Going for Silver

  Several months ago, in the midst of working at a school that was performing feats of wonder to stay open during a pandemic, it came to my attention that most people don’t have an adverse reaction when the word “ventilator” comes up in casual conversation. Most people can talk about the concept of someone being put on a ventilator and then just move on to the next topic. And this is when it became abundantly clear to me that I am not most people.

When I hear that word, my throat gets tight and I start to feel what I can only describe as “out of it”, like my mind is trying to remove itself from the situation . I have very vivid memories of my parents standing next to my hospital bed explaining that my surgery had to be stopped due to a severe anaphylactic reaction, and not being able to ask any follow up questions due to the tube down my throat.  Even though I am in a safe place now, my brain recalls a scary and dangerous time and sends signals to my body that the danger has returned, and my body responds accordingly, engaging it’s fight or flight response. Thanks to all of the training I’ve had about working in trauma informed settings, I was able to determine that this response I was having was not typical and could probably fit somewhere under the umbrella of anxiety, and I knew where I could go to get help.

     I have an interesting relationship with counseling. I love the idea of it, and I have a history of putting myself in for a few sessions, and then finding reasons to stop as soon as it gets too uncomfortable. The problem in the past has been that I’ve wanted the positive results of therapy without having to do the hard work of processing my own feelings, and that’s not how it works. But this time I’m in a different place, maybe due to maturity, or maybe just time and distance from the events I need to process. 

     I never intended to admit to anyone that my reaction to the memory of a past medical  trauma sent me to therapy. I have had to work through a great deal of shame after finally admitting to myself that the medical trauma I have experienced did indeed have a negative impact on me mentally. It feels silly typing those words, but it makes sense.  Each time I would go through a traumatic medical event in my childhood and teenage years, I was praised for what people perceived as courage and strength. I learned that pretending not to be in pain, physically or mentally, earned me praise and admiration, things that are very appealing to a people pleaser like myself. 

     Furthermore, I know that some readers of this blog will be inclined to believe that I am subscribing to some liberal ideology, that I should just pull myself up by my bootstraps, pray more, go to church more. That spending an hour of my time every week talking to a professional about my feelings makes me a snowflake. I know this because when I was still an impressionable teenager, I witnessed how my church reacted to someone sharing their mental health struggles. I watched the initial support for this person gradually fade to skepticism as people very close to me began to suggest that it was time for them to stop talking about it and move on, showing that mental health was not yet a topic our congregation as a whole was comfortable with.  What I learned from these attitudes was that my church was not yet a safe place to be honest about the reality of mental health. And if you can’t be honest in God’s house, where can you be honest? 

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped away from royal duties, and Meghan bravely spoke out about her mental health, people said she was too wealthy and privileged to be depressed, which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of depression. 

     And now Simone Biles, a survivor of a very public sexual assault and currently the best gymnast in the country and maybe the world, has withdrawn herself from competition for the sake of her mental health. She was wise enough at the age of twenty-four  to realize that she was not in the right mental state to compete safely, and she gracefully bowed out and stayed on the sidelines to enthusiastically support the rest of her team. And as I read the Instagram comments from uninformed trolls calling her “weak” and “a quitter”, and talking about how she’s “letting down America” as if she owes any of us anything, I know that there are teenagers and even children reading those same comments. And although I don’t have the platform of an Olympian or a Duchess, it feels important that I add my voice to the conversation, because I know what it’s like to hear these kinds of messages as a young impressionable person and prolong your own healing because of them. 

     Having depression or anxiety or any other mental health struggle does not make you weak. Your brain is an extremely complex organ that needs to be taken care of just as much as any other part of your body. And if you’re a person of faith like I am, I need you to know that God is not mad at you for going to therapy, or doing whatever healthy thing you need to do in order to heal and protect your brain. You are not depressed and/or anxious because you did not pray enough or read enough “do not be anxious” Bible verses. You are depressed and or/anxious because of very real things that are happening within the structure of your brain. God created your brain, and I feel pretty confident that God is not anything but happy about you taking care of it. 

     Right now, Simone Biles has put the topic of mental health on the world stage, and that is a wonderful thing. I am inspired by her courage and I hope that she knows that her decision is paving the way for more athletes and people in general to prioritize mental health. But in a world with a 24/7 news cycle, our attention spans are short and will soon be captured by something else. This particular moment will end, but that does not mean that it didn’t matter. I believe that each time a person in the spotlight like Meghan Markle or Simone Biles is brave enough to tell the truth about their mental health, it sends a message to the next generation about what it really means to be strong, and brave, and tough.  It sends a message that we are no longer sacrificing ourselves on the altar of approval to get the gold. We are staying true to ourselves, and using our God-given instincts to honor the needs of our minds and bodies. We are finally acknowledging that sometimes going for silver is the bravest and strongest pursuit of all. 

Campbell's Question

      Hello friend. I don’t know when or if you will ever actually read this, but I’m writing it anyway with the hope that it might mean something to you one day. I was friends with your mom before you were even born. We even traveled to Honduras together. She’s my good friend, so you and your sister are like two extra little bonus friends that didn’t get a say in the matter quite yet. You hold a special place in my heart, because I prayed for you to exist before you did. When your mom told me you were going to be born, I was mini golfing with the youth group. I’m not sure she was prepared for the amount of ruckus that occurred when she made her announcement. We were all so excited to meet you. I was at a meeting at church when I found out you had been born, and I was so overwhelmed with happiness that I cried all the way home. Now you’re a living breathing person, asking me questions and telling me stories like we’re best friends, even when you haven’t seen me in months. I know most of that is because you inherited your mother’s outgoing personality and would probably talk to any old stranger who showed up on your front porch, but I like to think some of it is because we have a connection. 

     The first time we met, you were two weeks old and for a second while I was holding you, you looked me directly in the eye. Many people will probably think that I imagined this because it’s not typical for babies to make eye contact that early, but I remember it quite clearly because that was one of the few moments when I thought that maybe I didn’t want to move to Alaska after all, because maybe I would rather stay close so I could watch you grow up. But moving to Alaska was the right choice for me, and so now I watch you grow up through Snapchat videos and only see you and your family in person once or twice a year.

    I was able to come see your family over my Christmas vacation, in a carefully planned outdoor visit. It’s wild to me that you are living through a worldwide pandemic that you will most likely not remember. It might be good that this will probably be a thing of the past before your long term memory has fully formed, because a lot of the way people have been treating each other during this time is nothing to be admired.

