Keep Telling the Stories

I do not want to write this blog post.

I've used this space over the course of a year to reflect and process my experiences, the same way someone might keep a private journal. But I like knowing what I write is going to be read. It forces me to put my thoughts into a digestible, mildly-functional structure and to see my own experiences as others might perceive them.

If I had simply kept a journal this year, I can almost guarantee it would be filled with nonsensical statements about nothing and maybe a grocery list or two. In other words, I wouldn't trust myself to write something worthwhile if I was the only one who would read it.

But I don't want to write this post because once I do, it means I've admitted to myself and others that my year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps is over.

But just because I won't admit it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Like with getting older, or climate change--denial isn't going to fix the inevitable.

I've known I wanted to be a JV ever since high school when I first heard Mr. Neely talk about his experiences in Belize. I resented that I couldn't sign up right at the end of high school (I was a weird kid, okay? Jeez...). Though I kind of drifted from my Jesuit nerdom in college, JVC was really always something I figured I would do. So forgive me if I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that JVC is something I've "done."

But it's not "done." Man, part of me wishes I could talk about this year as an experience I "had." But that ruined for life stuff? It's pretty lasting. Some might say permanent. I want to be able to write about all the ways I was affected this year, write a neat essay about my highs and lows, the gifts and challenges, but that sort of stuff doesn't occur to you until after the fact. Say, in the cosmetics section of Walgreens when you're trying to buy eyeliner, but are having a tiny crisis because you aren't sure what brand is the most socially-just whilst feeling guilty because you recently learned the brand you've always gone with is about as socially-just as a police state managed by capitalists who enjoy drowning kittens when they aren't dismantling basic human rights (rhymes with SchmoverGirl).

So rather than try to summarize my year as a whole, I'm going to break it down by the core points. After all, that's what the blog is named for, yeah?

What to expect. 

These are the Fish, Bread, House and Bird highlights of my year:

Fish-Spirituality

My spiritual life at the beginning of the year was essentially non-existent. Looking back, I figured I'd be going to a lot of church and doing a lot of god-centric reflecting as a JV. Truthfully, I did end up doing more of that than I thought, but that wasn't anything worth writing home about.

The nice thing about not being down with the JC at the beginning of the year is the only thing I could do was improve. So really, any strides I made spiritually look pretty dang good. That being said, any spiritual revelations I had this year are still weird to write about for me without convincing myself I'm turning into one of those Jesus Campers. So I've got a little faith, trust and pixie dust going on in my life these days. And I'm more than a little okay with that.

Also? I officially am able to correctly respond "And with your spirit" on the rare occasions I find myself in attendance a Mass. If that feat doesn't reek of progress, I don't know what does.

Bread- Simple Living

Simple living is perhaps the most obnoxious value to figure out as a JV.

This is the definition from the JVC website:

JVC creates valuable opportunities for Jesuit Volunteers to live a simple, practical life. Their basic needs met and living in solidarity with people who are poor and marginalized, they separate needs from wants and gain freedom from the material. As part of a supportive community, they learn to prioritize, put people before things, and make deliberate, intentional decisions about how to use their time, money, and talents. The JVC experience is a chance for JVs to reflect on simple living, define it in their own terms, and explore how to carry it into their lives.

First, you figure it's all about not spending money. But then someone makes a case that simple living should also include only buying local produce with your grocery budget, because it will not only contribute to the community you live in, but also is better for the environment. Smaller carbon footprint = simple living. But the local produce is more expensive.

Not to worry, you'll just buy cheaper coffee to make at home to make up for it. But a quick Google search tells you that Folgers not only hates the environment, but isn't fair trade, which means your convenience coffee is crapping on some poor coffee farmer in a third world nation. That isn't "living in solidarity with people."

So you start to do more research on sustainable coffee companies. BUT then you being to wonder if your use of technology to Google these companies is becoming excessive. Is this time well spent? So you decide to make up for it by spend more quality time with people, but you can't go to the bar or the movies or anywhere because everything costs money and the only thing you're sure you can do simply is not spend money.

