Saturday, March 31, 2007

Reassurance

I was reading over previous posts and came across the one where I discussed my issues with OCD and my faith. I just want to say that God, as he always does, has been reassuring me more and more of my salvation in him. Things that would have scared me before are ok because I can feel God giving me peace about them. Through prayer and talking to other Christians, God is showing me a lot.

I am not dumb, and I know the fears will plague me again- it's the nature of the disorder. But I know that my savior is here to calm my fears.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Random Assortment of Topics

First, does anyone who is reading this on blogspot know if a person can leave a comment without registering with blogspot? Someone wanted to make a comment on one of my posts, but had to go through all this hassle of signing up.

Second, today was an incredible day. I had BUILD class and honestly I wasn't all that excited about it. Yet, I think there was a breakthrough today. I spoke up about issues, when before I just sat there and let my thoughts roll around in my head. I think it helped that it was a smaller group. I no longer feel like anyone is negating my experiences because of race. Rather, I see more of where others are coming from and I feel like they understand a little more about me. Dare I say it? I am really looking forward to the next class.

The discussion moved into politics and the war which is one area where I am quite passionate. Going into the type of ministry I'm in you would think I'd be a Democrat. I'm not going to go into it here, but there are plenty of reasons why I am a Republican (and no, it's not just about moral values), even with the line of work I'm in. I refuse to subscribe to the policy that says a person interested in social justice has to be a democrat. I also refuse to subscribe to the notion that Christians have to be Republicans. I think it's important for people to remember that political parties are systems created by failed humans. No political party is going to be perfect.

That being said, let me move on to my third topic......money! I went to this presentation tonight with this rich lady (who makes about $850,000 a year in Mary Kay and doesn't even sell the product, she just got so high up in the company that she earns a percentage of what people under her earn) trying to get people to sell Mary Kay.

I was listening and she threw out all these reasons why corporate America is the bad guy and master's degrees aren't worth anything. She went on and on about all the places she's gone and how she's earned 8 cars and toured the Vatican at night and stayed in luxurious hotels and on and on and on.

Realize now, I had just come from work where the lifestyle is anything but lavish and full of trips to Greece. She talked about how people would remember you. The point was, if you were rich people would remember you has being happy and being able to do things you loved and giving money away. She asked if anyone would like to have her lifestyle. I didn't raise my hand.

Here comes the hard part: how do I hear this and not judge? I thought about how God loves her every bit as much as anyone else, but I couldn't help think....what's the point in this kind of life? She said she gives to charities and I think that's great. I can't say what her relationship to or with God is. My job is to love her. I have such a potential to get so bitter. How do you hear these stories of crazy lavish lives and not get annoyed with the person?

Oh sure I got tired of hearing her talk and my bottom started to hurt from the hotel chair, but I can't really say she made me mad. I wasn't mad or even all that bitter.....just thoughtful. No, I don't want a private helicopter to fly me around Spain. At the same time I don't want to think I am a better person for my lifestyle cause that's just plain wrong.

I know I just said I don't want to be bitter, but I really want to say something. She kept mentioning the national news source, Rueters, by pronouncing it, "Rooters." It's pronounced "Royters." I distinctly remember my college journalism professor saying you'll sound like you don't know what you're talking about if you pronounce it wrong. But I guess that was for us journalism people. I don't think the rest of the world really cares!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Discovering Self

There are a few things in life I don't understand. For instance, why doesn't brown and black match? I've asked around and just can't come to terms on that one.

Then there are more pressing matters. Like who am I? I am reading a book called "Reconciliation Blues" and the author talks about discovering who he is as a black Christian. I tried to understand this and came up only questioning it still. I tried to understand what being a particular race had to do with being a Christian. Then I thought, maybe it's like me trying to figure out where I should be and what I beleive as a female minister. I kind of started to get it a little.

Then I had some words of wisdom spoken to me by a friend. We can't really fix our relationships with each other until we know who we are ourselves. I think I am in the middle of that self-discovery process.

I've always been farther behind most of my friends when it comes to confidence, dating, etc. So it's no suprise that it is taking me a little longer to figure out exactly who God made me to be. I thought today, should I just take what I've learned about the city and go teach it in the suburbs and forget this way of life? But that doesn't seem right.

