I was a pretty terrible student in grade school.

Not in a "burned down the chemistry lab" kind of way, but in a "I’d rather stare out the window and watch hop from branch to branch than do my long division" kind of way. From an early age, I struggled to focus. While my peers were diligently diagramming sentences and solving for x, I was doodling cows with sunglasses in the margins of my workbook and experimenting with which font looked best for the title of my very average essay on the sinking of the Lusitania. Spoiler: I think I chose Edwardian Script for that one. Yikes.

At the time, I thought I was just a distracted mess of a kid. My parents described me as "has trouble paying attention" and "gets lost in his imagination." (Which, by the way, is an insult disguised as a compliment.) It never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, my weird fixation with the way the world around me looked and functioned, might just have a purpose.

Things changed around 8th grade. My mom—who deserves a medal for parenting a space cadet—signed me up for art classes in a nearby town. This was not the hip kind of art studio with minimalist decor and a kombucha bar. This was more "grandma’s basement with easels." I loved it. For the first time, I was told that the way I saw the world wasn't just tolerable—it was interesting. I was interesting.

And then came this design competition for young Christian creatives. We were tasked with designing a poster using the software of our choice. Naturally, I chose Microsoft Word. And to my surprise... I was a finalist. Someone with real credentials said, "Hey, this kid might actually have something." That was a shocker. I entered the contest again the following year. Another finalist!

That little boost of confidence flipped a switch in my brain. Maybe I wasn’t a bad student. Maybe I was just a…..graphic designer?