Alexa
“I love the outreach of support and empathy that women so often exemplify. There’s also something really powerful about the aspect of ‘sisterhood.’ I don’t have biological sisters, but I’m lucky to have close friends that I consider sisters and I’ll be forever grateful for those bonds.”
Alexa trusts her gut and pursues every endeavor whole-heartedly. She is constantly reminding herself to live in the moment and to embrace uncertainty. Her kindness, fearlessness, and sense of humor have helped steer her through winds of change. Meet Alexa. This is her story.
K: Please introduce yourself!
A: My name is Alexa Binkowitz, I’m 24 years old and I live in Fairfield, Connecticut, but I was born in Brooklyn, New York. I graduated from Sacred Heart University where I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Journalism, but then I went and threw caution to the wind and now I’m a first-year student at Quinnipiac University School of Law (yes, I’ll be in school until my final days on earth, most likely).
K: What is your favorite thing about yourself?
A: I’d like to think that I’m pretty loyal. I think loyalty and honesty are two of the most important values a person can have, especially when it comes to having strong friendships/relationships. I also make myself laugh more than anyone else can, so I guess you could say that having a sharp sense of humor is important to me too.
K: Tell us a story. Have you had an experience that’s defined you or made you stronger?
A: Not to flip the mood around, but if I had to pick one single moment in my life that redirected me the most, it would be when I lost my grandmother in August of 2018.
I had been in a little bit of a funk for a couple years beforehand but losing someone so influential and important to me really rocked me in a way that’s still difficult for me to comprehend fully.
The last few months of 2018 and early 2019 were a pretty deep fog for me. I spent more time at the cemetery than I did at home or at school, which forced me to do a lot of self-reflection. I had to quickly learn to get back up and fill the hole I was feeling every single moment of every day.
I was heading towards finishing my master’s in August of 2019, but I had this feeling in the back of my head that I just wasn’t ever going to be 100% fulfilled or satisfied by a career in journalism. And that’s not a kick to the profession at all — being a journalist these days is incredibly challenging, sometimes thankless, and even dangerous at times, and I knew deep in my heart that I would never reach the point where I’d be at my happiest if I stayed on the path I was going down.
I was having a conversation with my mom sometime in January of 2019 and she said, “You know, you’d probably be a good lawyer.” It was a fleeting comment, literally she said it only once and it took up 3 seconds of my life, but it felt like a switch immediately went off in my brain, and the rest was history. I registered for the LSAT within that next week and I never looked back. It sounds crazy, but I think I really needed the pain of that loss to wake me up and push me forward.
I just finished my first semester of law school and while I still find myself looking for signs that I'm headed in the right direction, I know that any progress I've made thus far is a product of my own hard work and strength, and that's good enough for me. If “2018 me” saw me now, I think she’d be pretty proud of how far we’ve come since then.
K: What is one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
A: I’d definitely tell my younger self to take a minute, slow down, and be as present as possible. I actually have a sticky note on my desk with “SLOW DOWN” written all over it because I often catch myself flying through tasks and rushing through the day and I forget to stop, breathe and appreciate where I am right now. I find myself plagued with nostalgia all the time because I miss how things used to be or I miss moments that I'd like to relive again, and maybe it wouldn't hit me so hard if I took a second to take everything in more often.
K: What does being a woman mean to you?
A: Being a woman in today’s society has a million different meanings depending on which angle you look at it from. I won’t sugar coat it — being a woman today isn’t always easy, but I love the outreach of support and empathy that women so often exemplify. There’s also something really powerful about the aspect of “sisterhood." I don’t have biological sisters, but I’m lucky to have close friends that I consider sisters and I’ll be forever grateful for those bonds.
K: Who is one woman that inspires you? What would you say to her if she were here now?
A: This is a tough question because there genuinely isn’t just one woman that has inspired me. I think I’m incredibly lucky to say that I’ve been raised and surrounded by strong and influential women my entire life.
I’m a firm believer in the idea that no one comes into your life for no reason — people always show up (and sometimes they leave) right when you need them to. Even if it’s just for a couple minutes or for multiple years, I’ve learned something crucially important from every person that’s ever been in my life, and even if we aren’t in contact anymore, I still think about all those memories and lessons incredibly fondly.
But to answer the question, my mom, my aunt, my cousin, and my close friends are just a few examples of people that had a hand in building up all the parts of me that I like the best. My grandmother also instilled values in me that I cherish and think about every single day. Truly, everything I am, she made. If she were here right now, I’d just thank her for the life lessons and the love because all of that made me who I am, and I’ll always appreciate that.