Love on.

I got sworn in as a CASA today. It's a big deal to me, and I had really internalized the process to reflecting a lot of personal goals: I'm giving back, I'm investing in my community, in youth, in someone who is perpetually at a crossroads and could be so much like me, where one act of graciousness and empathy can stick with you forever and affect so many future decisions in the best kind of way.

I like to give of myself. I do it in friendships, but now I'm so far away from them. I don't have romantic relationships (and really, even in those, I rarely give more than I clearly discern). Giving some guidance to kids seems really the best route.

I've been thinking about my youth. They ask some really deep questions throughout the screening and interview process of this. What are your best and worst memories of your childhood? The best and worst things about your mom? Dad? Who influenced you the most? Who disappointed you the most and why?

I remember so many nights of screaming and fighting and loud thumps against walls in the dark, never knowing if it was a fist or a head or a vase being thrown. Sleeping in my clothes when they started early, knowing I'd have to call the cops and run to Jacque's before they got to the house and would threaten to call CPS and have me removed. Being taken by my aunt, who didn't understand the bond between a single child and their mother in an abusive house; that criticizing her in
front of me did nothing but evoke a deeply defensive response and made me resent anyone attacking her, physically or otherwise. It was hard for all of us, but we made it work, because we're family, and that's what you do when you're a unit.

I remember Jacque and Dale, Daddy Dick and Gram, Audrey, the Poons. A woman with a fake well in her front yard who always gave me an ice cream sandwich when she saw me sitting on my bike by her house. My grandmothers soft arms when she hugged me. My cousin Danny always letting me watch movies with him. My cousin Naomi reading Grimm's Fairy Tales to me. Kites in fields with my Aunt ZZ and Uncle Mike, every holiday nestled in their home.

I have been blessed. The negative I learned from. The positive I enshrined. There are few things I would rather do in life that didn't revolve around those two principles: absorb and cherish.

Be grateful.

So many things could've gone differently. One less person could've altered everything, forever changing the course of my life. The ability to be the stone that ripples a pond is a calling, a burden-less debt, that I have witnessed in hundreds of people and try to emulate every day.

My life is a gift, and I want to make it reflect the investment of so much love and time.

Love on.