A Year Later

It's been a year since I walked across that stage.

A year since I decided to go back to Lexington.

A whole year has passed and I'm not really sure how to measure it.

There were no semesters. No classes. 

Yet, still so many tests, failures... and what I call small victories.

If there were an award for isolating yourself... for padding yourself in such a way... in order for nothing, no one, to enter beyond a certain point... I fear I would be the recipient.

I haven't truly allowed myself to sift through all the brokenness. To acknowledge that I am broken.  

A year ago I was discharged by my therapist and despite the fact another friend had to practically drag me there months before... I was confused. I felt like I was losing the only space I had allowed myself to be fully broken, vulnerable. I didn't see the growth she had seen in me. 
I had to be honest with myself. Everyone else, well they can see right through me, or claim me as a mystery they want to solve...

A year later and I don't regret that space... I also don't want to go back to it. I am not ignorant though.
I know what it feels like to be under the water too long. I know the feeling of telling yourself you can do it, when truly, you cannot. 
With an Indie-Folk Ballad playing in the background, I have looked myself up and down in the mirror, receiving what my body tells me. Accepting the truths no workout or self help book or meditation could have aided in.
Just me and my body. 
Knowing that all bright suns have to set at some point. 

I am okay.


A year later I am still in my parents house.
A year later I am still waiting for the community center to be opened in Woodhill... just days away.
A year later I have seen my team come together in strong numbers, passion, experience... to falling in a dark spiral, to leveling out... to just showing up each day, giving it all we have, and wondering what our future could be.
A year later and I have decided situational friendship is true. I don't feel sad about it either way. I've just become more cautious. I don't enter spaces I doubt will be genuine beyond a certain occasion unless forced.
A year later and I have humbly learned it takes a lot more than a big heart to make anything in ministry happen, and happen well.
A year later and I have met some amazing young people that blow me away every single day. Young people that are facing things that would keep you up at night. Young people I would sacrifice everything for.
A year later and I wonder if I set people up for failure once I left.
A year later and I have no regrets.
A year later and I am looking forward, always... really I have a hard time looking back most days. I don't know how people do it. I am better off just looking forward, gracious for the time I had behind me, of course.


I think the reason there is no true way to measure this past year... or many years after this one, is because everyone is having the year they have. We aren't running the same course, at the same pace anymore. Maybe I never was. But I know now, for sure, that your land marks are not mine. And I am still fighting for what mine look like. I think I learn something knew at every sun set. And tomorrow, a bright sun within me will rise again, allowing me to mark a new journey.

The Caged Bird & I

I once read a poem about a caged bird and I sobbed. 

The thought of it being created as a free thing, and getting trapped into confinement broke my heart at an early age. 

My mom told me one spring if I played in the rain barefoot I'd get sick... but I was created to be free like the bird, so I dared the previous warnings and didn't regret it once a cough settled into my chest.

I have ignored almost every word of caution since...

From bed to bed, couch to couch, house to house, city to city, I go.

If not for adventure, what?  My soul asked confused.

Chaotic routine hit me like a baseball bat cracking as it hits the season opener.

This free bird saw a cage like shadow and swore she could manage... but it loomed.

Needing rest. Forgetting to exhale. My eyes remain in a flash flood zone.

No identifiable timeline, no recognizable season. I feel the need to move sluggishly and quick, all at the same time. No way of telling right from left.

The bird sought out a landing spot... just for a minute... just so she can gather her thoughts.

That's when he saw her... and put her in the cage. 

I wonder now, how long that little bird survived after entering the cage.

It's awfully dark in here.

See You Soon

I can't make any promises that when you read this or look at the pictures... you won't tear up a little. 

I know I did.

This is a picture of JoQuan and I at his 5th grade graduation. That was a huge day for him because he got the award for reading... two years before that, reading was the worst thing you could have asked him to do.

Tomorrow JoQuan will get on a greyhound bus and start a new chapter in his life. 

A sophomore in high school... I can feel years passed inside my soul. The good, the bad, the ugly. That is what we all signed up for. I wouldn't trade it for anything. 

Even when the ugly means you gotta chase a kid down the street, loosing earrings along the way. 

Or tough phone calls. Or school meetings. Or nightmares... 

I want to believe this is the end of an ugly chapter, and the start of a really beautiful one.

 But only time will tell.

And that time apart, selfishly, feels like too much.

He is joy.

He is laughter.

He is the best friend you could ask for.

And even though he asked to be my boyfriend in the 3rd grade... he settled for little brother.

And we never looked back.

"If I wear this hoodie... it means you can't leave."

This was one of the last Urban Impact camps before I went to college.

Despite how hard those days preparing to leave were... 

I knew it was the right decsion, for myself, and for them.

JoQuan has told me he is prepared and ready for this next step. 

He knows what needs to happen in order to succeed and come back.

I don't know where the time went...

I tell stories about how your anger took over sometimes.

How your fists would ball up and you would roll your eyes and do everything in your power to not cry over little things... but big things had piled up... so you let them fall anyway.

I tell those stories because of how wild they seem now.

How light and life enter the room when you are there.

How you instigate and keep the peace all at the same time!

 If someone would have told me that the 3rd grader with a huge mouth, silly jokes, and skater boy style, would have turned out to be this young man below... I'm not sure I would be shocked... 

I think I would understand. I think part of me would be really proud, and part would be really sad. 

I probably would've said something like, 

"He's gonna go places... if he would get out of his own way." 

And he is doing just that.

Forever the Loves of my life.

Forever the reason I age 10 years every week.

Love you, J.

We'll see you soon.