Next thing you know, you've given up coffee, technology, friends and eating anything because everything is too complicated to fit in your new, simple lifestyle.

Simple living is deciding not to do anything ever again because that's the simplest thing you can do.

Hyperbole aside, simple living is truly a tough one. Because you know what's also simple? Plunking down $4 for some mediocre, psudo-fair trade coffee at Starbucks and spending a few hours wasting time on your smartphone, not talking to people.

Part of being a JV is being exposed to the things that our society has chosen to ignore in the favor of convenience or comfort. And part of the experience is trying to figure out how to respond to those things. Falling off the grid and living by yourself in a pioneers-style cabin isn't the answer, surprisingly. From what I gather, the idea is to be as nonmaterialistic as possible while intentionally (that word...) being as conscious as manageable about every material thing you engage in. So, still living in the world, but being very aware of the way you live in it.

I'm making it out to be worse than it really was. Once simple living stops being overwhelming, it becomes liberating. Deciding to live within your means takes a weird amount of pressure off existing. Everyone and their mother says we live in a consumer society, but it's not until you make an effort to get out that the glaring reality of that situation presents itself. I'm troubled by the material-focused world I live in, but even more troubled knowing that there's only so troubled I can be before it becomes...counter-cultural?

But that's what intentional simple living is, isn't it? Something counter-cultural.

The best thing I got out of this year was the desire to live more simply and to take greater care to turn awareness into action. I don't want to lose that. My life was complicated in other ways this year, but less complicated than it would have been without this value. Moving forward, I want things to stay complex, but not complicated, if you catch my drift *eye brow waggle*.

That was just a creepy way of saying I dig this simple living stuff now. Gosh.

House- Community

It's been pointed out to me that I get very dramatic about community (by my community, no less). Towards the end of the year, when someone was away for a weekend or wasn't going to be home for dinner, I would sulk. Realio-trulio, pouting, sighing-sulking. This is first and foremost because I am a brat. But as a close, secondary reason, I sulked because I didn't want to miss a moment with these girls.

Because we are so dang cute. 

When I was preparing to leave for JVC, I told people very little about the girls I'd be living with. In my mind, I was going to Chicago to be a JV. Who I lived with was just secondary. I know enough about myself to know I'm not always the easiest to get along with, never mind live with. I had resigned myself to the notion that making friends with my community was going to be a struggle. I imagined months of silent co-existence, broken only by small talk and the occasional JVC organized spirituality night. 

Fast forward ten months, and the same girls I had written off were gathered around a tiny table in the Signature Room on the top of the John Hancock building. Thanks to some parental generosity and some enterprising endeavors on the part of the community, we were enjoying some water in a fancy restaurant while a lightening storm rolled over Lake Michigan. We we're laughing, chatting and pretending that, for the moment, we were comfortable in a place like the Signature Room.

The roof of our old apartment was a better location for the likes of us. Weeks later, we dragged some libations, popcorn and the game Taboo to the top of the house we had just learned we were going to move out of. I'd played Taboo maybe once before with people I didn't know. This time, however, the game was peppered with memories, inside jokes and statements geared to teammates based on things we we're sure only they would understand.

It was a lot of little things that got me to this point.

It was coming home to the smell of popcorn and Frank's hot sauce and the sound of a Julia Roberts movie.

It was the bizarre amount of communal kazoo-ing we did in an effort to remain entertained and "present" to one another.

It was fangirling (phan) over Phantom of the Opera a little too enthusiastically but you don't really care because you finally found someone who will sing "Music of the Night" with you.

It was cracking a bottle of wine and trying to talk about the important things, but always ending up a little tipsy and mostly angry at various systems of oppression.

It was imagining all the stuff you'll do together when it's finally warm enough to go outside, even though you still can't afford things and never get home at a reasonable hour.

It was squeezing into a 2-person tent at Dis-O.
You build community real fast that way...

It was celebrating each other's successes and empathizing with the troubling things.

