag. In fact, I can think of a list a mile long of things that I want to improve upon next year.  However it was a good learning experience. I could take what was given to me in the past (such as my Toastmasters experience) and be thankful that it lead me to this point.

Happy Apple Day!!

It isn’t a national holiday unless you are a student at Mary Baldwin College, but Apple Day impacts us all. From apple pie to apple orchards, Apple Day at MBC is a day filled with lots of excitement, apples and not to mention a break from school work. However while the college is decorated with apples and lots of red, Baldwin girl’s hearts are filled with pride, love and with a passion to serve on this celebrated day.

I  will never forget the excitement of  my sophomore class had as we planned out the activities for Apple Day.  We were following years of tradition as many sophomore classes before us had organized the day of fun and festivities. Our theme was “Rotten to the Core.” And as our theme song stated, we could make a tiger beg, a good cav steal, a key-det blush and a hokie squeal, but even as mischievous as we were, we still had the best of intentions and a common much greater purpose.

Apple Day began as a day of service for students on campus as they would go and spend afternoons picking apples and doing good for those around them.  As a Baldwin girl, we were taught to work hard and play hard and that we did, but working hard also meant doing good in your community whenever possible. It is a lesson that sticks with a Baldwin girl such as myself for a lifetime.

The memories of fun are some that I will never forget, but I can also never replace the lesson I learned about service. I’ve made a promise to myself to make time to serve my community and those in it. In my search for a new job, I have found that doing volunteer work is not only a good way to serve your community and keep yourself busy by helping others, but it can also be a great way to network.

Personally, I believe that our society has become focused too much on what is in it for me and not what I can do for others. However I strongly believe that if we each took a little time away from our problems and ourselves to help others, we would be a much happier society. Serving those in the community can provide therapy for each of us, helping to put our problems in perspective and helping us to feel good about ourselves.

Apple Day is a day that brings all Baldwin girls together to celebrate a great tradition and its meaning can have an even bigger impact on our communities and help to bring all of us closer together. So in the spirit of Apple Day, I encourage you to help myself and other Baldwin girls celebrate by going and serving your community and those in it.

Happy Apple Day to my Baldwin sisters and cheers to making our world a better place.

For more information on Apple Day or Mary Baldwin visit: http://www.mbc.edu/news/r_detail.php?id=2649

For more information on how to get more involved in the community visit: www.ourcor.org

A housekeeper, A painter and A hound-dog…AND ME.

It has been a summer to remember, one full of adventures, laughter and even some day to day struggles, but the thing that I will remember most about this summer is the company that I have kept over the course of the past 5 months. This company would include a housekeeper, a painter and a hound-dog. It probably sounds like the title of a crazy reality television series and I must admit there have been moments when it has probably seemed like one, however the four (including me) of us have had a unique summer filled with hard-work, laughter and tears. It has been a unique journey though the summer of 2011 that I don‘t think any of us will ever forget .

Of course, Maddie, the hound-dog has been the center of all of our attention this summer and has provided us with a lot of smiles and comfort. Her summer has consisted of moving from her soft arm chair to her fluffy dog bed and then at the end of the day she will finally reside the most comfortable spot of them all, the Tempur-pedic bed. Not a bad life, huh? (This dog is never going to have to worry about back problems) Yes, you could say she is spoiled, but she has also spoiled us. During a summer of loss, including the loss of a son and the loss of a job, she has provided us with lots of affection. She also has the most energy of all of us and has coerced ALL of us to take her on daily walks and has even convinced us to save a few extra French fries from our lunch for her. Maddie reminds us every day that she will always be our most loyal friend that will always love and listen to us no matter what.

One of the biggest challenges that we all faced this summer was the renovation of a home (which is what has brought us all together)which has meant a lot of moving and many days of complete chaos, but somehow we have all kept each other in line. Each one of us has strengths that help make up for another’s weakness. For instance, the housekeeper has a fantastic eye for detail while the painter has more patience than any one I have ever known and Maddie, the hound-dog has the best nose of any hound-dog I have ever met.

When they say there is no therapy like that of good friends they are correct. If it weren’t for these three, I probably would have gone crazy this summer. Although it sounds nice to have a summer of freedom even after you graduate college, I am one of those people who needs (and wants) to keep busy. Between the renovation, my job search and well just the everyday happenings of life, I have thankfully kept my sanity. I have to give credit to these three (the housekeeper, painter and hound-dog) and their simple smiles, stories or even words of encouragement. I don’t think I would have the same positive frame of mind that I have today if it weren’t for them. (of course, my family and close friends are to thank too.) Even the housekeeper said, a couple weeks after she came back to work after losing her son in a tragic car accident, just the simple nudge of Maddie’s nose was a comfort (and provided therapy) to her after the loss of her loved one.

In life, it isn’t only our attitudes that are important, but it is also the people who surround us. Those people can make such a big impact on us and change our world. Luckily, I meet people along my path everyday who I am so thankful for because they have made such a difference in my life. Thank you to the housekeeper, painter, hound-dog and to all those in my life who have made difference in my life. I wouldn’t be who I am today without you!

