¨I knew I wanted to be a doctor, so I went in as a psych major at Saint Anselm College. I was going to double up on all my sciences so I could get all my sciences over with because, at that time, med school didn’t care what your undergraduate was. As long as you had the requirements to get into med school, you’d be fine. I knew I liked phycology, and I was thinking at some point of maybe being a psychiatrist, which involved med school.

I thought it would be a good idea to be able to speak Spanish as well so I could help more people. Sticking with Spanish kind of evolved because the more I learned to discipline, the more I learned I didn’t want to be a doctor. I remember sending a text to my mom saying, ‘I don’t like this, and ‘I have to change my mind.’ I loved psychology, so I knew I could be a phycologist in New Mexico specifically, at that point. I graduated college with a graduate in psychology and a minor in Spanish, and I decided to volunteer for a year instead of going to grad school. So I worked in a boys’ group home as a residential counselor. I lived in the home and helped them get through school and other stuff like that.

Right before I left for San Antonio, I met Jared, so that was a twist in my life I wasn’t expecting. I knew I loved him before I moved to Texas, so I only agreed to a one-year placement in San Antonio. My roommate from college, Sarah, moved to San Antonio, and my other roommate, Holly, moved to Houston, so it was nice to have them with me. My plan was not to come home; I really liked it out there. I ended up flying out for a weekend, and Jared proposed to me. I knew I needed to find a job out here. I didn’t want to stay in the residential counselor realm because I was on call 24/7. It didn’t pay well, and well, I liked it. But it wasn’t my passion.

My mom sent me an ad in the newspaper for a Latin and Spanish teaching job at Wahconah. I was like, what the heck, why not? I applied for it, and they gave it to me even though I was underqualified and hadn’t gone to school to be a teacher. I only had a minor in Spanish and only high school level Latin.

I fell in love with teaching, and I knew I liked working with kids when I was a residential counselor. It had nothing to do with my plans, and I had all these goals that I was going to do, and I had to figure out how to make this new job work when I was not qualified for it. I need to get a teaching degree, get licensed, and pass a teaching test in Spanish. I had no concept of how to do that. I worked really hard, and it all worked out in the end, but I think sometimes we can look at things that don’t work out and feel defeated or stubborn and try to stick with something we don’t love. These things taught me that you have to let go of plans if they aren’t working for us and let go of things that don’t serve who you are in the moment because we are always evolving.”