Small Town Dreams - 13 Things I Have Learned Growing Up in a Small Town

13 Things I Have Learned Growing Up in a Small Town

1. Never forget where you came from. Stay humble.

2. You are so much bigger and brighter when you focus on yourself.

3. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone, ever.

4. Fake it til you make it. No one else knows how the story ends so why should you?

5. If you want to grow, you have to be uncomfortable.

6. You are worthy of a much better life than you think you are.

7. If you want it, it’s yours but you better be ready to work damn hard for it.

8. Rejection is just redirection.

9. Your social circle reflects you.

10. At the end of the day, life is not that serious.

11. Never stop learning.

12. A goldfish can only grow as big as the tank it’s in.

13. Growth over comfort every. single. time.

Small Town Dreams

Staring outside the window of my 22nd floor high rise in Downtown Seattle, at the current age of 25, one would not assume that I came from a small town in the Central Valley of California. One would not assume that when I was 10-12 I would paint small almond trees in my grandpa’s orchard in order to afford my school clothes for the next school year or that when I was 14 I would work at local softball tournaments every weekend in order to afford my trips for color guard and outfits for dance recitals. One would not assume that I came from a family of 8, which was full of love and laughter and even though we considered band reviews as vacations, I was not missing anything in my life. One would not assume that I did not walk for my high school graduation, by choice. Multiple times in my life my family moved with my grandparents in order to save money as well as support the family as a whole for health problems or out of pure convenience. This of course created a mindset that everything can change; you could find out next month you have to move houses because it is what’s best for the family or one of your parents just got a promotion so they need to move closer to their new work. Change and moving was inevitable my whole life and because of this, I believe it’s the reason why as an adult I have no fear when it comes to moving or changing the current environment I am in. I am extremely grateful for my humble and family filled upbringing, but I always knew that a different way of life was what I wanted to achieve. 

Starting at the age of 16, when looking at colleges and moving out of state, I had my sights set on the East Coast. I knew that in order to move away I would not only have to make myself stand out on applications as much as possible, but I needed to be able to financially support myself and my endeavors. Every weekend, I worked at softball games at the front check in desk handing out wristbands and collecting money from all the tournament participants. This appeared to me as one of the easiest ways to study for school as well as work and make a decent amount every weekend until I was old enough to work at a real job. I moved schools when I was 16, moving an hour away from the main county I grew up in; which at the time seemed like the biggest leap I had taken thus far. When my parents came to me in June of my about to be junior year and said “ Mariah it’s up to you if the family moves away.”, because I was the only one in high school as my brother moved away to UC Berkeley a couple months before. I did what any child would do, I said yes. Little did I know that this small decision would impact my relationships with my family as well as my over all mental health. My decision put a significant strain on my parents’ and my relationship as well as the romantic relationship I had been in for the two years before. Moving away at 16 from everything I had known seemed terrifying but exciting; challenging yet rewarding. I knew that if I could step outside of the bubble I had grown up in, that it would be a good test for if I could move away for college. At the new high school, I was inevitably not involved with the popular group, ran into issues as any other 16 year old would with falling for the emotionally unavailable popular boy and ended up finding myself deep into an eating disorder. Despite the negatives, I started the school’s first color guard, Fashion Influencers Club, joined Academic Decathlon, was involved with the Drama Club and made the lead role my senior year. Two weeks after I turned 18, I started to work at Outback Steakhouse, five days a week, which ultimately was my main financial stream for the next 5 years. I wanted to save up enough money so I would not need anything from anyone, not even in an emergency. I gave up doing a lot of the social activities most high schoolers obsess with like the senior trip, senior sunrise, senior ditch day, sporting games, etc. I just was not interested and wanted to focus on finishing off the school year academically strong and focus on getting financially prepared for college in one of the most expensive counties to live in in California.

Although I did not end up on the East Coast for undergrad even though I had a full ride for New York Institute of Technology and a golf scholarship for Washington State University, I did decide on Sonoma State University in Sonoma County, California. It was still about a 3 hour drive away from the area I grew up in and felt as though it was what I needed at the time. In college, I did everything I could to get involved with organizations and clubs like the Residential Housing Association(RHA), Model United Nations(MUN) and others. I ensured every summer I had an internship that took me out of the state and made sure I did not have to go back to the Central Valley for any summers, such as Brown University my junior year and Harvard would have been my senior year if not for COVID. My freshman year of undergrad, I attended a conference at the University of Oregon with my RHA board and that ultimately changed my life as I ran to be on the regional conference board my sophomore year and was apart of the organization all the way until I graduated. Because of this leap of faith my sophomore year, I had the opportunity to travel all over the United States to attend and lead various conferences for students all over North America. This really drove my ability to be by myself, as in my opinion, flying and traveling by yourself is arguably one of the most difficult things a person can do. It made me really start to love my own company and enjoy the person I was without a significant other by my side. I would travel 1-2 times a month for conferences, trainings, site visits and contract signings all over as a junior and senior and I had to get extremely good at time management very quickly. Whenever I was back in Sonoma, I would work everyday I was not traveling and even balanced school and work so well that I achieved a 4.0 GPA my last two years of undergrad. If you are asking yourself, when did I have time for fun? I focused and prioritized work, physical fitness and homework done above having a social life and found myself to be more interested in working toward my goals rather than partying. Of course there were a few times a semester I would go to a bar, but it was on rare occasion as I filled my cup with other things that made me feel complete. 

