2009-Baylee Amy

It’s a Good Day to Be An Adult and an Eagle

Note: As a teacher, you’re often irrationally proud of Little Johnny’s accomplishments since you were there at ground zero when things got started. It’s why things like the ACT and MCA tests exist–to put it in perspective. So when I took a group of my speech seniors to a National Forensic League tournament with kids from all over the midwest, I sat up when a couple of them (including Baylee Amy) rose to the cream of the crop. I went from feeling proud to suddenly feeling pressure to do something with so much talent. 

Going Global

Some graduates stay home and cherish the small town life. Other graduates fly the nest for the big city and never look back. For Baylee (Amy) Pawsey, she’s carefully nurtured both lifestyles as she strives to daily redefine herself without forgetting where she comes from. Now living a different life than she envisioned, Pawsey reflects on how her plans for her adult life certainly took a hard right hand turn. “I feel like my life has taken me from ‘I'm just gonna kind of settle down in this small town’ to, ‘Oh no, actually, I'm gonna marry someone from another country, and then jet off to France and England. If you would have told high school me that, plus that I would be working for a global tech company and traveling to New York for work, I would be like, ‘No, it couldn't be me.’’

Yes, Baylee, it’s you.

Although the theatrical and artistic student who took every English elective she could fit into her schedule did end up as a writer, it wasn’t the path she envisioned while interpreting poetry for Mrs. Rengstorf. “My day job is marketing: writing for a global tech company and promoting cybersecurity tools. Sometimes it'll be blog posts, sometimes it'll be advertising, sometimes it'll be email marketing–really jumping into multiple different things. I'm not really an expert at one thing other than, I guess, writing as a whole. I have a lot of different subsets that I have knowledge on, both in my work and in my life.”

Although she now works for Dashlane–a global tech company with offices in New York, Lisbon, and Paris–she remains dedicated to the small town lifestyle she experienced at Maple River. “My sister has two kids, so we're involved with my niece and nephew quite a bit. My niece goes to Maple River, plays volleyball, and is great at it. I love watching her, or my nephew play football. We're still a pretty close family, so I'm over hanging out with my parents quite a bit, helping them out when they need help. My dad just retired this year, so he's got more time to tinker and do projects. He builds campers and does all sorts of things. It's been really fun to watch him kind of be able to come into his own hobbies now that he's retired and not having to fit life in around work.”

Not only does Pawsey have an international job, she also has an international husband, Matt. “Husband and two cats for us–that's our vibe,” she joked. “After college, I ended up moving into Mankato. My parents live in Wells, so I'm around the area quite a bit. In 2014, I went on a trip to England and met up with a guy who I'd known for a while, and, long story short, we ended up dating for two years across an ocean. That was certainly an experience, but it was a wonderful experience, because, surprise, we're married, and he lives here now.” While she can still connect to her roots in Wells, she also invests in getting to know her husband’s family. “We go over to England to try to see Matt's family at least once a year, and or they come here. So that's been really nice. We're really blessed for that.”

While she chose Bethany so that she could purposely attend a college near home (and doesn’t regret the decision at all), she also reflects on the fact that in 2009 she didn’t know who she was or who she wanted to be. Now she wishes someone had given her this advice: “The time between high school and college can feel super anxious. You can feel like you have to figure out your entire life, and there's so much pressure to declare your major and decide what you want to do, even just deciding what college you want to go to. But I just want people to try things. You don't have to decide ‘I’m not the kind of person who goes to the gym,’ or ‘I’m not the kind of person who would ever be in theater.’ You can be all of these kinds of people, and if you don't like it, you don't like it, and you don't do it again. I think so many high schoolers and even college aged people and even adults lock themselves into this idea of what they have to be and what they have to do, and so they might see something that looks really fun but get in their own way of trying it. Like, oh, should I try judo and Brazilian jujitsu? True story: I did, and it was a blast. I never thought I was the kind of person who would be doing any kind of martial art, let alone like physical grappling with people. But I loved it. So that's my advice: just try things. If something looks fun and if you can fit it into your schedule, give it a try, even if it's completely not your vibe, because you not only find a new hobby, you might also find a new community. I've made some of the best friends that I have now as an adult through a specific gaming community, and I wouldn't necessarily have gotten in that group of people had I not decided to just give it a shot. So just try things.”

The Legend of Baylee Amy

I could see it in her eyes. The 2009 State Speech tournament was hosted at Gustavus Adolphus College, which meant hopping from building to building to listen to my students perform. I was off to watch Tad and Lisa perform their duo (on the way to 2nd place!) when I crossed paths with Baylee. Even as a teen, Baylee was willing to try new things, so she chose one of the hardest categories, extemporaneous reading. But when I happened to run into her before her state finals performance, I could see something had gone terribly wrong. 

So I quickly looked away.

In her category, Extemporaneous Reading, a student draws three stories and then decides which one to perform. In essence, extemporaneous means you’re supposed to wing it, but with only 20 stories to choose from, most kids could still almost memorize each story. In the 30 minutes of prep, there is NO COACHING ALLOWED, which is why I avoided speaking with her as she went to her performance room. Yet I could see abject deflation in her eyes. 

Baylee had a bad draw.

Months earlier, we’d looked at the stories and we strategically tossed out two of the stories. Why? In any draw, she’d get 1 of the remaining 18, right? As fate would have it, Baylee drew a story she’d never performed the entire season, yet the remaining stories were not state finals calibre. So with minutes ticking down, she went off to perform a story she’d never done all year. Two hours later, the finalists appeared on the stage. “I still remember the feeling of standing up on stage during the award ceremony, and the places just kept coming. So it was like, fifth place–this person. Fourth place–this person. The longer it wasn't me, the wider my eyes got, because I was like, ‘Oh my God, did I just do this?’”