     Anyway, towards the end of my visit, it happened. I think I was actually getting up to leave when you said, “Why are you walking like that?’ and it hit me like a ton of bricks. By the time I’d regained my composure enough to answer your question, you had already lost interest. I gave you the same answer I give most children, about how my spine didn’t form the way yours did before I was born, so the way I walk looks different than the way you walk.  I don’t know if you really understood, but you accepted my answer and moved on to the next thing. The interaction was over in less than a minute, but I’ve thought about it a lot and I wish I had answered your question right away, instead of spending several seconds in silent shock, as if I haven’t heard this question from dozens of other children throughout my life. I’d just never heard it from you.

     Your  question felt like the end of something, and it was an ending I wasn’t prepared for. You’re no longer a baby unaware of the world around you. You’re old enough to make observations and ask questions. You’re old enough to understand that people have differences, and that probably means you’re old enough to start forming ideas and opinions about what you observe, and old enough to make judgments. Your parents are both good people, so I’m confident that you will continue to be taught the right way to treat others. I just know that like all humans, you will have plenty of influences outside of your home that will show you all of the wrong ways to treat people. So for that reason I wish I had a more poignant response to your question , but honestly I thought I had at least another year to prepare. I guess that little baby who could maintain eye contact at two weeks is continuing to hit her milestones early.

      As I reflect on my less than perfect response to your very legitimate question, I am hopeful that my words will be buoyed by other sources that will have a positive impact on how you perceive other people. Maybe you will be part of the first generation of people who are able to be fully inclusive. Maybe you’ll grow up in a world where treating people differently because they are different than you never even crosses your mind. That’s a lot to hope for, but there are lots of people working hard to create that kind of world for you to grow up in. I am not talking about a world where people’s differences are not noticed, because that doesn’t do anyone any good. I’m talking about a world where people make space for each other’s differences instead of seeing them as a threat.

     I’ve grown up being an involuntary “inspiration” to a lot of people, some of whom I’m not even particularly close with. The simple fact that I am able to live independently sometimes makes people fall all over themselves with admiration, and it occasionally gets tiring to be on the receiving end of that kind of energy. So what I’m hoping is that if I can inspire you in some way, it won’t just be because I was born with something that I have no control over. I hope I can inspire you to do what you were meant to do, even if other people don’t understand. I don’t know exactly what that will look like for you, but I hope you will spend far less time and energy than I did worrying about all of the people who don’t understand your life choices. I want to let you in on a little secret that most women don’t figure out until they are even older than me. When you grow up, you don’t owe anyone an explanation for how you choose to live your life, unless you are doing something that harms others. The choices you make about how to live your life are between you and God. Take advice from a few good friends and then, to quote one of mine and your mom’s favorite authors, “let the rest burn.” 

     Well, this letter is getting long and I’m still not entirely sure I’ve said what I’m trying to say. I guess if I could go back and answer your question, I would say pretty much the same thing. My spine formed differently than yours, and so I walk differently than you. It is simultaneously a simple fact and a big deal that helped shape the course of my life. But it doesn’t define me, and after some thought, I’ve decided it really doesn’t define anything about my relationship to you. I am who I am, and you are who you are, and I’m glad we know each other. I hope that as you get older and have more freedom to make your own choices, you will choose to keep me in your life in some way. No pressure or anything, but I am the reason you know what a musk ox is. You’re already one of my favorite humans, so just keep doing what you’re doing. I love you.

Sit With Them

     For two years of my almost twenty five years of life, I was a white missionary, sent to a region still reeling from trauma inflicted by white missionaries. I had the potential to do a lot of damage. Thankfully, I was trained to step back and listen. I quickly learned that a big part of being a white missionary in a place that is not predominately white is learning to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I'm sure there were many times I did the wrong thing without even realizing it, and I may never know all of the mistakes I made as a white person trying to be a positive influence on youth who are part of a culture that I quite honestly knew nothing about before moving to Nome.
     There's a story I've never told because it's so special to me that I wanted to save it for the right time. It's a story about a youth who was struggling and the way her peers stayed with her through her struggle.
     This story starts right as the Boys and Girls Club was about to close on a Friday night. The last five minutes on Friday nights always seemed to bring up strong feelings, probably because many youth were facing a weekend in an unstable home.
     I didn't do much during that hour, but it stands out as possibly the most important hour of my mission experience. By that time I had enough experience with our youth having panic attacks that I had a pretty good idea of what to do. I was prepared to sit with her after everyone left. but as closing time came and went, I realized we were not alone. The group of teens there that night had no intention of leaving until they could all leave together.
     That night, I watched teenage boys call home to say they would miss curfew because the were doing something important, because they were helping a friend. I watched these young men put their Friday night plans on hold without a second thought in order to support a friend. I watched them quietly sit down on the floor beside her.
     Not once did they suggest that she should just get over it. Not once did they make fun of her or invalidate her feelings in any way. Instead, they sat with her. Some of them shared stories of their own struggles with the same thing, and the significance of young men being vulnerable about their emotions was not lost on me.
     We sat together on the floor for an hour. We talked about the science of panic attacks, and how it takes the brain a while to process that there is no actual danger. We shared jokes and moments of comfortable silence. We counted every tile in the ceiling, twice. After an hour, she felt good enough to walk home, and I watched that whole group of teens leave together. I can't recall a time I was ever more proud of all of them.
     Most of the young men in this story are not white. I struggled with whether or not to share this story at this time because they aren't black either. In the spirit of being comfortable with being uncomfortable and after weighing the risk of saying the wrong thing against the risk of saying nothing, I decided that now is not the time for silence.
     I have worried about these Alaska Native boys for as long as I have known them, and the devastating realization that I live in a country where men of color are murdered in broad daylight by the very people who are supposed to protect them has greatly deepened that worry. I wish these young men lived in a world that would treat them the way they treated their friend that night. I wish I didn't worry about them when I see them walking around town with their hoods up and their hands in their pockets, because that is not a crime and I hate that it even crosses my mine that it might be considered one. I wish they lived in a world that would not suspect them, harass them, and murder them because of their brown skin. I wish they were growing up in a society that knew how to sit with them and seek to understand them.

If they can do it for their peers, why can't we do it for them?