It was affirming ever damn thing anyone did ever because at some point, excessive affirmation became y'all's "thing." And it was not realizing how deeply ingrained in your psyche the need to affirm became until you thanked someone else for "being you and all that you do" at Dis-O and were met with, primarily, confusion.

It was wishing you lived alone, but later deciding you realistically wouldn't trade the mess and chatter because coming home to the nonsense you live with is always the best part of your day.

Living in community was more like being married than having roommates--You didn't have to like and appreciate who you were with all the time, but you loved them. At some point this year, I fell in love with Trish and Anna and Camille and Miranda. The love I have for these girls, to me, is at once obvious and overwhelming, and it's way too sad to even fathom that I will never have a community just like this again.

Living with the Bernardin girls taught me that everyone's stories and experiences are valuable and important, and part of being human is learning to love people for who they are and where they come from. The weirdness that comes with trying to get to know people in that meaningful way is part of what made community strangely fun. I never imagined how far I'd fall into community-love with my house mates, and I'm beyond lucky to have shared this year with them.

No, I'm not crying...

Bird- Justice

This value, oddly enough, is the only one I feel like I haven't grown in.

Truth be told, I didn't feel like the job I did contributed to a new understanding of how I could live this value. I dealt with entitled, rude people more often than I didn't, and not a day went by that I didn't encounter someone who I, simply, could not empathize with.  It's hard when daily, your vocabulary expands to include more ways to say "No."  It's hard knowing the job that stresses you out to the point of tears some days is little more than a band-aid for the population you work with. It's hard when you really feel like you aren't making much of a difference 

It sucked to learn that what I thought I was supposed to be doing maybe wasn't meant for me after all. 

So I didn't grow in love for homeless adults. I didn't receive a calling to go into social work. I didn't have a moment where suddenly I understood the interconnectedness of everyone and everything in the universe and simultaneously exploded with compassion for them all.

Hell, if anything I probably like people less after this year. But throughout my time, I clung to this quote to get me through:

"People are assholes. Love them anyway."- Mother Theresa.

Or something like that. But sometimes that's all you can do. I didn't grow in a commitment to justice this year. I think a better word for what happened was that my commitment evolved, the way that emotions or philosophies do. Or Pokemon.

Pictured: My commitment to justice.

My view of the amount of justice I can do has deflated. The best thing I learned this year was what my limits are. I'm not cut out for social work. Those who are built for it are amazing people whom I admire more than I'll be able to express without sounding super weird (...weirder than I sound already).

Remember that joke I told about social workers way back in this post? The one about the social worker and the light bulb that has to want to change? Well, I've updated it a bit:

How many social workers does it take to change a light bulb?

One, but she first needs to get funding for a functional step stool, make sure the electrical system can stay stable enough to support the light bulb, call the electric company to figure out what hoops she needs to jump through before changing the light bulb, check to see if the light bulb has criminal record, make sure there are enough additional social workers around to make sure the other lights stay on while she changes the light bulb she was working with, and brace herself for when the power, inevitably yet spontaneously, gets shut off.
This is all assuming the light bulb wants to change in the first place. Otherwise, all of that stuff didn't matter.

It's not fun anymore,  is it?

I'm forever tempted to cave and admit that one person can't change anything. But I said my view had been deflated, not defeated, so I'm not ready to sink that low into apathy yet.

I'm not about to drop everything and go corporate. There's a middle ground somewhere, and I'm kidding myself if I don't think I can still do something meaningful with my life that I'll also enjoy. I'm just not positive what yet. I learned this year, however, that often the most important part of doing justice is to just keep trying. Which seems like a dumb, cliched thing to have learned, huh? A lot of things are broken in our world. And nothing fixes itself on it's own. So, my commitment to justice has evolved from a "can-do attitude" to a "just keep on fighting" stubborn determination.

Keep loving. Keep fighting.

This year was far from perfect. But would I trade the experience? Never. I'm grateful to have had this opportunity, and am grateful to everyone who got me here and supported me on the way. 

Ruined for life? Yeah, probably. Because though this was such a truly short span of time in the grand scheme of things, I won't be able to forget the things I learned this year. So might as well rock that ruination moving forward. 