She’d become Maple River’s first state speech champion–by truly winging it. 

“I don't do a lot of competitive things anymore,” Pawsey added, “but winning state speech was, like, elite.” The panic and anxiety of drawing an unfamiliar story turned into a championship performance. Fear and uncertainty took her to another level. “I still do get nervous with public speaking. Winning doesn't take that away, but it also just a muscle, right? You're building that muscle every time you do it. And I think all of the years that I was in both theater and speech was like building up to that moment, and I was able to just pull something out that clearly resonated with people. So that's definitely one of, if not my best, memory of high school.” 

An Extemporaneous Life

While Baylee mastered extemporaneous reading by the time she graduated, life would be a little trickier. Her plans of “going to college” and “sitting close to home” and many other plans were derailed within a few years, forcing her to redefine who she was and what she wanted. The catalyst of her personal changes came from a broken relationship. “Was with my high school sweetheart, married my high school sweetheart, immediately divorced my high school sweetheart because he was with some other woman,” Pawsey quickly summarized her challenging years after graduation. 

At first, she was determined to stick to the plan, like accepting a bad story in a bad draw. “If you're trying to make a tally of the pros versus cons of  “Should I leave this person?” The fact that you're making that list is a big enough sign you need to.” Even well-made plans require adjustment, which she now understands as she looks back on that time. “It was a tumultuous couple of years because it was embarrassing for me. I knew I was getting married young, but I was ready because I had my whole life planned out, right? And I was like: ‘This is how it's gonna go.’ But life throws curveballs.”

The skill of winging it let Baylee not only change her relationship but also make some changes to herself. “I'm really glad that I went through what I went through because it made me a fuller person. I started doing self defense classes. I joined a beer club. I really came into myself after I was out of the shadow of that situation.” Pawsey even redefined her own style. “Got a pixie cut–I was always so afraid to do it. I came into my own style. One day I might be wearing a death metal shirt and combat boots, and the next day I might have a pink dress on and maybe a tiara. Playing with your own style is fun.”

Embracing change turned out to be “super liberating” for her, and the young woman found her confidence in herself. “I think it's also just about confidence and going for things in general. One of my goals in the last few years was to work at a place that had brand recognition. And now I work at Dashlane, which is gaining recognition among password managers. I'm working at a company that has offices in New York and Paris and Lisbon, and I have opportunities to go to new places.” 

Still Dreaming

Despite all the changes in her plans, she still remained true to herself. “Baylee back in high school isn't really that far off of Baylee right now,” Pawsey says about her sixteen-year journey.  “And that really kind of shaped going to college and getting an English degree and then staying in that same literary, reading, writing world.” Her passions involving speech, theater, and rock music also found a way to stay in her life. “Still definitely into emo music. I'm going to rock and metal shows all the time. The music you listened to when you were 14 to 16 is the music that ingrains into your psyche, right? So I'm still chasing all those old rock bands around and going to shows. I don't play guitar as much anymore, though. I've got one. It's kind of something that fell off a little bit, but I'll pick it up and jingle around from time to time.” 

Even though she’s found a successful career and marriage, she’s still driven by one of her early goals: “I need to get published.”

While she writes on a daily basis as a marketing writer, she’s been putting in some serious work to improve as a literary writer and seeks other opportunities to create and express. “Right now I'm trying to do a little more writing for writing's sake. Gaming is something I still do–that I've always done from high school to now–and I’ve been playing some of solo RPGs, which are basically just a writing assignment masquerading as a game. ’Here's a character that you have, here's what happened to them: write their story.’ That's just been me sipping my coffee in the morning, writing words that nobody's ever gonna see it. It's not gonna go anywhere. But I'm still flexing that muscle, and I feel like that makes me better for the writing that I do, both for work and for what I want to get published on my own.”

With an iPhone note brimming with poetry ideas, she crafts nuggets of ideas into a creative work that she hopes will be “elite.”  To achieve this dream, she knows to have patience. “I've been really targeting smaller indie lit mags, just because you kind of got to get your foot in the door and then be able to write your bio: ‘Baylee was published in A, B and C recently.’ I really would love to get poetry in a bigger (publication), and I will eventually shoot my shot for The New Yorker, shoot for the Paris Review. Because the worst that they can do is say, ‘No.’  It would be absolutely amazing if I got into some kind of nationally syndicated publication. It's difficult getting those rejections, but I think learning that my worth is not tied to whether or not a magazine wants to publish me has been a good lesson over the last couple years.” 

As she strengthens her bio for bayleewrites.com, she’s surrounded herself with hobbies, interests, and people that strengthen who she is. Her journey has taught her how vulnerable those strong-willed high school graduates can be, even if they don’t know it. To them (and adults also), she would offer this advice: “Take care of your mental health. I think it's something that's so difficult. It’s ‘more accepted these days’, and we all talk about self care, but that’s mostly like the Tiktoks saying ‘put this on your face, and that's self care.’ Mental health is still such a stigmatized thing. I think especially with what I went through, there was always that moment of like, okay, well, I'm not bad enough to need medication. I'm not bad enough to need therapy, like I'm handling it. I think everybody knows a lot of people who are ‘handling it,’ who could absolutely benefit from a little bit of that weight taken off. So between high school and college and as an adult, it's so important to take care of your mental health. There's no threshold to ask for help. You don't have to be underwater. You should do it before you're underwater. Because everyone deserves support.”

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