The Art of Pondering

     I once had a writing professor who upon hearing any story about some challenge one of her students was facing would get this wild look in her eye and exclaim,"writing material!" This particular professor would also take swigs from a large bottle that we were all convinced was champagne, until someone finally confronted her about it and we learned that it was mineral water. She was one of those teachers who had a genuine passion for the subject she taught, and I really felt that I thrived in her classroom. I've thought about her over the past few weeks, as Covid-19 has transitioned from something that was barely on my radar into something that has affected several aspects of my life and brought my regular routine to a screeching halt. She would surely see this situation as excellent writing material.
     Every time I try to write anything about this surreal experience we are all going through, my mind goes back to a picture I took when I was visiting my family in August, when I took exactly one week of vacation after finishing two years at an incredibly demanding job before jumping right into the next one. We went to Nags Head for a day, and stopped at Jeanette's Pier right as the sun was setting. At some point each of us went off on our own for a few minutes, and when I turned around from whatever I was doing, I saw a sight that brought comfort to my weary heart. My father and brother in a stance I've seen both of them in from time to time for as long as I can remember; hands in their pockets, staring off into the distance. Sometimes the object of their attention is a truck or a boat, sometimes it's just whatever scenery happens to be in front of them at the moment. I've never asked them what they are thinking about during these moments, because it doesn't really matter and I don't want to interrupt them. I just know that it brings me a sense of peace and a bit of pride to know that I grew up around men who are comfortable being alone with their thoughts, and I can't help but believe that the world would be a bit better if more of us were.
     I've always thought of this habit of theirs as pondering, and it's something that I hope to do more of while my regular routine is interrupted. Whenever I set out to write, I always try to connect a deeper meaning to my life experiences, to uncover some profound wisdom that people will find interesting. But maybe we don't have to uncover a deep spiritual meaning to all of this. Maybe we don't have to find three new hobbies or dive into full Marie Kondo mode while we have extra time at home. We certainly do not need to engage in spirited debates online about whose fault this is, because some things are no ones fault, and that conversation does nothing to improve what is happening.
 Sure, it's good to be productive and to not let our minds spiral into despair. But I also believe that in between our periods of productivity, this is a good time to practice the art of pondering. To find a window to look out of, or a large body of water or field if one is accessible while exercising social distancing, and just stand still for a few moments. Be alone with whatever thoughts you have, and acknowledge them without analyzing them. Just be still, and see what comes to you. You've got nothing but time, and you're not missing anything by taking a few moments to just exist.
     Right now, no one can really say when all of this will end. It is an uncertain time, and like everyone else I have plenty of worries about what the next few months of my life are going to look like. I worry for people who are sick or have sick loved ones, and for those who put themselves at risk every day for the benefit of the rest of us. While I recognize the seriousness of this pandemic and hope that it goes away sooner than later, I'm trying to remember that all that has really changed in my life is the illusion that I was ever in control of anything. And while I was at first slightly terrified by that revelation, I am gradually becoming relieved by it. It's nice to stop and realize that the world is so much bigger than me. Maybe that's what those two pondering men have understood all along.

Under the Same Moon

Since my time of service as a missionary for the Methodist church ended in August, I've written several honest reflections about the experience, without trying to put a positive spin on them or wrap them up with some sort of motivational message. With each post, I've watched the number of readers decline. It seems that everyone is getting tired of listening to me complain, and I've come to the point where life is starting to move on, as life does, and the hurt is not so fresh anymore. It's still there, but I've stared it down and confronted it directly and it has lost some of it's power. And so, I will climb down off of my soapbox with no guarantee that I might not get back on it at some point.
So if I'm going to stop regaling my ever shrinking audience with tales of the perils of being a missionary, what will I talk about? I guess will have to stop talking about the past and move into the present.
I'm working at a smaller non-profit now. The experience of working closely with someone who very genuinely cares about the work we are doing and gets excited about being able to help people has already started to remove some of the cynicism about the non-profit world that I had developed over the past two years. I'm getting to experience what it's like to be respected at work, and that has been very important for me.
I also have a really interesting job through the hospital that I can't talk about for privacy reasons, but I feel that it is a very good opportunity for me. Although my feelings of hurt are very real and completely valid, they are able to coexist with the positive feelings I have about the opportunities I am currently experiencing.
Yesterday, I stood waiting for an airplane to pick me up in Wales, Alaska, which is almost as far west as you can get and still be in the U.S.A. It was a cold, clear day and I could see the moon in one direction and turn around the other way and watch the sun set. I thought about my eighth grade world geography teacher, who was such a good teacher that she got me into the school's geography bee even though to this day I can hardly read a map. She would probably be one of the few people who could understand what I was feeling in that moment, because her class and the way she taught unlocked my fascination with the world outside of the small town I grew up in.
I will never be able to fully describe what it's like to travel to an Alaska Native village in January, and hear stories of polar bears and whales from an elder, and to see the moon over the tundra and know that everywhere in the world, people are seeing that same moon.
I will also never be able to fully describe what it feels like to move across the country because you genuinely believe in your heart that it is what God is telling you to do, only to be met with what is hopefully the most challenging workplace experience you will ever face. I may never have the words to convey what it feels like when you tell the truth about your experience believing that open communication and honesty will lead to reconciliation, and it doesn't.
All I know is that I stood there fascinated by the moon, I remembered the children who experienced unspeakable traumas and were still able to experience pure excitement upon seeing a rainbow. How wonderful it is to realize that even when we have experienced hurt that seems insurmountable, we have been given the capacity to fight through it and experience wonder again, if only we are brave enough to reject the tempting choice of cynicism.

