Trailer Trash

I didn’t realize my life looked different from everyone else’s until around elementary school.

One night the tornado sirens went off, and we packed up and headed to the tornado shelter in the trailer park. It was a place I’d never really been, except to pick up free bread and bakery items once a week, things that were about to go bad. I didn’t think much of it then. It was just where we went.

The next day at school, everyone was talking about the storm. They’d gone down to their basements, and they were talking about what their basements looked like. When I told them how my night went, they looked confused, like I’d described a place they’d never heard of. That’s when it hit me. Maybe my life was different from the lives around me.

Over the next few years, the differences kept showing up in small ways. Other kids got a new video game for their birthday, and mine was a board game we played on the kitchen floor. Their day at the mall was a regular Saturday, and my version was a playdate with a neighbor in her backyard. A brand-name outfit was a once-a-year treat for me, while it was just normal clothes for them. Nobody said anything about it. I just kept noticing.

I want to be clear about one thing. My mom did what she could. She gave me the best childhood and the best experiences she was able to with what she had, and I think that’s worth saying out loud.

Then another family member stepped in. She was in her early twenties when she took on a baby who needed someone, and she helped raise me. When I was young, she was the one who got me out. Not in one dramatic moment, but over years, through a series of decisions that kept pointing toward a bigger life. By the time I got to high school, I was living with her and her family, and that’s when things started to change. I also got some pretty awesome siblings along the way, and I still look up to them every single day, even though they’re younger than me.

Here’s the part I’m not proud of, and also the part I’ve come to understand. The trailer park I grew up in was right behind my high school. I walked past it every day, and I spent four years there without a single person knowing where I came from. I was embarrassed. I thought if people knew, they’d see me differently, so I made sure they never found out.

I’m done hiding it.

Trailer trash is a label people use to decide what you’re going to amount to. Where I grew up, the expectation was drugs and a teenage pregnancy, and that was supposed to be the end of the story. I didn’t buy it. I wanted more out of life, and I went and got it. Not because I was special, but because I decided the story wasn’t finished.

Somewhere in those years, I had teachers who showed me the world of food and agriculture. For someone who grew up with very little, the idea of working in an industry that feeds the world, and feeds everyone in it, was something I could hold on to. It gave me a direction that felt bigger than my zip code. I followed that thread into college, and it’s the reason I’m doing what I’m doing now.

Here’s what growing up with little actually gave me, and I see it every day in how I work.

It taught me to notice who’s in the room. When you’ve been the kid who didn’t have a basement, you learn to watch for who’s getting left out of the conversation, who’s quietly doing math about what something costs them, and who’s afraid to ask a question because they don’t want to look like they don’t belong. I still pay attention to those people, probably more than I need to.

It taught me that I don’t need permission to want more. Wanting more for myself was easy. Wanting it for the people around me took longer to learn, and it’s the part I care about most now.

And it taught me to work without waiting for the perfect moment. I didn’t grow up with the safety net that lets people take their time, so I learned to show up, learn in public, and make the next right move with what I had. It’s not always the most polished approach, but it’s honest, and I’ve stopped apologizing for it.

There’s a downside to that, and it’s the part I’m working on. When I see something in someone that they don’t see in themselves yet, I get worked up. I want them to fight for more, and sometimes it comes out sharper than it should. That’s the trailer fight in me. It’s the same fire that made me want out, and I want it for me and for my team. What I’m learning is how to shape that fight into something that inspires instead of pushes. The people who did that for me early on didn’t lower the bar. They believed I could clear it, and they told me in a way I could actually hear. That’s the leader I’m trying to be.

Which brings me to the holidays. If you lead people, this is the stretch of the year when you can’t see everything going on in their lives. Some people had a basement growing up. Some had a trailer and a tornado warning. Some are sitting in your meetings right now doing quiet math about what the season is going to cost them. Be patient with them. Be generous in how you read them. You don’t have to know their story to treat it like it matters.

If you’ve worked your way up from humble beginnings, your approach is going to look different from someone who had a smoother path. That’s okay. Your drive to want more, for yourself and for the people around you, came from somewhere real. Don’t apologize for it, and don’t hide it.

If you’re still carrying where you started, I want you to hear this: it doesn’t have to be a secret, and it doesn’t have to define the ceiling. Remember where you started, whatever that looked like. Let it shape how you lead. Then go fight for the things you want, for yourself and for the people who are counting on you. And be proud of who you’ve become, because I am.