My junior year as previously stated, I interned at Brown University in Rhode Island and have been asked more than a few times how I was lucky enough to do that. I ran Ivy League conferences for the University all summer, along with a team of international students who actually attended the University. I was the only outside student that didn’t go to Brown and was the lead on the team so of course that was an opportunity I did not want to pass on. It’s obvious my love for the East Coast has always been there, but it grew even more that summer and even inspired me to go to law school for Environmental Law. When I returned from Brown, I did everything I could to study and prepare for the LSAT and focused on getting onto the Model United Nations team my senior year so that I could really stand out as an applicant and travel to the UN building, which my lifelong goal is to be employed by the United Nations. On my International Non-profit board, outside of my normal duties, I accepted the position of Alternative Break Leader and worked with over 20 students all over the US, Canada and Mexico on a Spring Break Sustainability trip for all of them to participate in and join in March of 2020 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In January of 2020, I was preparing for a heavy competition for Model UN in late March, preparing for my Sustainability trip, applying for summer internships and applying heavily to Universities for Law school. In February, I accepted an offer from Harvard University to do summer research for one of their most prestigious environmental programs right after I graduated. In March, I was accepted into Law school at the University of Vermont, University of Massachusetts and University of Denver. March 15th, I was in Albuquerque preparing for all my students from all over North America to fly in the next day for the sustainability trip and had to make the executive call to cancel the trip due to COVID and a couple weeks later I was informed my summer at Harvard was canceled due to COVID. First week of April I was informed my Model UN competition was canceled and in late April I was not chosen to continue on for a position on the National Board of Directors for my non-profit. They chose to leave the position vacant.

At this point, it felt like my hard work all the way up until this point was for nothing. I was grasping at straws to try and find hope and could not find one. I accepted admission at the University of Denver for my Masters and Law degree 4 year program but had no need to move there until school was in person again in the fall of 2021. At the time, I was only working at Outback Steakhouse and taking classes remotely, which to me felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I looked into internships in Denver in August and did not tell my significant other of 4 years at the time and when I was offered to be a legal assistant for the 2021-2022 Judicial session for the Colorado State Capital, I took it. I do regret not having a conversation about the options, rather I just said I’m moving and you can join me or stay in Sonoma County; spoiler, he chose to stay.

In October of 2020, my sister, my partner and I flew out to Denver for the weekend to check out apartments and see if I could survive the “cold”. Not going to lie, I did have a mental breakdown in the hotel room as it was hard to envision myself actually moving away from Sonoma which at the time was the closest thing to “home” I had ever felt in my life. I eventually found an apartment in downtown Denver and was prepared to move the first of January. When I moved, I remembered the first couple of months were very, very difficult as my significant other did not want to visit Denver and I worked remotely so I could work from Sonoma technically. I found myself constantly flying back and then I decided finally that I was never going to settle into Colorado if I didn’t stay. So, I made it a point to not travel for a couple months and it made me feel a lot better and actually made a social circle. I started going outside of my comfort zone and went hiking, skiing, and paddle boarding by myself which helped me feel like how I used to when I was younger and I would explore or travel cities alone. In March of 2021, I found myself not feeling very fulfilled by the Legal Assistantship and wanted to do more, so I found a Research Assistant position at the University of Denver that worked with the United Nations Women AIDs. I did that and the legal assistant position until the end of the judicial session in May of 2021 and decided to drop my law school track as the internship showed me I did not really want to be a lawyer. I do not regret my internship though because it taught me how to speak to Senators and Representatives without being intimidated by their titles. Changing directions inspired me to apply for another internship at Brown for that summer and was offered a lead role again. I was preparing to leave at the end of May for the summer; had a flight booked and everything lined up when I got a call to apply for an Environmental Health and Safety(EHS) internship at Ball Corporation in Denver, Colorado. I had heard great things about Ball before, but was nervous about saying no to Brown as going back to the East Coast was one of my biggest priorities at the time. I ultimately got offered the position at Ball and stayed in Colorado for the summer, traveled to a couple different states for the company and felt like I belonged somewhere again. At the end of the internship, I was offered a full time role in the EHS Department and started traveling every other week. I had the opportunity to fly on the company’s private jet twice and ran international safety campaigns for the company when I wasn’t even in the marketing department. I felt like I was in my prime, but no longer had time to be a Research Assistant, a full time Master’s student, and work for Ball. Therefore, I resigned from the Research Assistant position and kept traveling while working for Ball and going to school. In December of 2021, I realized how much I loved school and did not want to stop going, so I applied to a couple of different PhD programs on the West Coast. In April of 2022, I was accepted to the University of Washington, University of Denver and waitlisted for Stanford. I was scheduled to start at the University of Washington in the Fall of 2022 in Seattle, Washington, but when I informed Ball, they offered me an engineering role in my department instead, so I stayed. While at Ball, I had the opportunity to run all of our large scale meetings with over hundreds on the calls, had my name be the forefront contact for the EHS Department, and constantly was in communication with VP’s, so my public speaking skills were at their all time best and I was never afraid to speak to anyone, regardless of their title.