Put Me to Suffering: Reflections on my Missionary Experience

     Before I moved to Nome, my first mission trip had been with a group of people, and my second trip had been to visit missionaries who lived in a community of other missionaries. They were both very communal experiences throughout the whole process. After both of these trips, I had the opportunity to stand in front of a congregation of people and share my reflections. The beauty of these short term missions is that whatever struggles that come with them are brief, and everyone's excitement for you is still fresh when you return.
A two year mission term is not a trip, it is a life change. I moved across the country to a remote place in Alaska, and by the time my two years as a missionary concluded, people back home had moved on to new things and so had I. After a week long visit to see my family, I returned to continue my life in Nome.
     That week was full of much needed time with my family, but it also brought up some confusing emotions for me. I wondered if anyone really cared to hear about the kind of work I had been doing here, or if they would just prefer to hear exciting stories about living in a state most people have only seen on T.V.
     It was recently suggested to me by someone who had no idea that I like to write that maybe writing would be a good way to process my emotions about the two year mission experience that is now over. I did not tell that person that I have not written about those experiences because I have become doubtful that anyone truly wants to hear about them in detail. But, writing is what I do, and so here we are.
      I may have written this before, but there was a very poignant moment on the last day of training when we were practicing for the commissioning service. We were reciting the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer, which contains the line "put me to doing, put me to suffering.". We were made to recite that line several times until we said the words "doing" and "suffering" with equal enthusiasm. Throughout my two years, "put me to suffering" became the first phrase to enter my mind whenever something stressful happened at work. Whether I was asked to take on a weekend project on a week when I had already done at least 40 hours, or when I was trying to juggle multiple tasks and find solutions for constant crises while coworkers twiddled their thumbs, my internal sarcastic mantra was "put me to suffering." It eventually became a twisted joke between myself and my cohort of missionaries whenever one of us was given some extra task to add to the multiple projects we were already responsible for.
 When I said the words "put me to suffering", I was picturing occasional, intermittent suffering. I did not realize that for much of my time as a missionary, it would become part of my daily life. I imagined suffering because of the issues within the community, issues I believed I would work with my placement site to improve. It never crossed my mind that the majority of my suffering would be at the hands of the people who I thought wanted me here. I naively believed I was going to a placement site that had a genuine passion for the causes that the US-2 program is geared towards and I never suspected that young adults moving across the country to work with communities around social justice issues would be taken advantage of by being overworked. US-2 missionaries are on a stipend and therefore did not get paid overtime. From a financial standpoint, I guess it made sense to have us work as much as possible, but from a mental health standpoint it was a very difficult role to play.
     The realization that an apology for this treatment is never going to come is an difficult fact to live with. Learning how to forgive people who don't even understand why they should be sorry is a huge challenge for me. But for the sake of my own well-being, I'm trying.
     The missionary experience was not what I thought it was going to be. I was put to types of suffering that I never saw coming, and my inability to live up to the standards of what others thought a missionary should be caused me to doubt myself at times. But even with the struggles, I still believe the good outweighed the bad. I got to experience what it feels like to become a trusted adult for youth who have every reason not to trust anyone. I developed the kind of friendships that only form when you endure suffering together. And if I ever have to work 60 hour weeks in the future, I have lots of experience to draw from.

A Picture of God

Several years ago when I was in confirmation class before getting baptized, I remember one specific moment that really stuck with me. We were instructed to draw a picture of God, and I remember being completely dumbfounded by this assignment.

Up until that point, I had always pictured God as an old man with a beard wearing a white robe. But when faced with the task of committing the image to paper, my vision suddenly seemed childish. 

I think I ended up drawing some flowers and a sunrise, which still didn’t feel right, but it was the best I could do at the time.

I am a different person now than when I drew that picture. I have moved across the country from the place where my faith began, and I have begun to see that things are much more complex than I realized back then. I no longer believe that the image of God is always flowers and sunshine.

If I was given that assignment today, it is not a bearded old man that I would draw, but a series of moments when I saw God’s image reflected in the people around me.

I would draw a huddle of children from complicated backgrounds facing daily challenges, staring in wonderment at the biggest rainbow any of them had ever seen.

I would draw the Alaska Native elder who gave me, a white missionary, an Iñupiaq name.

I would illustrate the moment in which a teenager who refused to say one word to me for the first six months I was here ran to greet me with a hug when I walked in the door of the Boys and Girls Club to visit last week.

I would draw the moment when my fellow US-2 who moved here with me asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, when she will marry the guy who was my first real “non-missionary” friend in Nome.

We have experienced layers of emotions and stress together that I have never had to experience with another friend. I have not always reacted well to those emotions, and she has seen the worst parts of me. Because she possess enough grace to realize that the way I handle negative emotions is not who I really am, we have been able to forge a solid friendship, and that is something I can only describe as holy.

When I started my two year mission, I felt very confident about the state of my faith. After two years of challenges and experiences that were nothing short of life-changing, I realize that everything is far more complex than I realized back then. I am losing my black and white, good and bad, right and wrong view of the world. I am learning to explore the discomfort of the grey areas.

I may have come through this journey with more questions than answers, but there is one thing I know for sure; If someone asked me for a picture of God, I would know what to draw. 

What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel?

When I worked at the Boys and Girls Club, one of the programs I was in charge of was the behavioral health curriculum. It was my job to occasionally plan activities about feelings and emotions, and the way our brains work, and I loved it. One of the things I implemented as part of the program was the “Today I am Feeling” board. Youth could come in and write their name by the emotion they were feeling, and sometimes it led to some really important discussions. I loved watching children of all ages pause in front of the board, and stand quietly for a minute as they examined their inner thoughts and identified how they were feeling. I have a theory that the world would be a better place if adults had a feelings board like that.

One of my favorite memories associated with that board is when a teen girl came in one day and without saying a word, grabbed a marker and wrote her name in bold letters beside “angry”. She then gave me one of those crushing glares that only teenage girls are capable of, as if she was daring me to challenge her. I asked her if she wanted to talk about it, and she said no. I then told her “Anger is a valid emotion, and you’re allowed to be angry, as long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else, or being destructive.” She seemed surprised by my response, and sat quietly be herself for a few minutes before joining her friends and moving on with the day.

That was the day I learned that something really significant happens when you give people, especially teenagers, permission to be angry. We are often taught to suppress our negative emotions, and be ashamed of them. I’ll never know what she was angry about that day, but I believe I gained a new level of respect when I validated that emotion that is so often viewed as an inherently bad thing.

As much as I loved that moment, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to my own anger. Out of all of the emotions, anger is the one I  am least comfortable with. Whenever I feel it, it is followed quickly by shame. I have been trying for so long to figure out how to write about the past two years without mentioning anger, and I have finally come to the conclusion that I just can’t get around it. Like I did for that teen that day, I have to give myself permission to be angry.

I couldn’t, and still can’t say much about my work experience during my time as a US-2, because I worked for a very prominent nonprofit in a very small town.

What I can say is that I experienced a lot of anger about the way I was often treated, and the fact that I felt like I was held to a completely different standard than other people simply because I was a missionary. I also watched the kindness of people I cared about be constantly taken advantage of, and that made me even more angry.

But as much as I could rant about the injustices I encountered in the workplace, I can’t deny the fact that the person I have become the most angry with is myself.

Because I couldn’t fix everything I wanted to fix in two years. Because even though I had the title of missionary, I was no holier than before. I still got cranky when I was overworked, hungry, or things just weren’t going my way. I still said things I regretted in moments of frustration, almost every day.

