Welcome back to Soft Days Collective, friend.
Come on in. Kick off your shoes, settle into your favorite spot, and take one deep, grounding breath with me.
If you’ve been here for a while, you know this is a space where we look for glimmers in ordinary days, embrace life’s messy moments, and remind ourselves that soft days aren’t about living an easy life—they’re about learning to meet life with a little more grace.
Lately, that grace has been tested.
Over the last month, I’ve traveled internationally for the first time since high school, said goodbye to my grandfather, found myself navigating drama I never signed up for, celebrated the long Fourth of July weekend, and now I’m getting ready to head to RYLA. It’s been one emotional turn after another, and if I’m being honest, I’m a little tired.
What’s surprised me most isn’t everything that’s happened. It’s how I’ve responded to it.
Ten years ago, this season of life would have completely unraveled me. I would’ve believed I had to fix everything, carry everything, and somehow keep it all together. Today, I still feel the grief, the stress, and the uncertainty, but they don’t consume me the way they once did. I’ve learned that strength isn’t the absence of hard emotions. It’s making room for all of them. It’s understanding that grief and gratitude can exist in the same heart, that joy doesn’t erase sadness, and that healing doesn’t mean life suddenly becomes easy.
So lately I’ve been doing what I’ve spent years learning to do.
I’ve been grounding myself. Taking long walks. Breathing a little deeper. Spending time outside. Reframing the stories my brain tries to tell me. Reminding myself that I don’t need to control every outcome to be okay. Some days those practices come naturally. Other days they feel like work. Both count.
Life has a funny way of refusing to wait until we’re ready. It doesn’t pause because we’re grieving, overwhelmed, or exhausted. Adventures don’t get postponed because our hearts are heavy. Somewhere along the way, I realized I have two choices: resist every unexpected detour or learn to pivot with them. More often than not, peace is found in the pivot.
And that’s exactly where I find myself as I prepare for my favorite week of the year.
For those who aren’t familiar, the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) is a week-long leadership development camp for high school students. I attended as a camper in 2014, and this summer marks my 10th year returning as staff. Every year I have the privilege of meeting incredible teenagers from across District 5580, each carrying their own stories, fears, strengths, and dreams.
My job isn’t to change their lives. It’s simply to create a space where they feel safe enough to discover who they’ve been all along.
I’ve always said we’re planting seeds. We may never know exactly when they’ll bloom, but what a privilege it is to help plant them anyway.
The truth is, though, RYLA has probably given me more than I’ve ever given it.
When people ask why I keep coming back year after year, it’s difficult to put into words. Yes, I’ve made lifelong friendships. I’ve met incredible people. I’ve laughed until my stomach hurt, cried happy tears, celebrated victories, and watched hundreds of teenagers discover that they’re capable of far more than they ever believed.
But the reason runs much deeper than that.
RYLA became one of the first places where I truly felt like I didn’t have to earn my place by being someone else. I didn’t have to shrink myself to fit in. I didn’t have to hide the parts of me that felt different. I was simply allowed to exist exactly as I was, and somehow that was enough.
I don’t think I realized how much I needed that until years later.
In 2017, I found myself in one of the darkest seasons of my life. Looking back, I can honestly say there were only two things I knew I wanted to keep showing up for: Disney and RYLA. Those weren’t escapes from reality. They were reminders that joy still existed. They reminded me that there was still goodness in the world, still people worth loving, and still a version of myself worth fighting for.
So I did the work. Quietly. Slowly. One ordinary day at a time. There wasn’t some dramatic turning point where everything suddenly got better. Healing rarely works that way. It was thousands of small choices to keep showing up, keep growing, and keep believing that someday life would feel lighter again.
Eventually, it did.
That’s why this week means so much to me.
Every summer I watch teenagers arrive carrying invisible backpacks filled with self-doubt, anxiety, loneliness, or stories they’ll never say out loud. Then, over the course of a few short days, something shifts. They stand a little taller. They laugh a little louder. They begin trusting themselves. They realize they belong.
Watching those lightbulb moments never gets old because I know exactly what they feel like.
Someone once held that light for me until I could carry it on my own.
Now I have the incredible privilege of holding it for someone else.
As I pack my bags this week, I keep coming back to one idea that has shaped not only my time at RYLA, but the way I try to move through the world: servant leadership.
To me, leadership has never been about standing at the front of the room or having the loudest voice. It’s about noticing the person standing quietly in the corner. It’s offering encouragement before someone asks for it. It’s celebrating another person’s success as if it were your own. It’s choosing kindness when no one is watching and believing that the smallest acts of compassion often leave the biggest impact.
RYLA has taught me that the best leaders don’t create followers—they create more leaders. They make space for others to grow, to stumble, to ask questions, and to discover strengths they didn’t know they had. They don’t shine their light to be seen; they shine it so someone else can find their way.
Every summer, I have the privilege of watching that happen in real time.
A teenager who arrives unsure of themselves leaves standing a little taller. Someone who believed they had nothing to offer discovers that their voice matters. Quiet confidence begins to replace self-doubt, and you can almost see the spark being passed from one person to the next.
It reminds me why I keep coming back.
Because somewhere along the way, someone chose to lead me like that. They believed in me before I believed in myself. They held space for me to grow, challenged me when I needed it, and reminded me that leadership begins with how we serve the people around us.
Now, I have the incredible privilege of paying that gift forward.
So on Friday, we begin again. Another year. Another group of incredible teenagers. Another opportunity to plant seeds that may not bloom for months or even years. Another chance to remind young people that the world doesn’t need perfect leaders—it needs compassionate ones. Leaders who listen before they speak, who lift others as they climb, and who leave every person they meet feeling a little more seen than they did before.
As I head into another RYLA season, my heart is full. Full of gratitude for the people who poured into me when I needed it most. Full of excitement for the campers who have no idea how much they’re about to grow. Full of hope that, years from now, they’ll look back on this week and realize it was never just about leadership—it was about discovering who they already were.
If life has felt heavy lately, let this be your reminder that healing is rarely loud. More often, it’s found in the quiet moments. A deep breath. A walk outside. A conversation with someone who believes in you. A small act of kindness. The decision to keep showing up, even when the path ahead isn’t clear.
Sometimes all it takes is one person believing in you to change the trajectory of your life.
And sometimes, after enough healing, you become that person for someone else.
That’s the ripple effect of servant leadership. That’s the magic of community. And that’s why I’ll keep coming back.
Until next time, friend, take a deep breath, be gentle with yourself, and don’t forget to look for the glimmers along the way.
Here’s to softer days, open hearts, and leaving every place—and every person—a little brighter than we found them.