A Year Ago I Started a Journey

A year ago I ended a journey. And started a journey.

The day after I was home--the next day--I was told the trip was paid for. Remember? I said I only had half of the money. A friend from college surprised me and fronted the rest. I cried and cried. That was the moment I knew I really had to find a passion.

I don't think there was a "what is it?" process. I think I just started writing. I've always written, but somewhere along the way I got tired. With my first novel, I had all these snippets of scenes that I wrote at work over the first two weeks of being home. There were so many and none of them went together at all. A friend said to me, "just pick one and write it." So, I did.

Then I wrote a half a novel. Then, I stopped and re-wrote it. Then, I kept going.

It was somewhere in the re-writing stage on a day in early April (in fact--it was the day New Moon came out on DVD because I was at work at Borders) I met Myra. She came into the store and we (she, my boss Elizabeth and I) talked YA books. Then, we found out that she had a book coming out. And before the night was over, I said to her, "I just started writing a YA novel. I mean, I don't know what it means. I love writing. I don't know what to do. What do I do?" She told me to get on twitter and get involved. And I did.


You don't realize how much a single conversation will change the course or your life until it does. I mean, if I'd never met Myra that day I would've never used twitter correctly. All of April is a blur of #yalitchat and blog reading and writing my novel. That's how it started for me. She pulled me into a world of encouragement and amazing people. I felt like I could do something for the first time in my life. It was a good feeling.

When the floods came to Nashville in May, Myra introduced me to Victoria and Amanda. I've said in various places that those three women really taught me a lot. And they did. Perseverance. Hope. Possibilities. The importance of putting yourself out there, of trying. I can't tell you how awesome and unexpected their entrance into my life was--and how needed. In a way, the flood washed away all the bad I had in my life...because by the end of it all, I was loaded up and leaving. It was quick and unexpected, but I'd never felt more assured of a decision in my life. Leaving Nashville was hard and easy in the same breath.
 
Leaving a place that you didn't love is an easy thing to do. Leaving a place full of people you did love is a hard thing to do. You see the purpose in a place over time. Since I've been in Boston, I've learned the purpose of the misery I allowed myself to live in Nashville.

I was in Tennessee so I could my internship. I was at my internship so I could go to South Africa. So I'd be inspired. I had an internship that made me work--so  I could work at Borders--where I'd meet Elizabeth (my boss). She was the person who got me reading YA. So I could meet Myra, V and Amanda. So I could be on twitter. So I could be encouraged. So I could move to Boston and have a community before I even arrive.  All of that so I could write.

It's all entwined. Each moment, each decision, each conversation. A year ago I started a journey. I'm sure a year from now I'll be on a new one. I don't know what that looks like but I'm sure that it will one I'll never forget.

A Year Ago I Came Home

I was really bad about posting my South Africa experiences. But it doesn't matter. The main things that matter--I went, I experienced and I came home. A year ago today, I came home.

While I was there I experienced so much. Children who had nothing. Adults who had nothing. An entire community that lived divided by race--a community whose children were being taught another way to live. The sick received help. The hungry received food. The broken started healing. The poor (which was almost everyone we encountered) found small victories that made them rich.

Our last morning before the flight, we were asked what we learned or what we didn’t expect to learn and did anyway. My answer was simple. I felt like people hoped this trip would teach me so much about myself and make my passions clearer. I came and experienced everything with that expectation. I was so tired of being lost and I had been for months. BUT I didn't get any of that.

I did get a reminder about life, about the things I knew and had forgotten somewhere along the way. That was the place to start. The other thing I learned is that I want to passionate about what I’m doing. I watched the Life Skills Educators (regular people who went into schools and taught abstinence, health, and everything that you can't learn in school) and they gave up everything for the kids and teens they in their communities. They do it  because they are passionate. I knew from that moment in the living room that was how I wanted to  live my life. I didn't want to do things just because it's easy

This is Snazzle. She's my fave girl ever!

or where I am or whatever,  but because I’m passionate about those things.
 
I spent the whole 28 hours of travel thinking about that question: What was I passionate about?

I can't remember how long it took me to get the answer: writing. I honestly don't remember much about coming home except being so utterly disgusted with my life. There was nothing joyful in it. Nothing I liked about where I was (except the people) and nothing I liked about myself. I was so miserable--and worse, I'd decided there were no other options for me and I'd become comfortable in the misery. Misery is a warm blanket. It wraps itself around you until you're so hot and twisted in it you can't get out of it.

A year ago I came home. And then, I started a journey. I'll post that one tomorrow.

A Year Ago It Was Starting

A year ago Friday, I woke up in South Africa. Our house was on the beach near a town called Fish Hoek (that's not where we were, but it was down the road.) I woke up in the morning and smelled the water, listened to waves as I went to sleep, and the wind that is ever-present in South Africa's summer season. A year ago today, everything was starting.

I wrote at the end of day one: It’s a miracle that I even got to come here.