Because when people tell me about bad experiences they have had at a church and ask why they should go back, I do not have an answer. Because I go through phases where I ask myself that same question. Because even though I worked as hard as I could for two solid years, there are still countless insurmountable problems in this community that I now call home.

As I reflect on all of this, a quote comes to mind from my favorite philosopher, Mr Rogers. It’s actually a song that he sang, called “What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel?”

Since trying to ignore the anger that I felt and hoping it would just go away did not work, I now have to figure out what to do with it. I could use it to try to inspire change, but I have learned over the past two years that change is often a painfully slow process.

And so for now, I will start by simply acknowledging it. The thing about anger is that, at least in my experience, it starts to lose it’s power as soon as it is brought into the light. Even as I write about the work related trials I faced, I think of all of the children I worked with, and how much joy they brought me. And when I think of all of difficult things I went through, I know that it was worth it to get to know them. They are some of the best people I have ever met.

Lamentations

I recently completed my term as a US-2, and spent a week at home visiting my family and friends.

During that week, I was asked nearly ten times if I had "found" a boyfriend, as if people thought I had been commissioned by the church for the sole purpose of moving across the country and searching for someone to enter into a relationship with.

I was not asked about the children I have spent almost every weekday with for the past two years. I was not asked about the culture of this community that I have grown to love. I was not asked about the friends I have made, or the things I do for fun.

I was not asked about the state of my faith, about the ways in which it has been challenged and changed by this experience. I was not asked about the things that I have struggled with, the things I have seen that have broken my heart, the things that have made me angry.

When I returned home after spending two years of my life as a missionary for the church, I was not asked to share any of my experiences with the church I am a member of. I also did not volunteer to speak, so perhaps that one is on me.

I was told by several people that they could never move to Alaska because it's too cold, a backhanded way of saying that they don't understand why I would enjoy it. I resisted the urge to respond that nobody ever asked them to move here, and that I could never stay in Virginia because it's too hot.

Once during that week, a friend sat down beside me and said "tell me all about it," and then listened while I did. And then on the way to the airport to return here, in the midst of talking about farming equipment and boats and trucks, all of the things I grew up rolling my eyes about when they dominated family conversations, but are now oddly comforting when I hear about them, my brother asked the question that meant the most to me. "Are you happy to be going back to Nome?"

Over the past two years, it has often seemed as if my happiness is the last thing on anyone's mind. And I tried my best not to complain about it, because that's what I signed up for. But I have not yet reached a point of selflessness where I never have the urge to talk about myself sometimes, or just feel like someone cares enough to want to know how I feel.

During this experience, I found that it became difficult to write about situations as they were happening, and my demanding job never seemed to allow my mind to slow down and gather my thoughts together enough to write a decent blog post anyway. But now life has slowed down a little, and I'm ready to look back and remember, and to look forward to what's next.

Perhaps it is not in my best interest to return with such a brutally honest post, but if there's one thing that this experience has taught me, it's that sometimes a brutally honest conversation is the best way to move forward.

A Good Enough Christmas

     When Pastor Charlie asked me to speak today, he mentioned that the topic should relate to Christmas. At first, this seemed like a pretty easy task. There’s no shortage of material, because out of all of the stories in the Bible, the Christmas story is the most well-known. Even those who don’t attend church regularly have most likely heard about the birth of Jesus at some point, or at least heard a reference to it in a Christmas song or movie. 

     The problem turned out to be finding something to say about Christmas that hasn’t already been said. I grew up in a family that went to church pretty regularly, and If I add up all the years of my life, that’s twenty-three Christmas sermons I’ve heard. And considering the fact that most pastors start talking about Christmas at the beginning of Advent, it feels like I’ve heard just about every aspect of Christmas talked about at some point. 

     I’ve heard the same narrative throughout my whole life, about Mary riding to Bethlehem on a donkey and Jesus being born in a stable because there was no room in the inn. I can tell you how many wise men showed up, and what they brought with them. I don’t lack knowledge about Christmas, but there have been times this year I have felt lacked the usual joy this season brings. I have always been taught that Jesus was born to bring hope to the world, and I’ve always trusted that. My problem during Christmas since moving to Nome is celebrating a holiday that represents hope, when I am surrounded by circumstances that often feel hopeless. Don’t get me wrong, I love living in Nome and I know that there are many great things about this community. It is probably because I love it so much that I get so discouraged when I see all issues that I would still  

like to resolve.

     How do I make the connection between Bethlehem and Nome? It was easy to get excited about Christmas when I was growing up. I knew that the world wasn’t perfect, and that suffering existed, but I was still able to celebrate Christmas and find hope in what it represents. But now, the suffering is personal. It happens to children I’ve grown to know and love. It happens to people I’ve gotten to know at the food bank. There were many nights before NEST opened up that I found it hard to sleep, knowing that several of my neighbors would be spending the night outside in the cold. 

     Many of you know that I am here as a US-2. We are sent out by the Methodist church into communities that we become a part of and serve alongside. I am very proud to be a US-2, and I take it very seriously, sometimes to a fault. We are supposed to be seeking justice and connecting the church in mission. I remember thinking when I applied for the program that two years was a long time. It didn’t take me very long to realize that it is actually an incredibly short time in which to accomplish all of the things this program sets us up to do. I worry a lot that I am not doing enough, even when I am exhausted at the end of the day from all of the things I have tried to do. 

     In the process of trying to sort out all of these thoughts in my head, and make the connection between the birth of Jesus and the hope it represents, and all of those situations around me that feel hopeless, I considered a person in the story I’d never given much thought before now. As a woman, it’s fairly easy to empathize with Mary, especially knowing how young she was when she was given such a huge responsibility. But Jesus had another earthly parent, who also had a great responsibility, and I’ve never really given him much thought.

     I wasn’t able to find many details about Joseph in the Bible, but I can’t help but think that there must have been times he felt inadequate. And that is the root of my Christmas problem this year. I have been aware of this hope forever, and I became a US-2 so I could share it with others. Looking back on the past sixteen months, it would be easy to tell you all the times I’ve made mistakes, and all of the ideas I’ve had that just didn’t work. But if you asked me to pinpoint a time I brought hope to someone, I would have to think for a very long time before I could come up with anything. I made a covenant to advocate for justice, and I think about that lot, when I’m standing in the kitchen at Boys and Girls Club, trying to put together a meal that covers all of the demands of the USDA, and looking up every five minutes to ask yet another child to please stop sitting, or standing, on the pool table. As I was working on writing this, I thought that if Pastor Charlie heard the way I sometimes speak to children when my patience is being tested, he would seriously rethink his decision to allow me into the pulpit. The fact that I so frequently lose my patience even though I’ve worked with these children for over a year now is just another way I feel inadequate to do the job I promised to do. 

