The tenure process can be strenuous for scholars as they seek to fill their CVs with activities and achievements that may not fill their hearts. The pressures to publish or perish, apply for extramural funding, secure the next big award, and receive national recognition for groundbreaking scholarship can seem daunting. In this chapter, I share my journey of reconceptualizing service as community-engaged scholarship so that educators, youth, and their families can be positively impacted by my presence at the university. As a science educator, I have found my home by rejecting the scientometric index and traditional mechanisms of evaluating impact and the value of my contributions to the field. I decided to problematize and disrupt current notions of what it means to have impact. Resisting the inclination to conform to traditional systems in academia has been liberating and life changing. The community is where I find refuge; the community is my laboratory.