I Want My Nine Months…

I want my nine months. No really, I WANT MY NINE MONTHS. I’ve wanted it every since the day I received my first baby doll (a bald headed doll named Katie) and was able to understand the meaning of a motherly instinct. Today I’m calling on YOU  to help me fight for my nine months.

The nine months that I spent inside my mother’s womb were crucial to my well-being.  Thankfully everything went as planned with my mother’s pregnancy, but many other moms are faced with life threatening situations  such as premature birth that put both mother and child in trouble.  While doing volunteer work with the March of Dimes in recent years, I was stunned to find that one in eight babies in our state is born premature. I was also heartbroken when I learned the number of babies that die due to a premature birth.

At the start of their life young women are taught how to be nurturing. They practice this skill on baby dolls like that bald headed doll named Katie that I loved so much.  As children we begin to learn and develop those maternal instincts and as we grow older and begin our journey into adulthood many of us often desire to have a family of our own.  We want to keep the legacy going in our family and give our offspring what our mothers gave to us, a beautiful life.

From the first kick inside the womb to the moment of birth, motherhood is an exciting adventure. The images that fill our head as young women when we think of becoming a mom for the first time are filled with joy and wonder, but these images can quickly dissolve into nightmare as joy and wonder turn into a battle of life or death. As I began to learn more about the challenges women face during these nine months before bringing new life into the world, it opened my eyes to just how meaningful life is and how critical those first nine months are for a mother and her child. In recent years, premature birth has been named the number one killer of newborns in the U.S. I can’t even begin to imagine being a mother and loosing a child especially so young.

Honestly, the thought of having a premature baby had really never crossed my mind before I started volunteering for the March of Dimes. Of course I had heard of the March of Dimes and knew that they helped mothers and babies, but I wasn’t a mother and so therefore I didn’t really think much of the organization. In fact before I started to volunteer, I didn’t even know what it meant to have a premature baby. I soon learned that a premature birth is one that happens before 37 weeks of pregnancy sometimes happening before 28 weeks. Those final weeks are some of the most important and critical, but I was never really aware of their significance.

After learning not only how important those nine months were to myself and my future children and to see how much of an impact the March of Dimes was making on  mothers, future mothers (like me) and their babies, I became an advocate for the organization. I wanted to learn more about how to not only help others, but also learn how I could prevent complications in my journey through my future pregnancy and journey into motherhood.  Believe it or not, a mother can do everything in the world to stay healthy, but no matter how healthy she is there is always a risk that there will be complications. This is one of the many reasons why we need organizations like the March of Dimes for support.

Even though I am not a mother, the March of Dimes has given me so much knowledge and they have also presented me with many opportunities to grow as a person. Today, I am honored to serve on their communications committee with the some of the most influential professionals in our community.  I have also been given the opportunity to connect with other moms in the community to help them learn more about this wonderful organization. The support and knowledge that the March of Dimes offers to mothers is priceless and many mothers and future mothers don’t know it exists until after the fact.

Whether you are planning to have kids or not, I urge you to help mothers and future mothers in their fight for their nine months.  There are so many opportunities in which you will be able to make a difference in the lives of others, but also for yourself. Take for instance, the March For Babies that took place in March. By participating participants got to not only give money to a good cause, but they were also able to get out and exercise and enjoy a beautiful day. In just a couple months too, you can feed your appetite along with feeding the needs of mothers and their babies by attending the March of Dimes Signature Chefs Auction.  I urge you to help me in my fight a healthy pregnancy for all mothers. Please consider attending  The Signature Chefs Auction on Sunday, November 6^th or at least visit the March of Dimes website, www.marchofdimes.com in order to learn more about their mission and how you can help. You could be saving a life.

Keep Moving

It was the start of a new millennium. For many, the future was unclear. What would happen once the clock struck twelve? Was the world going to come to an end? For my grandmother it was just the beginning, the start of a trip to “The City of Light” (Paris) for her 80th birthday.

The adventures my family and I had on our trip were endless. Our itinerary included attending a wedding on the coast of France and touring Claude Monet’s, house. My family and I knew that this was a once in a lifetime adventure and that many of the places we visited were places some could only dream of visiting. I will always treasure the memories that we made in Paris, but the memories weren’t the only treasure that I had found. In fact I had learned an important lesson from one of my greatest role models.

From the day that I was born, my grandmother and I always have had one thing in common, the same unique name. I always wanted to be like the woman I called Nanny, but who the rest of the world called Polly. I mimicked everything Nanny did, from the way she sat in her chair to the words that came out of her mouth and there are pictures to prove it.

Nanny has taught me a lot, but I have never forgotten one of the most important lessons that she taught me while in Paris. The lesson: Keep moving. She told me the train wasn’t stopping for me. In fact for generations, women in my family moved mountains and my grandmother always encouraged me to keep the energy going no matter what the challenge.

One of the biggest challenges you face is a big city like Paris is that there is never enough time to see and do everything. When you only have a week to conquer it all, it can be physically exhausting and many times it is a challenge to keep going no matter how beautiful the scenery.