     Working at the Boys and Girls Club, I spend a lot of time with other people’s children. I am obviously not their parent, and I have never even met most of their parents. Yet, I play a role in helping them with their homework, making their dinner and correcting their behaviors when needed, all things my parents did for me. I feel a great responsibility to help them reach their full potential, and I also struggle with the reality that at the end of the day, my position as a staff member of an after school program has its limits. I can help them create some positive memories for a few hours after school, but that is where my sphere of influence stops. I wonder if Joseph felt this way about raising Jesus. He could provide all of the important things that earthly fathers should, but he knew that Jesus was on earth to complete a mission he could take no part in. 

     At a conference about after-school programs I recently attended in Anchorage, there was a speaker who gave a piece of advice to all of the attendees. She said that when making difficult decisions, we should let good enough be good enough. When I initially heard this, I did not like it at all. I am constantly aware that I only have two years to be a US-2, so every decision I make feels very important. I also work with children, so it often feels like everything I do is going to affect their development either positively or negatively. I don’t want to look back on these years and see that they were just good enough. As I thought about Joseph and his role in being a father figure to God’s son, I realized that I can’t let the fear of being wrong stop me from ever making a decision about anything.

     When Joseph first heard that Mary was going to have a child that wasn’t his, the Bible says that he had in mind to divorce her quietly. At the time, he could have had her stoned, so divorcing her was actually one of the most honorable things he could think to do. One of the few things we are told about Joseph is that an angel visited him and told him not to be afraid to stay with Mary. In that moment, Joseph had a decision to make. He could say that raising a child he didn’t plan for was too much. He could have cracked under the pressure of raising such an important person. But he did what he was asked to do, and history unfolded in the way God intended it to. 

     He was good enough, and that was all God needed him to be. For the rest of this Christmas season, I am going to try to focus on that. I wish that I could provide the kind of Christmas I grew up with to every child who comes to the Boys and Girls Club, but that is out of my power. So, I will keep making ornaments with them, like the paper chains I used to make with my brother when I was growing up. Christmas won’t change their circumstances, but I have to trust that if I do everything I can to make it good enough, God will do the rest.

     Recently, someone offered to make me a kuspuk. I have wanted one for a long time, but wasn’t sure if I should have one since I am not Native. I know that plently of non-native people where them here in Nome, but I still felt I needed some reassurance that it was okay.  I decided to ask one of the teens who comes to Boys and Girls Club what she thought of non-native people wearing them, since teens can usually be counted on to be brutally honest about things like that. She assured me that she saw nothing wrong with non-native people wearing kuspuks, and I laughed when she said her only request was that I never ask if she lives in an igloo. 

     When she came in a few days later and I was wearing the finished product, her eyes lit up. She said that she liked it, and in that rare moment, I felt that I was good enough. 

I was just a white person wearing a kuspuk, trying to have a positive impact on Native youth, showing up and messing up a lot, and losing my patience a little too frequently. And like Joseph tasked with raising the son of God, it was enough, because that’s the way God planned it. 

This year, I hope to not have a Merry Chirstmas, but a good enough Christmas. And I hope the same for all of you. 

A Time of Wrestling

     In every writing class I've ever taken, from high school journalism to research writing in college, I've been taught that one of the most important rules of writing is to know who your audience is. This makes a lot of sense, because if you know who you are talking to, you can say what you want to say in the most effective way possible.
With a blog, it's hard to know who my audience is. I can see how many people are reading and of course whoever leaves a comment, but that's about it. Based on what information I do have, I used to think that many of the people reading were people who went to my church and I based the way I wrote on that information.
     I have not been to that church in fourteen months and have not been in contact with many people from it in that same amount of time. Since I left it, it has gone through an interim pastor and now has a new pastor who I have never met. It would appear from what I can see on social media that many people who attended there fourteen months ago do not anymore. I have a lot of opinions about some things that have happened there, but I also understand that I'm hearing everything secondhand from thousands of miles away. Now more than ever, I don't know who my audience is.
     I just got back from visiting one of the Native villages near Nome, and I had four days of no internet and fewer hours of work than I'm accustomed too, and a lot of time to think. I thought a lot about this post, and what I wanted to say. I thought a lot about why I have a blog, and why I think it's worth my time to write things for people to read, especially if I'm not sure who those people are.
     I've given myself a lot of excuses for not writing much lately, but during my time in the village I finally let myself face the real reason I haven't written much lately, a frustration with my supposed audience.
     Maybe I'm mad because church taught me about the hungry being fed, and the homeless being taken in, and it let me believe that that it genuinely cared about people.  It painted a picture of a world where justice prevails, and led me to believe that goodness will win in the end. It did not prepare me for all of the times it won't. It did not inform me that following what Jesus said only matters to the church until you no longer have enough time, resources, or money to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless.
Every time I drive down Front Street, it makes me sad when I see so many people who don't have a permanent place to live, and seeing the way even the church treats them hurts me deeply. Maybe I'm just naive, but the faith I inherited from my grandmothers at a very young age led me to believe that no one should have to go without food or shelter, regardless of the life choices they have made.
I've wanted to write about this subject for a long time, but I shied away from it because of my fear of what my audience would think. No church wants to hear that the missionary they commissioned is angry, they want to hear the success stories that happen once the anger has passed. And no community wants to hear that a missionary living among them is struggling with these issues, because we are expected to put aside our own problems and always be helpful.
   A few years ago, I was going through a hard time and tried to keep a scheduled speaking arrangement at church after I wasn't able to go on the mission trip I was supposed to speak about. Needless to say, that did not go well. Afterwords, my pastor at the time told me it seemed like I was wrestling with God. I was initially embarrassed to receive this comment from a pastor, but he did not seem to disapprove of my wrestling, he only seemed to be making an observation.
     I think I'm having another time of wrestling right now, maybe not with God, but with everything I've been taught about God and what it means to be a person of faith, and how that holds up, or doesn't, against the harsh realities of the world. And maybe I am breaking the most important rule of writing by saying things my audience might not want to hear, but I do not think I will be able to continue writing further until these things have been said. Maybe I'm breaking one of the most important rules of writing,  intentionally writing things I know it could be hard for m audience to hear, but in a way I'm honoring another piece of advice from a very influential journalism teacher who encouraged his students learn the rules, so we could break them.

