I grew up in Hermosa Beach, California, with sand between my toes, salt in my hair and waves everywhere. I loved the beach so much I ate it. Actually ate sand, as a kid, on purpose.
From a young age I did club soccer and competitive dance, and I did both at a hundred percent. A school day meant dance class, then soccer practice, then back to dance at night, with homework done in the car and during breaks. My mom drove every mile of it. She was my hero, getting me from practice to practice. Some days I'd finish a dance competition, get in the car, change, pull my cleats on, and play a soccer game in a full beat of makeup and fake lashes because there was no time to take it off.
I loved it. I thrived on it. I'd go back and relive every one of those days.
At fourteen I had to choose one, and it was the hardest decision I'd ever made. I chose soccer.
I'm 5'2". I was never the tallest, biggest, strongest or fastest. Genuinely none of those. Nobody thought I could play Division I. So I used that. I got up at five before school to run hills at the beach with my trainer, and I outworked people who were more naturally gifted than me. Then my dream school offered me, and I signed a national letter of intent to Syracuse, about as far from sunny California as you can get. I'd also been playing for Panama's national team since I was twelve, which is where the Spanish comes from.
Then I stopped, my first year.
Soccer had become training, eating, sleeping and nothing else. I started thinking about the rest of my life and about a career, and soccer didn't leave room for either. So I quit and joined a sorority, and it's the best decision I've made. My résumé was about three lines long at the time. Now it's coming off the page.
What I found instead was strategy and sales, which suit me embarrassingly well. I'm a people person, I'll argue any position, and my best friends say I could convince them to jump off a bridge.
The industries I'm going after are the ones I already live in. I'm a media consumer in the fullest sense. Hunger Games, Christopher Nolan, Greek mythology. I'll bring up The Odyssey unprompted, and if it's a 2000s show, I've already seen it. Sports is family. I've watched football with my dad my whole life and still do, from across the country. Beauty started on my mom's bathroom counter while she did my makeup for dance, and now I film my own GRWMs.
What gets me up is what my mom said every day when she dropped me off at school. Be the best you can be, and everything happens for a reason. Now that I'm twenty I've added one of my own. It's a privilege to be busy. I have no chill and I don't want any.
Media, entertainment, beauty, sport. Summer 2027. Let's talk.