I leave Chicago in a week. I'm dismantling my life and leaving a place I'm finally comfortable with to start over in a new place. Again. The thought is daunting. But after the year I had, I think I'm ready.

There was a poem we read at Orientation that made an reappearance at Dis-O. "Passover Remembered" by Alla Bozarth-Campbell. For those who don't feel like reading it, it's the story of a journey. It rang true at the beginning of this year, and still feels relevant at the end. 

Pack nothing.
Bring only 
your determination to serve 
and your willingness to be free...

Thanks for reading, whoever you are. Thanks for taking the time to hear about this wild year and thanks for the feedback and whatever commitment you had to listening to my ramblings. You all are awesome. 

The Word for Not Changing is Death

I'm about to reference song lyrics. On a blog. Like I'm a 13 year old kid with feelings I'm not able to articulate into regular words.

But because I believe I am better than that, here's the whole song rather than just a vague, out of context quote. Because instead of reverting back to pre-teen methods of self expression, I'd rather introduce y'all to this band. I saw them live at the end of June and it was basically the best thing I've done so far this summer:

"The word for not changing is death."

Anthony de Mello, S.J., funnily enough, says something very similar:

"On the day you cease to change, you cease to live."

It's fun when punk rock and Jesuit spirituality agree, isn't it?

I've written a bit about the changes I'm noticing this year (See: ruined for life). They are slow and they are weird. But mostly, they are a constant, wonderful reminder that nothing, whether it's good, bad or ugly, is static. A year ago, impending change truly terrified me. Now? Yeah, I'm still scared, but change is exciting. Change is as expected as it is refreshing. As "Pat" the "Bunny" in all his Ramshackle Glory (ha) and Fr. Mello so eloquently put it, changes are a reminder that we are alive. The changes in my life remind me that though I recently turned the ancient age of 23, my life is far from over. 

The inclination at the end of my JV year is to say it's done. It's not. Not by a long shot.

This was all leading up to post about how the Chicago Bernardin community moved to a new house in Lawndale. You were probably expecting something different after all that drama, huh? Something a little more exciting? Nope. Moving. A blog post about moving. You can stop reading now if that's not your jam--I understand. Moving is actually my least favorite thing, and I'm sure reading about someone else's move wouldn't rank much higher.

But if you can stick it out and wade through my lackluster narrative of relocation, I'll give you a clue about what I'm doing after my JV year...

I'm moving to Washington DC to get a Masters in Political Communication at American University.

What? I said I was getting better at change, not surprises.
Or incentives, I guess. 

I'll keep it simple. Some bullet points:

Moving was awesome because:

• JVC caved and let us get a Uhaul. This made everything about 800 times less stressful. 
• Colleen Kennedy of JVC administration fame brought us bagels and coffee. 
• We had some incredible people from the Tolton community, some F(ormer) JVs and some F(riends of) JVs help us move all of our crap. We quite literally could not have done it with out the people who showed up. Each and every one of them is a beautiful, valuable human being. 
• The new south house is incredible. It has four bedrooms, two full baths, a backyard, functional temperature control, walls without cracks/hole, laundry appliances that actually work and all-in-all is not a shithole. 
• We are next to an El stop. Finally. Sure, it's the Pink Line, but a year in Chicago has taught me that the only thing worse than being next to the Pink Line is not being next to a train at all.

Moving sucked because:

• Fuck moving. 

Moving is the leading cause of death among friendships. Moving turns the place you call home into a nightmarish cardboard jungle that is barely navigable. Moving creates tension about stupid things like "should we keep this weird finger painting of a sailboat we just now found in our bathroom?" Moving can turn otherwise laid back, rational people into demanding control freaks who come to community meetings with a freaking two-page long agenda in which they've broken down the moving process into a bullet pointed schedule (This was me. I was that crazy person. Because like I said--fuck moving.)

But we made it. What I thought was going to be a community-shattering experience ended up being only mostly awful instead of totally terrible. 

Besides, check out our sweet new digs (excuse the mess):

Spacious upstairs living space!