   

A Year in Review

     The day I first started writing this post, I was climbing all over a research boat with children who were mentally overstimulated by all of the sights and sounds it contained, and I did not feel anything but frustration and exhaustion. It felt like asking them to focus on the tour guide and follow the rules in this environment was asking too much of them, but I needed to try because they do need to learn to follow directions, even if that means learning it differently and at their own pace. In that moment, I felt defeated. I came home and tried to begin writing an inspiring tribute to my first year of this mission experience, and I could not do it. So, I went to sleep and tried again later. 

      Today, I have lived in Nome for one year, and I've gotten pretty good at the skill of trying again later, over and over again. 

     I work with many children who live with a challenge I hardly ever heard of before I moved here, and it is a daily learning experience for me. I feel grossly under-qualified most of the time, but I find hope in the fact that they seem to accept me anyway. The truth is that most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just cooking and washing dishes and doing crafts and playing one more game of UNO, acknowledging the many forms of trauma that surround us and trying every day not to be defeated by them.  

     At US-2 training, they tell you there will be hard times, but at that point everyone' is talking about God all the time, and you all sing some fun songs together and they give you a fancy anchor cross, and you do not care about the hard times yet. At the start, the hard times sound like just another adventure. And yes, living here in Nome is an adventure. But the hard times come with an intensity I have never experienced before. One of my biggest challenges writing about my experiences this past year has been describing the hardest times while respecting the privacy of children. To put it in perspective, this is the third job I have had where I have been a mandated reporter. At the first two jobs, I never observed anything concerning enough to be reported. At my current job, I stopped counting after the third incident. 

     I am trying to come to terms with the fact that two years is actually a very short amount of time to make an impact on the life of a child. I am also having to accept that the few hours a day I spend with these children are competing with the rest of their day, which may not be spent in a positive, healthy environment. I was recently told that I'm working with some children who are re-traumatized every weekend, and that gave words to a feeling I've been struggling with for months. 

     While there is really nothing easy about working with so many children who come from backgrounds of trauma, the amount of fun I have had this year is unreal. Between all the tantrums and tears and bickering, I have had the privilege of spending time with some of the funniest, most creative children I have ever met. I've gotten pretty good at maintaining a rational detachment to keep myself from getting too weighed down by all of the challenges these children carry with them, but sometimes when they're all sitting down to dinner and talking to each other, the thought crosses my mind that it feels like a family. 

     One of the objectives of the US-2 program is to "grow in personal holiness" and I sometimes cynically joke that this job is actually making me less holy. But the truth is that while my faith has been put on the back burner for the sake of work more than I'd like to admit over this past year, living in a new place, away from everything and everyone that was familiar to me, has given me the chance to explore what my relationship with God really is when there's no one around to steer it in the right direction. And although I'm ending this first year with more questions than answers, I'm also left with the feeling that I am right where I'm supposed to be. And that is all I need to keep trying again later, every day. 

     

     

     

Long Term Lesssons

     It's the middle of summer, which means it's the peak of short term mission season. There are currently two mission teams here in Nome (that I am aware of), one of them staying in the place where I live, and the other coming to the place where I work. This is the first time in my life that I will see these teams come and go from a place that I will stay in, and it's given me a lot to think about.
     First, I should say that short term and long term is all about perspective. When I started out here, two years sounded like a long time, but now that I'm almost a year in, I know that it's really not. I'm almost halfway done and there is still so much I have left to learn. I also know that to people who have devoted their entire lives to mission work, two years is short term.  I have been on a ten day mission trip, a three week mission trip, and now I am in the middle of a two year experience that I don't like to call a trip because I have a permanent address and I am living as a part of this community. This has been my experience, and it is only from this experience that I can speak. Other people will have different experiences, and that does not make either of us right or wrong.
     When I look at these teams of people and try to see the world through their eyes, I admit that I think of some of the things they will not do. They will never have to experience what it means to be a mandated reporter, and they will never sit in Trauma 101 or suicide prevention training. They will be gone before they become familiar, so they will not know what it's like when you're no longer new and exciting. They will get tired, exhausted even, but they will not be here long enough to go through periods of burnout. They might learn a little about the boarding schools and generational trauma, but they will not be here long enough to see how it is woven so tightly into the fabric of the community that you can almost miss it if you don't know where to look.
     One of the things I've noticed about mission work is that everyone loves to call it "God's work." Although I think this title is quite pretentious, (imagine the reaction if an accountant, or teacher, or stay at home parent dared to give their work such a title, even though their work can easily be just as Godly as mine), I guess I can understand where it comes from. And if there's one thing I know at this point in my life, it's there is a whole lot about God and God's work that I do not know.
     So, the short term teams will do what they feel is their part of their work, and I will continue to do mine. When they express their excitement about being in a place where a reality show was filmed, I will try not to roll my eyes, if only for the sole reason that my mother taught me that it's rude to do that, and I suppose missionaries should try not to be rude. When I see them excited for the work they are doing, I will be happy for them. I will do my best not to join the debate about whose work is more important and more effective, because my desire to do this comes from a selfish place, not a call from God.
     These teams will leave soon, but not without teaching me something. I have very strong feelings about the way mission work should be done, especially in a region that has been so deeply damaged by people calling themselves missionaries. But my strong feelings do not make me the ultimate authority on the subject. And if we are indeed going to have the boldness to call this God's work, then I should be so busy consulting God about how my part of the job is to be done that I have no time left over to criticize what anyone else is doing.

A random picture of a wildflower I took recently, because nothing else seemed to fit with this post.

Do I Look Busy?

     It was a young volunteer that asked the question, after the rush of people had died down and we had a moment to sit quietly at the food bank.

She held up a nearby clipboard, pretending to write on it.

"Jennie, do I look busy?"

