I Matter, Go Figure!

The next story on my storytelling journey starts out kinda where we left off. Well a little bit behind, same era!

So we’re in the Upward Bound era of my life. I was living in a dorm with everything I owned. If you know about survival mode, then you know how much stuff you just don’t have time to pay attention to. It’s filled with anxiety, depression, uncertainty, fear…nothing good. Yes, things were looking up at this point, but I still hadn’t started at school yet and I still wasn’t in my apartment. When you’re in survival mode, if it’s not tangible, it’s not real. As you can imagine, I wasn’t feeling like my best self. 

I go to a one on one meeting with one of the program coordinators and he tells me that I inspire him. 🤨 huh? Me? Broke, unsure, depressed, me? You’ve got to be kidding me. He flipped my world upside down with those words. I won’t say I felt invisible. I will say that I felt insignificant and unworthy. But what I couldn’t understand then, I better understand now. I was a baby adult at the time and thought that I could hide what was going on in my life. He was more of an adultier adult and he could probably see right through me. 

The second time I heard something like this was almost 10 years later. I had been working alongside a woman who changed my life soon after entering it. We’ll talk about that in the next story 😊 Anyway, she had attempted therapy a few times and did not enjoy her experience. In my last year of teaching, she started therapy! I was so happy!! Then she shared with me that my therapy journey encouraged her to try again. Again, I had my world flipped upside down. 

The reason why these words were so difficult for me to process at these times in my life is because of two opposite reasons. I didn't matter to me and I mattered only to me.

In 2015, I was at a low point. I was so focused on trying to get to the next day. I was struggling to matter even to myself. Then someone saw me and I was like what? That’s crazy lol Then in 2024 I had worked on myself so much that I cancelled out all the outside noise. In my brain, there were no other people and they did not have opinions about me. My therapy journey was personal and 100% about me, my healing, my boundaries, and self love. These were two totally different versions of Ashley still struggling to hear similar words. 

2015 was about realizing that despite what I’m going through, there is more to me and people can see it. Perhaps my circumstances should not define me? 2024 was about realizing that because I exist in community with others, my work is not solely for me. Both instances showed me that I have the ability to make an impact. Teaching stole my identity for 10 years so to have someone tell me that my personal journey inspired them to act, was astonishing to me.

Shoutout to my therapist! We got me together!

Thanks for reading :)​