In March of 2022, my boss at the time gave me the opportunity to attend the prestigious Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame Gala and it fueled my interested in small politics again. Because of the gala, I was interested in joining the non-profit which put on various events every year to help fund the education of women’s history throughout Colorado. When I told my coworkers and friends I was interested in being on the board, everyone responded the same; that it is close to impossible to get asked to be on the board. So what did I do? I attended and pushed to volunteer at every one of their events for a year and in March of 2023, I was asked to be on the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame Board of Directors and achieved one of my biggest goals at the age of 25. I was so thrilled to be asked to join as I am now the youngest member to ever be on the Board of Directors and I learned very quickly that there is a lot of pressure that comes along with that title. For the rest of the summer, I traveled all over the U.S. for work and personal and debated the longevity of my at the time almost six year relationship with all of the traveling and work trips I had to take. I even had the opportunity to travel on my company’s private jet with all of the Vice President’s in June of that year and had a teaching moment on the plane. I was speaking with the VP of Marketing about issues we have been seeing in safety and how a campaign on 12 months of focusing on a different safety principle every month would change the company’s injuries and therefore save the company a lot of money. Without further discussion, the VP said I had thirty days to make this dream a reality, $15 grand and gave me a marketing person to work with. It was in that moment I realized that if I was going to tell people of importance about my ideas, I had to be prepared for the work that would come if they said yes.

In September of 2022, I was placed on a different project for work in Seattle and as you can assume, I was thrilled as Seattle has always been a place I could see myself living when I was older. This new project meant I would be in charge of 17 employees all over the U.S, Mexico and Canada and would be in charge of training the team on a safety culture change program I was initially trained on and then created my own version of. I traveled all over the U.S in the fall of 2022, preparing different sites for this change to occur and held an in person training in Colorado for the whole team in October of that year. It was by far my biggest and best project; far better than any safety campaign I had ran. The downside to this was I was still 24 and my company constantly mentioned I was the “youngest team member” in the department even though I brought great skills and experience to the table. Nonetheless, I continued the fall and winter by traveling and doing what I loved, but started to look at apartments in Seattle every work trip I had to see what the options were “just in case”.

Traveling for work all the time was fun, distracting, fulfilling and filled a void I felt in my life at the time, but ultimately led to an unstable life and effected all of my relationships; romantic and platonic. Late December of 2022, I ended my 6.5 year long relationship which absolutely shattered my heart but I knew ultimately at the time it was the right decision. February of 2023, I was getting ready to go on a business trip and I had no idea this trip was about to change my life and on February 21st, I flew to Seattle. This was the kind of business trip that I was looking forward to for weeks; it was in my favorite state and for the purpose of kicking off the safety program I led for my whole company. I remember distinctly walking into the room and thinking to myself that I am 25, everyone in here has far more experience than I do and yet here I am leading a training on a topic I only have a year’s worth of experience on. After these initial thoughts, I reminded myself of how much I have fought to be in the position I was in, pushed to run every campaign I had, always asked for more work and always asked to go on as many site visits as possible to learn all the different sides of EHS. I knew what I was doing and no one in the room was going to take that knowledge or skill that only I had away from me. It was in this moment I realized yes I am always the youngest in every room in my company, I am always the one pushing the envelope and I am always the one that is asking for more education or knowledge on a topic. It was after this trip that I decided I was going to move to the Pacific Northwest during the summer and leave my job at Ball. 

I started applying to various large companies and ultimately chose an EHS position at The Boeing Company after being chosen out of 300 individuals, so that alone boosted my confidence. In June of 2023, I trained all of my team members and told them that they were strong enough at this point to carry on with the training at their sites on their own. I moved to Seattle with my two cats at the beginning of July and haven’t regretted the decision once. Even though I am no longer a resident of Colorado, I am still on the Board of Directors and fly to Denver once every other month for events as I am a co-lead for the Events committee. I accomplished three goals while moving, living in a high rise, living in Seattle and working for an airline company, as when I was younger I wanted to be an astronaut.

As of October 2023, I am working for Boeing, living in Seattle, working for the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, working towards teaching at my local pilates studio and trying to focus on myself. And if you are asking what is next? I have no idea but I am not going to stop until I get everything I want.

13 Things I have learned from coming from a small town

1. Never forget where you came from. Stay humble.

2. You are so much bigger and brighter when you focus on yourself.

3. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone, ever.

4. Fake it til you make it. No one else knows how the story ends so why should you?

5. If you want to grow, you have to be uncomfortable.

6. You are worthy of a much better life than you think you are.

7. If you want it, it’s yours but you better be ready to work damn hard for it.

8. Rejection is just redirection.

9. Your social circle reflects you.

10. At the end of the day, life is not that serious.

11. Never stop learning.

12. A goldfish can only grow as big as the tank it’s in.

13. Growth over comfort every. single. time.