This week was an avalanche. This week was overwhelming. This week was a challenge. This week I grew. This week I had my first day of school all over again, but instead of waiting anxiously with my books and my pencils and color coded pens I was waiting anxiously to be told how to help these young people learn. To help these young people grow. To help teachers manage huge class loads. To help teachers manage troubled children. To help hard working and exhausted teachers breathe. This week I lost myself and became whatever was needed of me and I am not sure I even impacted anyone, but they impacted me. The best part…none of it was about me.
People did not remember my name or know what I was doing there most of the time or even what Young Adult Volunteers was, but perhaps it is important for me to surrender to these feelings of heaviness, loneliness, and lack of self worth. Perhaps in these moments I must hear God whisper “It is perfect” the good, the bad, the fun, the hard, the sad, all of it. We are meant to feel all of it and to know that we are okay in the midst of it. So I surrender to the feeling and the voice in my head telling me that these are results of the fact that I am not enough and commit to the wandering of this year. This lost feeling I have now and I will let carry me, may feel uncomfortable but perhaps God is re-writing my story and allowing me to be something entirely different than how I perceive myself. To find where I am meant to go, what I am meant to do, and how I am meant to feel as I was created to feel in order to share this with children growing and writing their own stories.
Through all of my work this week I thought of Wild the memoir of Cheryl Strayed’s journey down the Pacific Crest Trail. At the beginning of her struggles along this strenuous life altering path Cheryl asks herself over and over “What have I done?”. I felt myself asking these open ended questions within my mind as I walked the halls of Encore Academy where I volunteer: Why did I move in this direction? Why did I choose this path? As I slowly hit huge speed bumps and pot holes(so unreasonably common in New Orleans) I began to fear how many more craters would I encounter along this journey? But watching the determination, passion, and strength of the teachers and volunteers around me has taught me I am doing the best thing I can.
I am walking a path that will not by any means be easy but will be an success simply because Im on a journey to find my place in this universe. Perhaps this is so hard for me because I am conditioned to think success must look a certain way from comparing myself against the many people I know and their carefully crafted shiny snippets of their life on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. In the current social universe the disgusting parts of the day like being bitten by an 8 year old, flipped off by a 7th grader, and screamed at consistently that I am stupid, are careful pushed out of the lens of focus and the items we share to the rest of the world. Yet, everyone has these ugly, trying, and messy moments and no one has everything quite figured out despite the way it may appear. So for now I will endure the bumps search for new road signs and keep my head up for the next steps.
People did not remember my name or know what I was doing there most of the time or even what Young Adult Volunteers was, but perhaps it is important for me to surrender to these feelings of heaviness, loneliness, and lack of self worth. Perhaps in these moments I must hear God whisper “It is perfect” the good, the bad, the fun, the hard, the sad, all of it. We are meant to feel all of it and to know that we are okay in the midst of it. So I surrender to the feeling and the voice in my head telling me that these are results of the fact that I am not enough and commit to the wandering of this year. This lost feeling I have now and I will let carry me, may feel uncomfortable but perhaps God is re-writing my story and allowing me to be something entirely different than how I perceive myself. To find where I am meant to go, what I am meant to do, and how I am meant to feel as I was created to feel in order to share this with children growing and writing their own stories.
Through all of my work this week I thought of Wild the memoir of Cheryl Strayed’s journey down the Pacific Crest Trail. At the beginning of her struggles along this strenuous life altering path Cheryl asks herself over and over “What have I done?”. I felt myself asking these open ended questions within my mind as I walked the halls of Encore Academy where I volunteer: Why did I move in this direction? Why did I choose this path? As I slowly hit huge speed bumps and pot holes(so unreasonably common in New Orleans) I began to fear how many more craters would I encounter along this journey? But watching the determination, passion, and strength of the teachers and volunteers around me has taught me I am doing the best thing I can.
I am walking a path that will not by any means be easy but will be an success simply because Im on a journey to find my place in this universe. Perhaps this is so hard for me because I am conditioned to think success must look a certain way from comparing myself against the many people I know and their carefully crafted shiny snippets of their life on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. In the current social universe the disgusting parts of the day like being bitten by an 8 year old, flipped off by a 7th grader, and screamed at consistently that I am stupid, are careful pushed out of the lens of focus and the items we share to the rest of the world. Yet, everyone has these ugly, trying, and messy moments and no one has everything quite figured out despite the way it may appear. So for now I will endure the bumps search for new road signs and keep my head up for the next steps.