Let me back up a little, John. A few days ago, I told you a little about my earliest memories back in rural Taylorsville—a place that has been left behind by lack of investment, globalization, and the relentless shift of our population toward urban and suburban life. Our family was honestly pretty blessed, but that blessing wasn’t shared equally with all our neighbors, and my parents made sure I understood how access to opportunity was so often the deciding factor in folks’ circumstances in life.
Naturally, I became curious about the role that government can play in our daily lives—and, well, between my dad’s job as a banker and my mom’s lifelong career as a public school teacher, it was pretty much destiny that I became the nerd I am today. Basically, I got to my first undergraduate Economics class and I was hooked. Love at first sight. A few months after the photo above was taken, I packed off to South Carolina (I know, I know) to pursue my PhD at Clemson.
After graduating, though, I found that my path forward wasn’t as easy as it had seemed. When I was in school, things were simple: you go to high school, then undergrad, then graduate school, and so on. But out in the world? It was time to chart my own way. I floated for a little bit—tried out teaching for a while, ended up in Boston for a little bit doing private economic consulting after that, but I never really felt settled as long as I was away from home.
And then I got a wake-up call that the home I’d left behind was in trouble. In 2016, when the Republicans passed the bathroom bill, it sent a message loud and clear that something was wrong. The North Carolina I knew growing up wasn’t a place where we attacked our neighbors for being different, and it wasn’t a place where we turned our back on people, but clearly something had changed, and I knew it was time for me to come home.
The rest of this story, you probably know: I set up my life in Charlotte, ran for the State House in 2018, became one of only ten Democrats to flip a Republican-held seat that year, and now I'm running for Treasurer. That’s not the point of this story, though.
The point is that sometimes, your path isn’t always clear. You might know the general direction you’re supposed to be moving in, but you might not know exactly where you’re heading or what the steps are on the way. You might wonder if you’re moving too fast or too slow, or if you’ve somehow missed your window of opportunity. Some of you might wonder if you’ve done your part, or if there’s still more around the bend. And I want you to know that that’s alright.
Life will let you know when it’s ready to call you to something bigger than yourself.
I told you at the beginning of this email that I was going to ask you for money at the end of it.
.jpeg)