Ok, I admit, my work ethic is a little lacking. I often focus on what other people would do or want me to do. I have a lack of confidence in myself. These are just three examples of why I think I sabatoge my own plans.

Fellow urban ministers, how did you come to the point where you clicked with the youth? Found mutual understanding with the women? How did you get to the point where the kids accepted and loved you?

Sunday, March 25, 2007

This Coffee Makes Me Feel.....Ridiculous

I admit it, I'm a weird person. Tonight I went to Starbucks for this coffee seminar. I had heard from a friend who has done several coffee seminars himself that these are rather poetic affairs where people share their feelings about coffee in descriptive phrases. I was ready for anything.

Here comes the part where my weirdness kicks in. I entered the Starbucks but did not want to appear to have arrived for the coffee seminar. I figured I'd order a drink and open my book and then "just happen" to be there at the time of the seminar. It worked. Grant, the faithful coffee seminar instructor, asked me if I would like to join the little shin dig. I said, "sure" as if it was an unexpected surprise.

So Grant gets started with brewing the coffee and shares his first experience of drinking coffee himself. He then asked if anyone else had a story of their first experience with coffee, good or bad. At this point I was pretty glad a friend I had asked to go wasn't able to, because it was beyond cheesy.

There were few words shared at first, but as we savored the coffee, people began to open up about its taste and texture. I assumed liquid kind of had the same texture, but I kind of got the point.

Before I go on, let me school you on the fine science of coffee tasting. Fortunately someone asked for cream and sugar. Normal coffee tastings involve black coffee, which I was pretty sure would make me gag. Now for the steps.

Step 1: Cup your palm around the sample cup and sniff the aroma. While doing this bite your lip to keep from laughing from the absurdity of it all.
Step 2: Slurp the coffee and let it flow over your tongue. Continue to feel like you're a hippie.
Step 3: Try some free pastry samples with the coffee, to see how the tastes go together. Wonder how God brought you to this place of sampling random coffee in the midwest.
Step 4: Compare the coffee prepared in the regular pot with the coffee prepared in some French-like smashing thing. Realize that you have to write a blog about this later.
Step 5: Share your feelings. Try to take it seriously.

I do admit that I was suprised at the taste of the coffee, it's actually something I would drink. I thought I had to have mochas or something a little sweeter than brewed coffee, but it was oddly pleasant.

Poor Grant, I wonder if he felt like rather ridiculous. He exemplified patience when a guy from a non-profit launched into a sales pitch for his organization and the troubles that the community faces.

The only thing that would have made this coffee seminar better would have been Rachel and her video camera.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

In Response to the Last Post

So on my last post (that I post on 4 different sites....you gotta reach your audiences!) I talked a little about some frustrations with some of the issues discussed in BUILD and I got responses on a variety of sides.

Since I got such response I want to expand on it further. I didn't notice it at first, but I definitely came to the BUILD class with my own set of prejudices, as everyone has them. I still don't want to share my personal story in BUILD cause I think the class is past that point and it's not needed, but I want to explain some things here.

Marcie and Val made some interesting points on one end of the spectrum and I really had to think about things. I think my post mainly fell into the realm of middle-class and poverty, and I didn't really mean it to relate to racial tension. That being said, racial tension was the reason why I was frustrated with BUILD. I kind of had to see some things that were a sort of cycle.

I was very excited about BUILD at first and then I think I gained a chip on my shoulder because it reminded me a lot of things I heard growing up. I went to school in a county where I was definitely a minority (PG county connects to Southeast DC). There was such a race factor and from many white viewpoints it felt like the "race card" got played a lot. It was almost like if you looked at someone the wrong way race was a factor-on both sides.

One time in my job I got in a spat with these people who came through my drive thru (how absurd does that sound??) because I was way more stubborn than I ever should have been and neither party was patient with the other. Nothing we said had anything to do with race, but they alluded to my manager that I was racist, which he dismissed because I worked for him and he's African American. When I heard that I was accused of being racist because of what happened I was dumbfounded. I really don't think race even entered my mind. But what happened was it caused me to continue in my thinking that there were so many people in the world ready to accuse one another of racism.