Giant functional kitchen!

Cozy downstairs den (made complete by our killer VHS collection)

Backyard! With grass and things!

Best of all...NEXT TO THE PINK LINE. 

Not scary looking!

Sure, we're a lot father south now, living in an area that garners reactions like "Really? Aren't you scared?" But this new house is so. much. better. than what we left behind. It already feels more like home than our crappy old apartment ever did. 

Alas, I'll only be living in the new house for a month before I move. Again. 

This is the part where I talk about the next big change in my life, otherwise known as "the rest of my life post-Jesuit Volunteering."

I already ruined the surprise, but you made it this far so you might as well keep going, right?

Okay fine. Be that way.

For the rest of my favorites  readers, allow me to indulge in the story of how I ended up with plans to move to DC.    

In The Guide (I mean James Martin's The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything here. I personally think it would be cool if those who run in Jesuity circles could start calling this book The Guide. It would be like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, only about Jesus and would say AMDG rather than "DON'T PANIC" on the cover. I understand I am likely the only one who feels like this is a great idea, but now you know what I mean when I say The Guide. All righty then...moving on...), Martin S.J says that when it comes to Ignatian Discernment, Ignatius believed that the decider would inherently feel a sense of peace when making a decision if the decision was relevant to God's goals for them. 

Whether or not God sponsors your mission, it makes sense that a well-reflected-on decision would leave the decider with a sense of satisfaction with their course of action. That much Ignation results-oriented mysticism I can get behind. 

This is not how I make any of my decisions. I wish it was, because then every decision I make would be significantly less stressful. My decision making process usually goes one of two ways: I either wallow in indecisiveness until something happens which leaves me with only one option, or I make a decision driven by panic and anxiety that is so sudden, even I am surprised when it happens.

The later is how I ended up applying to American University in DC.

Twas the day before I was set to take the GRE way back in March.

My decision to apply for graduate school was unfortunately born out of the "only option" route. What I thought I'd end up doing and what JVC had me doing were clashing on an idealistic level. 

Going into media, my original idea for a life, suddenly didn't seem like what I was supposed to be doing. I don't mean that there isn't some wonderful, social justice- motivated work that could be done with media. But after a few months of working with a homeless population, a well-crafted feature story about the perils of Chicago homelessness no longer seemed like a good way to tackle the problem. 

For short moment back in the Fall, I thought maybe I would go into social work. After all, that's what all the cool kids in my life were doing. But it has become apparent to me that, though I am well intentioned and generally give a damn, I am not equipped to fix people's lives on such direct a level. Besides, the problems I encountered had more to do with broken systems and bigger pictures than individual cases. It's not that there isn't enough housing in Chicago, it's just that they won't sell to felons/won't subsidize/ don't see housing as the "first priority" when tackling homelessness (a problem that even freaking Utah has gotten over. Come on Chicago...). And after doing some work with SNAP outreach and watching as my clients benefits were cut in November annnnnd again when Congress passed further cuts three months later, I began to think that I might function better working with something more...oh I don't know, policy driven.

Which meant I'd have to learn about policy. Which means I have to go back to school.

Which meant grad school. Which meant applications. Which meant GRE. Which meant having to re-learn Math. Womp.

So I retaught myself the Pythagorean theorem, learned how to find the volume of a cylinder, and never really managed to figure out what the hell a permutation is, but there was a formula, and I knew it.

I promptly forgot everything exactly five minutes after I took the test, but that's coming later.

Due to my late-in-the-game decision to go back for even more school, I was a bit limited in where I could apply. Didn't matter though-- despite the mountains of snow everywhere, coupled with the apparent incapability of residents to shovel their sidewalks, I liked Chicago enough to figure I'd stay here. And as briefly mentioned, I'm also pretty fond of the Jesuits. So, I filled out the app for Loyola Chicago. It fit the bill nicely and well...I knew I'd get accepted. Nobody goes to Loyola to study public policy. I mean, people do, but the school's program doesn't even register on national rankings of any kind. And I'm not exactly the dumbest or least eligible person I know (ladies). All I would need to do was achieve a marginally decent score on the GRE and get the app in before July and I would be all set. 

