That Summer

That Summer in the Mayor’s Office

I was young, shy, and pure the summer I worked at the City of Concord.

I got there through Neighborhood Youth Corps — a program for disadvantaged young people like me. Kids who didn’t have connections, just potential. They placed me right in the mayor’s office. Me. A girl who barely spoke above a whisper, filing papers for the city while the city figured out what to do with itself.

That job opened the door. Not just to a paycheck. To leadership. To civic duty. To the idea that I could belong in rooms where decisions got made. I answered phones. I stamped documents. I sat in on community meetings and learned how a city breathes — through its people, its complaints, its potholes, its parks. I watched the mayor listen to folks who looked like me and folks who didn’t. I learned that government wasn’t just suits on TV. It was folders and phone calls and showing up. And I was part of it.

I was pure then. Not perfect — just untouched by the world in the ways I am now. I didn’t know how to command a room. I didn’t know how to advocate for myself. But I watched. I absorbed. That summer taught me that my voice, quiet as it was, had a place in public life.

It was also the summer I had my first real crush. He was Hispanic. I’d never had a crush on a Hispanic guy before. He worked in another department. He was kind. He had a smile that made the copier room feel less like a copier room. I was too shy to say much. So I did what shy girls do: I listened to All-4-One on my CD player and imagined.

“I Swear” on repeat. Headphones on during lunch breaks. I’d replay every hallway hello in my head, trying to decode if he looked at me twice. He probably didn’t. But in my world, he did. And that was enough. That crush cracked something open in me — not just for him, but for myself. I realized I could feel that way. I could want, and hope, and daydream. I wasn’t just the quiet girl filing papers. I was a girl with a heartbeat.

Neighborhood Youth Corps gave disadvantaged kids a job. What it gave me was bigger. It gave me a glimpse of who I could be. Working in the mayor’s office showed me civic duty wasn’t for other people. It was for me too. That summer I learned to care about my city because my city let me inside the room.

I didn’t end up with the boy. I ended up with something better. I ended up with the knowledge that I could lead. That I could serve. That I could be shy and still take up space.

That summer, I was young and pure, listening to All-4-One and learning how to be a citizen. The crush faded. The calling didn’t.

Concord gave me my first taste of leadership. And my first reminder that even quiet girls fall hard — for people, for music, and for the idea that they might matter.