I guess in BUILD my defenses went up as soon as I got an inkling that someone was trying to blame me for social injustice. Where I thought the class would mainly deal with social classes, it dealt with race too and I guess I thought that would be easier to separate. Maybe I am more at fault than I'd like to think. But as everyone brings a personal story to BUILD, I did too. I can't blame everything on my environment, so I know I have a lot of learning and growing to do. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I want to learn and grow and I'm in that process.

I guess one thing that made me cynical is that talking about race relations isn't something new to me. In middle school we were already talking about it in class because it was such a big part of the environment. So I guess in BUILD I wanted to see social justice as a poor/rich issue and not necessarily as a racial one. I wanted to explore economic factors and not simply race factors. But maybe you can't separate those.

I don't think I even knew I still had those feelings from the past until the BUILD class because in past urban ministry experience I've had, economic status was emphasized and not race. I wanted to think that social justice could be dealt with without race, but I'm now seeing that maybe it can't. If that instance at work seemed to cement some things in my mind and that was just one instance, how many instances have other people had to cement things in their minds? Of course my perspective was shaped by many years of observing race relations and not just that instance at work.

So now I see that one can't really be entirely objective in the class. I thought I could and I can't. Just as I grew up with a certain perspective of race relations that had time to take root in my mind, so did everyone else in the class.

So we all have our own stories. I thought other people were the defensive ones, but it seems that I am even more. Feel free to comment cause I want to learn.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Don't Hate Me People

Maybe I'm just selfish. Well, I know I am, we all have some selfishness in us. Before I wouldn't have had many reservations about writing about this, but now that I know certain individuals read my blog I feel like they might shake their heads and say to themselves, "poor, ignorant, middle class girl."

But here's the deal- I have money issues. I'm taking this BUILD class and a few weeks into it I am liking it a lot better than I did at first. Sometimes, however, I feel that there is this unspoken idea that everything in life should be rosy for me because I grew up middle class.

I grew up with a lot, I know this. I had amazing opportunities, but they weren't without sacrifice. I went to private school for high school and jr high so right there I have incredible privelage. I used to take this highly for granted until recently. I've begun to see how much my parents sacrificed to make that happen. Yes, some parents couldn't even sacrifice enough to send their kids to private school, so again I can see how I am privelaged.

I went to Belize this past Christmas break. Once you get outside of the tourist ports, you can see some disturbing things. I saw poverty like I've never seen it in my life. To look at that and then look at the ghetto of the States makes the ghettos look rich. Yet, I don't think residents in poor U.S. neighborhoods aren't suffering just because people in other parts of the world are poorer. In the same way I don't think middle class people don't suffer just because people in the ghetto are poorer.

I am not trying to downplay the hardships of the urban poor. Please understand, I know I have had overwhelming privelage, resources, and relationships. But is my story not valid because I had two parents in my home in a middle class neighborhod? Do I lose the right to grieve over some things in life because I have more money than some people?

I don't want to share these thoughts with my BUILD class because I don't want to play the "my story is worse that your story" game. Yet, I feel I can express it here because, well frankly, you choose to read my blog.

Sometimes I get frustrated. Every month a dental clinic comes to Breakthrough and the residents can get free dental care. I have a cavity. Now I would not trade positions with the women and choose to be homeless for free dental care- that is absurd. What I am saying is I hate the line we draw in giving. With going to school full-time and working two part-time jobs, and health insurace about $480 a month (health insurance companies have a field day when you need mental health care), I'm not exactly in a position where I can blow money wherever. But then I know I am irresponsible with my money so often, so maybe if I just stopped hanging out with friends so much I could afford a trip to the dentist. I guess that's a choice I make.

But my point is, I am getting a degree. I am getting the education we tell our kids that is so important. But here's the thing- no one wants to help you when you're in a financial bind for a short time. You have to be homeless or in poverty. You can't be a middle-class family whose only source of income just got cut off. You have to wait until you've lost enough money to qualify for programs.

Oh I could get Medicaid if I would get pregnant. One one hand this is good because regardless of the financial state of the mother, the baby needs care. But still, I can't help but feel a little bitterness that I try to make good choices and can't get any help.

Maybe this is a small price that I pay for coming from middle class. I suppose all the benefits of growing up middle class more than make up for this.

Am I choosing to be poor by going to college, getting in debt, and then going into ministry? So maybe not having money is a choice I am making while other people who don't have a lot didn't choose it.