And that was going to be that. Apply to a school was I familiar with. Stay in Chicago. Study policy so I could do more of the same, but in a flavor I thought sounded better. 

And I felt nothing about that prospect. Like, hell, you think I'd have another emotion about kicking off the rest of my life than "Yeah okay. That sounds fine."

And maybe it was that incredible apathy that developed into blind panic. Maybe it was the relief of settling that sent the strongest desire to not settle tearing through me. Maybe I'd actually blown a fuse trying to force math into brain space that had willingly discarded it years ago.

Whatever it was, I picked the absolute worst time to strike. With less than 24 before I was going to take the GRE, something in my comfort snapped.

What the hell was I thinking? What was I doing trying to settle anything the age of 22? Why was I satisfied with a next step I even felt reasonably secure about?

Next thing I knew, I was pouring over the US News rankings for grad schools with policy programs. Realizing I had already missed deadlines for most programs only increased my panic. There had to be something better still out there. I couldn't settle. I wasn't ready, man.

Okay, yes, I was thinking super catastrophically about my impending "rest of life." But when I think about the time this was occurring-- neck deep in Chicago winter, spending 8 hours a day in a basement trying to meet needs that often just couldn't be met, seeing maybe a half hour of sunlight a day (before frostbite became an issue), and to top it all off, trying to do math, I'm not surprised I snapped. I'm just pretty happy my sudden descent into panic manifested into a strong desire to revamp my life plan rather then, oh I don't know, setting my desk on fire or something.  

American University is currently ranked 12th for public affairs, so by the time I got to it on the list, I was starting to think that all policy programs at schools I could feasibly go to were the same. I wasn't looking for something radically different, just something I could safely say was better. But when I got to American, I found something different-- a joint program between the school of public affairs and the school of communication. 

I had majored in communication. I discovered that I wanted to work in politics. Such things do not usually fall into place so...perfectly.

It was everything I didn't know I wanted to be studying in a location I didn't know I needed to be in.

Despite recent scandals surrounding emails from a campus fraternity, I was under the impression that American was a pretty decent school. I mean, on a scale of one to Ivy League, it's not, but it's nothing worthy of scoffing at either. My point is that in the same moment I reached for a pen to copy down American's test score reporting code, I realized I was actually going to have to put effort into this application. Damn.

Looking back, the fact that I wasn't going to put in any effort for something like this was an astounding disservice to the rest of my life. Any positive change takes effort. Not that settling on a school I knew I could get into in a city I knew I liked was inherently negative, but it just wasn't exciting. 

Spoiler alert: I did better on the test than I though I would. Not on math though. Math was just average. And that was with studying. I shudder to think how I might have done had I not relearned the difference between median, mean, mode and range. Even if I probably couldn't tell you the difference now (which I can't can! Just tested myself. Suck it, haters. I can still do the maths).

A personal statement, application fee, and acceptance letter later, I finally have an answer to the question of what I'm doing next year. Next two years, actually. Really, this is just an excuse to not be a real person for a little while longer. 

In reality, I just wrote about a thousand words addressing what was, really, an average grad school application experience. But in my own mind, it was evidence that being willing to embrace this big scary thing called change usually yields something good, or at least something new and exciting. 

Yeah, even I'm impressed by my own ability to be routinely surprised by obvious life truths. 

I'm ready for a change. Not that I haven't loved JVC. It's been an unparalleled experience in so many ways. I'm ready for this change partly because of the changes I've witnessed during my JV year. Whether it was a guest deciding to make a change and go to detox, or a community member deciding to change their schedule to make time for something they love, or an FJV who's experienced the typical JVC changes and keeps moving forward, looking for their next adventure. 

It's the new things that make waking up everyday worth it. And it's the changes, both slow and weird and fast and panicked, that remind me that there's still so much more to look forward to. 

So cheers to not being dead yet. Life is better when lived anyway. 

As a closing, here's another song from Ramshackle Glory. About anarchy. Because irony is fun.