On one of the last days of our trip the sun’s light moved behind the clouds and it  began to pour. None of my family had expected this and we were not prepared to walk in the downpour. My dad suggested  going back to our hotel room so that we could keep dry. At this point we were all very tired, hungry and our feet were aching and my dad’s suggestion didn’t sound so bad. My grandmother, however, made it clear that the rain wasn’t going to stand in the way of her parade. It was like a scene from a movie as at 80 years old my grandmother pushed my parents and me to walk through the rain while singing the all time classic, Singing in the Rain.

Over the past ten years, I have seen my grandmother battle many of those rainstorms or obstacles as we like to call them. She has overcome many challenges that I didn’t even think were possible. One of the more recent ones was about three years ago when she broke her shoulder and her hip. I had always heard that once an older person broke their hip, it was the beginning of the end. I hated seeing the pain that the fall had caused my grandmother and didn’t want to see her life coming to an end.

I don’t think I will ever forget the day that the doctor told me that my grandmother only had a matter of hours to live. I was devastated to think that my nanny, my role model and one of my best friends was going to be taken away from me. I stayed with her for hours at the hospital trying to keep her comfortable and I kept telling her that it was going to be okay. Even though she wasn’t very coherent much of the time, she still had her sense of humor. In fact she told me that she wanted some Grey Goose Vodka, her martini glass and a cup of ice. I laughed and told her that she could have anything she wanted as soon as she got out.

I couldn’t fight the sick feeling that I had in my stomach though. I started wondering if she would even make it through the night. I needed some reassurance so I asked one of the nurses that had been caring for my grandmother for her opinion. She said that even though she had never gotten to really talk to my grandmother she could tell that she was a very strong lady and had the desire and will to live. The nurse was right too. My grandmother made it out of the hospital and back into her home in a matter of months. Today, she is still moving at the age of 91 even after two falls.

I know for a fact that she wouldn’t be here with us today if it weren’t for her motivation. For my grandmother there is no giving up even at 91.  A storm may start to brew, but as she says you must keep moving no matter what the challenge.

Life is but a challenge. The first of many…

Ever since I was a young child, I was taught that I should have goals. While doing homework was not a top priority on my list, it was still one of my goals I had to accomplish in order to graduate from high school. Beyond my dreams of graduating high school were even bigger dreams, for instance becoming the next Katie Couric. Okay, while that hasn’t happened (and has changed somewhat), I still wouldn’t be where I am today if not for having that goal or that vision. From day one, my parents encouraged me to have long and short term goals. With all the encouragement to attain success, as a child I thought I could take on the world. As I have gotten older I’ve realized it isn’t that easy. I have also learned that the bigger the goal or dream, the bigger the challenge.

Today my biggest challenge is to find a stable career path that will lead me to success. This is not the first, but the second time that I have been faced with the challenge of finding a job in the field of Public Relations. As I have learned over the years, life is full of rejections and many of those come from employers. Throughout my life,I have forced myself to overcome these rejections. For instance when I was 12, I wanted to write for The State Newspaper. I aspired to be like two great writers in my life, my mother and grandmother. I applied for the position and the day that the letter came, I was so excited. However after the excitement came disappointment once I found out that I had not made the cut. I didn’t let that get me down though. The next year, I tried again and my persistence paid off. Like I said before, life is full of rejections, but one of the many keys to success is persistence and determination.

There is one little phrase that always deters me from staying on track and for some as much as I push it away, it always comes back. The words, I can’t. Can you remember the last time that you told yourself that you couldn’t? Just yesterday when I was at the gym I said it to myself. Not in the exact words, but something more along the lines of I just can’t do another repetition. Not realizing it, I just doubled my problems and made a bigger challenge for myself. Not only did I tell myself that I couldn’t, but I also put up a complete mental block that could really keep me from succeeding.

In order to reach success and achieve any goal, I have found that it is imperative that you have a to- do list. For instance, I have always had the urge and desire to become a runner. In college, I tried out my skills competing on the cross country team.  I gave it my all, but there was something holding me back.  Before I could ever reach my goal of being a runner, I had to first face another challenge. You are probably going to laugh, but this is not a lie. I was a soft drink-a-holic and I had never heard of such a thing called water. To this day, I still have to work on making myself choose water over a soft-drink. In order to cross the finish line of a half marathon, I have to remind myself everyday of the steps that I need to take to accomplish that larger goal. Once again the bigger, the goal, the bigger the challenge.

Often times when we do not reach our goal or accomplish what is expected of us, we deem ourselves failures. I think I can speak for all of us, when I say we are all scared of being a failure.  None of us wants to get an F in life and in my book it really isn’t an option.  Let’s go back to my goal of finding a stable job in Public Relations. Some may conclude that my stints in my past PR jobs have been a failure and that I should just give up my dream. However, I just consider them tiny challenges that I’m facing along the way to reaching my final destination. I strongly believe, as I stated before that with persistence and dreams, I will succeed.