Please respond to at least two classmates’ posts with feedback about their ability to interest you in their story
Leah: Like always I woke up to the screams of my alarm. It was a brisk morning of March; the Vermont air was crispy and refreshing as I made my way out to door and off to work. Unbeknown this day changed my life and shaped my future.
The year 2020 affected everyone in many ways from death to heartbreak. I was a part time nanny at the time and the night before going into work on day in March it was all over the news that the country and state were going under quarantine. At the time I didn’t understand what this fully meant and what was to follow. I was given the hard choice of leaving the job or living with them full time and at my age, recently dropping out of beauty school, I couldn’t give up my freedom to be with a family that wasn’t my own. This was the day I made the hard decision to leave the position and kids I had become so close to.
Months filled with ups and downs, desperate choices and eventually finding my own inner peace. I had become unemployed, was broke living at home not sure what to do next. As summer continued as the shut down lengthened, sickness spread and depression rising and struggling with medication once again, my life felt like it was going in a hopeless direction. I spent a week seeking mental help at a facility trying to better my life, got left by my partner after four years, and ran away to Arizona for a short bit. After the turns in life and struggle with medications I turned to seek other ways of life. After three years I decided to pursue my degree in holistic health to better understand the natural ways of living life and to become a happier healthier person.
Melissa : June of 2015 I was throwing my cap in the air and thought I had it all figured out. This was graduation for my class at Mill River High School. I had enjoyed driving anything, going to car shows, and working on cars with my family since I was young. Now the next step to this passion was to attend Vermont Tech majoring in Automotive Technology. Little did I know at the time, a semester later I would be back home, disappointed, unsure of myself, and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had decided at 5 foot 4 inches tall and 95 pounds that the mechanic career path wasn’t for me. That’s where my current journey began.
After returning home from college in the middle of a frigid winter in 2016, I started by going back to my high school job full time at McDonald’s. This discouraged me as most of my classmates were off at college, living their best life while I was working for a fast food chain. Even my best friend laughed at me when I called her to tell her I was coming home. I found the comfort of friends that worked there overwhelming, and helped me through the anxiety of what was next. My parents encouraged me to take classes at CCV toward the CPT program, and work for a temp agency at their place of work. When this suggestion first came up, I thought to myself “I told myself all those years growing up there would be no way I would work there, especially in a factory setting”. I jumped at the chance because who wouldn’t want to make $15 an hour at 19 years old? I completed the program, and found myself applying to the company a year later where I have been full time ever since.
With my current role interacting with people and helping them develop I decided why not develop myself into something better? So here I am, working on myself and committing to making a change in my life as well as others.