     She was just playing, probably mimicking actions she's seen from from adults. She had no idea she had just vocalized a question I'm constantly asking myself.
     Being this busy is a somewhat new thing to me since moving here, and that's part of why I cling to it so much. In the months before I moved, I was without a job and bored out of my mind in an unhealthy way. For this reason, I sometimes equate the busyness I now experience with the overall healthy mental state I feel like I'm in, and I know that this association could potentially lead to problems if I'm not careful. But it's more than just my own mind that tries to tell me that busy is good.
      I had lots of opportunities back home to do Sunday school classes and Bible studies with women just a few years older than me, and I always found it a bit backwards how much time was spent talking about how to fit God into our busy lives. I never understood how it has become such an admirable thing to be so busy with our own lives that even God is just another commitment that we scramble to fit in somewhere.
     When I think of the women in my own family, I think of busyness. There's always something to be done, usually something selfless and helpful to others. One of my favorite pictures is of me as a young child, laying on the floor surrounded by my mother, my grandmother, and my great grandmother. When I first discovered this picture, the thing that struck me the most about it was that it showed four generations of women in my family all sitting down at one time. But it also serves as a reminder that no matter how busy the women in my family were, they were never to busy to love people, including me. There have been a few moments over the past months when I've been able to see a glimpse of them within myself, and I can't think of many things at all that make me prouder than that.
     As I sit here trying to finish writing this post, my mind keeps wandering to the last minute things I need to do for the day camp I'm leading starting tomorrow. I want it to be a success, and I've tried my best to make sure that it will be. But what if my best isn't good enough?
    That question is often the driving force of my busyness, and I wonder if the women of the generations before me ever asked themselves the same thing. What I do know is that their busyness came from, and still does come from a place of love and a willingness to serve others, not a desire for self promotion or worldly recognition.
     I think it's going to take me a long time to figure out how busy is the right amount for me, but I hope that I will always remember the women who taught me what it means to be busy for the right reasons.

You Wouldn't Understand

     There is something I've been wanting to write about for months now, but I haven't been able to let myself do it. I've started many times, but I've stopped myself just as many times because I care too much about what you think.
     I care too much to find out that you don't really care. I don't mean that in a rude way. I just mean that you have your own life, and reading a blog about my life is a very small part of it. The words that I spend hours choosing carefully will be read within minutes, and probably forgotten about within a day or two. I'm not mad about it, it would be strange if someone's whole life revolved around this blog. It's just hard sometimes to throw my most vulnerable thoughts into a medium that is consumed so quickly and soon forgotten. But my writing is the best way I know to share what matters to me, and there are some things about what I do here in Nome that I haven't shared.
     So while I have your attention for a few minutes, I want you to know that what I'm about to tell you is very important and even sacred to me. It may not mean much to you, but it means everything to me that I'm choosing to share this with you at this moment in time. So, as you read this, remember the pictures I've shared of the children I have the privilege of spending time with every day. Remember how cute you might think they are, and how sweet you think they look.
   What goes through your mind when I reveal to you that many of them are living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders? Do you want to gasp and say "Bless their hearts"?  I could write a whole post on my strong dislike for that sentiment, but we'll get to that later. Do you think about some out of context fact you heard once about Native Americans drinking too much? Do you cast judgement on the mothers of these children? I did too, until I had enough education and self discipline to lay down that judgement. And to be completely honest, there are moments of deep frustration when I let that judgement creep back in, but I am working on it.
     What is your reaction when I tell you that these children are the children and grandchildren of people affected by trauma? The majority of the people that caused that trauma caused it in the name of God. They called themselves missionaries while removing children from their homes and families, and telling them that their culture was sinful. This meant that an entire generation grew up separated from their family and their culture, and the effects of that separation are still visible in their grandchildren and great grandchildren today.
    Maybe you were raised to believe that everyone should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and that every obstacle in the world can be overcome if you're willing to work hard enough. I grew up in a place where that mentality runs rampant, but it is not a mentality that lines up in any way with anything my faith teaches me.  It also does not line up with anything I've learned about trauma, and the way it literally changes the structure of the human brain. I know that many of you who read this are living where I grew up, where I'm sure that mentality is just as prominent as it was when I left back in August. Since I know this, I've waited over nine months to share this information with you. I don't want you to use that mentality to make judgements about people you have never met, who are people that mean a lot to me.
     But as much as I might like too, I cannot control what the rest of the world thinks. I can only write about things as I see them, and hope that something good will come of it. So there it is, I've finally written about the thing that I haven't been able to write about for months. And maybe it turned out to be just another blog post. Or maybe, someone out there will stop and think for just a minute, and begin to see things a little bit differently.
   

Rocks in My Pockets

    When I was little, I had a habit of picking up rocks and bringing them home in my pockets. Whether they were from the playground at school, the beach, or even my own driveway, every time I saw a rock that looked pretty to me, I picked it up and put it in my pocket.  I did this so much that at some point, my parents got me a box to keep them all in. It was perfect. it had dividers so I could sort the rocks any way my young heart desired, and I called it my "rock box."

     Earlier this week, on one of the warmest days we've had here in months, I decided to take a walk on the beach, and I soon discovered that I have not outgrown my desire to collect every pretty rock I come across. But knowing that I don't have anywhere to put a bunch of rocks, or anything to do with them other than look at them, I took a picture of my favorite rocks and left the beach with just one piece of sea glass in my pocket. 

     Although it seems I've learned some restraint when it comes to picking up actual rocks, the thing that lead me to taking some alone time on the beach that day was my habit of collecting metaphorical rocks.

A program I'm trying to help out with is fading away due to lack of attendance and people start to ask questions, that's a rock in my pocket.

The food bank runs out of community donations again despite my best efforts, and another rock goes in my pocket. 

My apartment starts to get messy because I don't have the energy to make myself clean it after working all day, and another huge rock goes in. 

I try to make a newsletter that's supposed to include "success stories" and my mind goes blank. If my newsletter was about things I feel like I haven't done well enough, it would be ten pages long. 

     Whenever this habit comes up in conversation with people who know me and care about me, which it has several times this week, I'm advised to stop taking everything so personally, and stop being so hard on myself.

     I would love to take this advice, if only I knew how. I've been called sensitive for as long as I can remember, and maybe my habit of carrying things in my mind is rooted in that sensitivity. But if losing that sensitivity means I stop caring about things that really matter to me, like running the food bank well, and contributing to my job and my church in helpful ways, then maybe I don't want to lose it.

     I think I'm always going to be a rock collector, whether it's the occasional pretty stone I find on the beach, or the things I care about that I carry around in my mind. I just need to find a way to have a rock box for my metaphorical rocks, because they are to heavy for me to always hold them in my mind.      

I regret not picking up the rock on the left with the perfect stripe. That's a good rock.