And it was. I mentioned that I didn't like where I was as an intern, but had I been anywhere else I never would've gotten to go. See, I only had half the trip paid for. I still had to pay about $1,600. I didn't have it, but they let me go anyway. Not many places would allow you to go on a trip that you hadn't paid for. If I had been anywhere else I would never have gone.

I also wrote this: I’ve been here less than 24 hours and I know that something big is happening around me.

We say things flippantly, not really gathering the full weight of the words. I'm pretty positive this was one of those moments. Before I went on the trip, people kept telling me not to waste it. I never planned to, but I didn't know what to expect. Yet I expected so many things. I expected to come back knowing my passions are A, B and C. I wanted to be able to say THIS (whatever A, B or C was) is my life calling, my purpose. I expected answers. But even in that expectation, I didn't know what that would be. It was a flippant expectation--and one that as I look back I spent so much time looking for--that I missed a lot of small things.

On day one, we got to explore the organization we were there to serve alongside. It's called Living Hope and they change lives. Completely transform lives. It's the embodiment of what it looks like to see a need and meet it. It’s something that you hear all about and so rarely see put into action. Living Hope is a ministry that gives people who have HIV/AIDS a chance to fully live by offering free health services and teaching life skills to people who just need to make money to survive.

There's another branch that serves the homeless (called Living Grace) by giving them a place to store their belongings, beds and meals. Living Works teaches those who come out of poor townships how to survive. There's even a group of people called Life Skills Educators who "sponsors" children and youth across townships and teach them. (I'll talk more about that later.)

But on day one, we got a small glimpse of Living Works at the Educare Center--a place where all the kids (usually of those involved in Living Works) who can't afford school go--that's set in the heart of a township called Masiphumelele. (That's pronounced like mas-e-pooh-ma-lay-lee, which I only add because I’m one of those people who would keep trying to figure it out). Masi is one major township that Living Hope serves in. When we walked into their classroom today, they were learning how to brush their teeth. Crazy, huh?

For me, even a year later, what they do is so amazing. I used to be that person who didn't know what I wanted out of life because I loved so many things. Homelessness and HIV/AIDS movements being two of them. Children being another, though a year ago that was still pretty minute (aka denial) in my head, almost nothing. In ONE DAY I found a place that served all my passions. All of them. It made me realize that maybe, just maybe, they could all work together somehow. Even as I reflect and write this I get chills. Why can't we do this in America--have one places that serves every need in our community? The things that would change...


A year ago today, it was starting. Those moments of life-change that are so small you can't even see them until it's a year later. I know I still can't. It's crazy how we do things without thinking--and how those things completely wreck our lives. That's not always a bad thing. It wasn't for me.

If you want to follow the team that's there now, you can do it here.

A Year Ago I Left

A year ago today, I was packing a bag for South Africa. For months I'd planned, worried about money to pay for it, and questioned why I wanted to go, but on this day one year ago, I was restless. Waiting. Stuck in between here and there. I was excited, but it was different. It was a calming excitement that I can't possibly explain unless you've felt it.

The people I went with are headed there right now--at this exact moment they're waiting in the Nashville airport to go again. I'm not; I'm nannying in Boston and drinking coffee. It's a weird feeling, knowing that they're going to visit the wonderful kiddos we saw, see the gorgeous country and check in on the people we served and met. And me, I'm sitting here.

It's crazy where life can go in a year. I'm sure I'll say the same thing next year for other reasons that I can't see now. I definitely never planned to be here a year ago. Boston? Blogging? Writing? You would've been crazy to say that to me. I don't make a lot of life plans, but those were big, unheard of, scary words to me a year ago.

I'm telling you about South Africa because that trip was one of those moments you can pinpoint as something that puts your life on course. I've never really told this story on my blog. It's a huge, enormous story that needs to be told. So, I'll be posting things over the next couple weeks about where I was a year ago. There may be some double posts each day because I didn't plan on doing this--but now I am. I hope you like the story. The end is pretty awesome.

A year ago, I worked as an intern at a church. It was a hard time. I didn't love it, didn't even like it, but it was what I did. I also worked at Borders (one of the unfortunate ones that's closing and I am so sad for my family there). I kept busy between the two. Work and intern. I liked work; I hating interning from the very first day. Each day was a struggle. Each task was more horrible than the one before. I missed college. I wanted to leave every single day but I had nowhere to go and nothing else I wanted to do.

The important thing for today to know is: a year ago I went to South Africa. I had no expectations, no clue of who I was, no idea what I was really, really passionate about. A year ago I went because I had this urge in my heart and my gut that said it was where I needed to be. I've never been a girl who wanted to go overseas--but I've always been a girl who listened to my gut, who acted on whims even though I hate them, who did what I felt I needed to do regardless of everyone else. That's just me. When I left for South Africa, I even went regardless of my fears.

When I came back from South Africa...well, I was a lot smarter, a lot more in tune with life, a lot more everything. You'll hear that story in a couple weeks.

A year ago today I was waiting to go to South Africa. I had no idea what I'd find there. It's completely like everything in my life, like writing, like reading an awesome book: there was a lot of a trouble and a lot of good to come.