Hard Things Are Hard

If 2018 taught me anything, it’s that hard things are hard. On the surface that may sound simple and maybe even a little cliche. To me, though, it symbolized everything that 2018 encompassed. At the start of the year, I made the tough decision to run for office at 18 years old. I knew that running would entail late nights, little sleep, and lots of hand shakes. But after it all ended a little over a month ago, I had time to reflect on all that this last year has taught me.

Long before the final tallies came in on November 6th, I was reminded of what loss can teach a person. What made the decision to run so easy for me was the unyielding support I had from those around me. When I was trying to get myself oriented in the political world, I leaned heavily on those around me. I started to get more comfortable with the political side of life, but other parts of my life drastically changed, and for those that know me best, unexpected change takes its toll on me. There was a string of a few weeks in the dog days of summer that I seemed to just be spinning my wheels, in every aspect of life. But I never lost sight of the bigger picture. I never lost sight of who this thing was truly about. And those few weeks taught me that no matter what happens or how bad things seem, the sun will come out in the morning, and somebody will always have it worse. While nobody wants to go through hard times, I am grateful for the experience because it taught me to keep moving forward and to be a stronger person. Things may not always work out exactly how we want them to, but there is a reason for that

At the tail end of the campaign, I got a little emotional several times because of the amazing people that I was fortunate enough to meet and work with along the way. Goodbye’s are always hard for me, and while I still talk and see 80% of my team, I knew that I would no longer see them every week and that took some time for me to adjust to. Again, I was grateful that it was so hard for me to see that whole process come to an end because if it was easy for me to watch them walk out of the Bloomgren Rivera doors for the last time, then we didn’t work hard enough. Thankfully, we did all that we could, and it was still one of the hardest things for me to gather my core volunteers in a small room on Election Night and thank them.

In texting conversations leading up to Election Night, I had exchanged texts with different members of my staff about Election Night dreams I was having and how I was having trouble sleeping. Naturally, when we went our separate ways the last night before the big day, everyone told me to get some rest. After everyone had cleared the conference room, I sat at the head of the table and reflected on how far we came as a small group. And when I got up, I was no longer nervous, or stressed. I was proud. I was proud of how hard everyone had worked, and at the start of this journey, I told myself that as long as I did everything I could possibly do, then no matter the outcome, I would be pleased. And that night, I knew that we had done anything we could do and there was nothing left to do. It was out of our hands. On Election Night, all of us crammed in a small room to say our thank you’s and hug it out. We still didn’t know how things would turn out, but we all knew that we had just finished a hard journey and no matter what happened we had each other.

When it became apparent that we were not going to pull this whole thing off, I gave one last hug to my campaign manager, but we both knew that this was just the beginning. And at the end of a long thirteen month campaign, I wanted nothing more than to step back and be a normal college kid for once. Naturally, I spent my first Friday night in bed by 9 with Planet Earth on Netflix. I drove a friend home to Bozeman the night after the election, and on the way back, I had a lot of time to reflect and while I wanted to be getting ready to go to Helena right now, I am grateful to have gone through the process of losing. I tried hard to step back from politics for at least a few weeks, and not worry about it for a little bit. But, that isn’t going to happen. The next time my name shows up on a ballot, whether that is in 2020 or beyond that, I will have learned from what 2018 taught me. In politics and in life. There were plenty of lessons to be had this year. My message to anyone who is reading this is this: Be patient if you’re going through hard times, there is a reason you are going through them, learn from your mistakes, and there are three lessons that I told my staff recently. One is that, unless you’re Joe Biden, you can’t win em’ all. While we would have loved to win our race and be headed to Helena in a few weeks, we realize that we were not going to win every race. Second is that better is good. I told my staff this just a few days ago. While things may not be perfect now, and things may not seem like it, but the world is a better place because of the people I worked with and met in 2018. The United States has yet to perfect our union, but things are better, and better is good. Lastly, the biggest lesson we all learned, is that hard things are hard. If politics was easy, everyone would do it. If writing laws were easy, there would be more people running for office. But the reality is, these things are hard. I spent a year auditioning in from of the people of Great Falls in hopes that they would choose me to help make Montana a better place. That’s what is funny about politics, we spend a year of our lives campaigning- sometimes we go three straight days without doing anything but walking around knocking on doors of perfect strangers. Then in just one day, the people vote. And sometimes they choose you and sometimes they don’t. You can outwork everyone on the other side, but it might not always be enough, because politics is hard. Great Falls didn’t pick me, but they did inspire me. In those months that I was stuck in a rut, you picked me back up, and I hope sometimes I picked you up too. I’ve told me staff to not go too far away, we will be back before you know it!