When I was a little girl and people asked me what I wanted to do with my life I always said, “I want to help other people make their dreams come true.” It’s a cute answer when you are 12. It’s endearing when you are 16. When you say the same thing at 22, you kind of sound like you don't have your shit together, but my answer never really changed.
On a number of occasions I had advisors tell me this wasn’t a complete vision, and that I needed to lean into my skill set. Well…you see…as far back as I can remember, quick-wit and working with difficult people has been my primary skillset. Fun fact: there isn’t a job for these skill sets. Social worker and therapist probably come the closest.
So like any ambitious and directionless individual would do, I went and put myself into a ton of debt in pursuit of a few different degrees. By the end of my Bachelors, I had a foundation of knowledge and more doors open to me than I could count, which didn’t exactly help sharpen my sense of direction. I did a few different jobs. I served as an Executive Assistant to a badass CEO, I worked at a church, I landed an extended job in a children’s psychiatric treatment center and subsequently went into child abuse and neglect advocacy. Each of these jobs and all the places I volunteered, set me up to see people and policy from different vantage points. These vantage points have included the inside of lockdown facilities, in court rooms and church pews, in graveyards and in soup kitchen lines…the places where the lowest levels of policy take on names and faces and heartbeats. Every job, though respectively different, lead me to the same conclusion - that if this is what life looks like for living beings, policy is failing. Queue another advanced degree and more debt.
I now know for certain what I want to do in life and it is this…’I want to make other people’s dreams come true.’ At 22 it was directionless, and at 29 I know exactly what this means. Living and traveling across the globe has afforded me a number of things, but the greatest of them all is the ability to love and laugh with and know so many different types of people. Each of these people have one dream in common, and it is the dream of self-determination. What I have found is that what people want more than anything is the right to choose what is right for themselves.
I believe in this dream. I also know that this dream is not possible for most people, even those with access to the most information and the most resources, because of domestic and foreign policy structures. It is not possible because policies, one of the greatest forces in ones ability to self-determine, are often created quietly and out of view. I believe this is at odds with our desire for self-determination. In wanting to make your dream of self-determination come true, it is my dream to make policy more accessible.
In this, you will see this week the website and this newsletter (i.e another damn name change) are undergoing another sizable change. I am working to accommodate the growing demand for more policy content - the blog has seen spikes I hadn’t even dreamed were possible and it brings me SO much excitement. I have been meditating on this change for some weeks, and I feel really settled about the decision. Be sure to keep checking back to the site to see what’s up and an eye out for the next newsletter. Thank you for helping me build my dream to serve our collective dream, and patiently growing through this process with me.
All my heart and all my mind,
Taylor Patrice
Reading: The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris. I read these a while back but these are two of the book’s that are highest on my recommendation list. Start with the Tattooist of Auschwitz and follow with Cilka’s Journey. After having traveling to both Auschwitz and Treblinka, which you can read about by clicking here, these are truly books everyone should read.
Eating: My husband and I are reducing meat and animal products in our diet, so as we lean into a more plant based lifestyle, we have been doing a lot more greens, beans, and fruits. We will talk about this more in the next newsletter, as food policy is on the docket for upcoming blog posts in the new few months.
Loving: Hiking - It’s been damn near the only solace from super lockdown, so I do it often. It’s not exactly how I wanted to tour Germany, but even from the forest, this country is stunning. See pictures above.
Doing: Working on the blog in the background. I am hopeful Germany will open back up soon, so I am trying to work ahead in hopes that warmer weather will mean more travel…like what is depicted below.
Last week’s blog was all about Domestic Policy, and covering all of the basics. I realized as I was starting a few new targeted content blogs, that there was a need to pump the breaks and address a few basic’s about policy, so that readers could have an even better understanding of what we will be talking about.
Woof! We have a lot to look forward to:
Next Blog: Foreign Policy Basics
We are in the thick of working on adding podcasts to the platform! Queue cheering, because this has been a widely requested format.
At the moment, premium stuff isn’t a thing. It’s a plan for the upcoming future, but at the moment we are just trying to get ourselves settled in the rhythm of the free content + podcast. Though there is no premium content yet, we are so thankful to those of you who have already signed up for a subscription. Your vote of confidence is life-giving to our little family, and helps us fund access to the databases we use to run this blog. No need to sign up for premium content in order to subscribe, but thank you in advance if you do!
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See you all over the place.