I don't know how to express this without sounding whiny or bigoted. But somehow I needed to express these thoughts.

Oh yea, it's late and I saw a ton of spelling errors- I don't feel like fixing them, I'm sure you understand.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Thoughts on War...

I hate war. Yet there's been a part of me that has not responded well to war protesting. I just finished a book by Karen Kingsbury in which her conservative views of the war come shining through, but I felt myself agree with her on a lot, though not everything.

Coming from a military family I view combat a little differently. Yes, I used to be embarrassed when my dad stood a little too straight during the national anthem during high school basketball games, but I also remember him showing my brother and I during the Gulf War where Turkey was on a globe and that he might have to go there. I thank God that he didn't end up having to go, but he still would have gone proudly.

I know I've shared frustration over the military, espeically their medical system (which is why I will never support HMOs or permanent forms of government-sponsered health care) but there is something about growing up and going to visit dad on the base and seeing everyone in uniform that still instills a great deal of respect for the armed forces.

This book caused me to sob in a way I haven't over a book in a really, really long time. I know there is extreme loss and I can't say how I'd react if a family member of mine was killed in battle. I know civillians lose their lives everyday due to this war. I don't know what to think about that. It's not like I'm some war-hungry, "America is the best country ever" kind of person. Shoot, I could be happy living in Canada!

I admit, I've questioned how someone could claim to support a person and then hate the very thing they were doing. How could people rally for our troops and then protest the very thing the troops are doing? Do you only support those troops who are just taking orders or do you also support the ones who beleive in the cause and enlisted because of the war? I'm still trying to process that.

I want our troops home. I also beleive I could very well get tons of crap from people for writing this, but these are issues I struggle with and they are valid.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Those Questions

I'm struggling with a lot of things right now. Most of you know I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and I decided a long time ago I have no reason to hide that. Not that I want to go out in the streets with a sign declaring my disorder, but I figure those that read my blog know me pretty well enough that they either already know or won't care (won't care in a good way).

If you know about my OCD you know how it is intertwined with my faith. For the past eight years I have struggled with scrupulous OCD and before that it was just regular counting stuff, which I much prefer. I mean, OCD isn't just "Did I turn out that light?" During a period in high school I went through the compulsion of getting in and out of bed in the morning and one morning did it 98 times. OCD is very real.

Anyhow, I am again questioning things with my faith and salvation. I read this book and it totally threw me for a loop. It's by a Christian author and is fiction, but I didn't know what to do with what I read. I still struggle with it. I don't know that anyone can quite understand.I know I need to bathe this situation in prayer. That's so hard when you wonder if you have a relationship with God at all. I have asked Jesus into my heart many times, I desire to live for Christ, and I want Christ to be Lord of my life.

But just as people with regular OCD feel the compulsion to check things such as lights and stoves, I feel compelled to "check" the status of my salvation....something that isn't tangible but is a promise from God beleived in faith.I sometimes hate sharing this because I think people will look at me and be like, "Ok, that girl is not a Christian or she would not question." But I have never had anyone I've told about this tell me that. I've gotten encouragement.

In fact today I asked God how I would know his voice. You know what happened? A verse from John came to mind. Not the whole verse, but the point of it. "My sheep know my voice." I thought, "God, is that you?"

These questions seem so unfounded to some people and close friends probably get sick of hearing my worries. It's a real thing for me. If you're dealing with the loss of a job or an addiction then it seems like it would be so much easier to trust God. But when you question if you even have a relationship with God it makes it harder to pray about things because the status of your relationship with God is a question in the back of your mind.

I am not saying I have it harder than anyone else, but I am saying that I don't quite know what to do with my thoughts. Sometimes I can't seem to stop thinking about them. This book just raised a lot of questions about having a relationship with God and salvation. Please pray for me. These worries are nothing new, but the angle in which I see perceive the worries is new.

Then there are my questions about certain passages of Scripture. Hebrews 4:6-4 is a particular passage that troubles me because of something I once said to God. I've talked to my pastor and New Testament professor about this concern and they both gave me the same encouragement and interpretation of the text.

I feel the pressure of my internship right now. Each day my love for these kids grows and I don't know what to do when it's time to go. I feel like I lack in so many areas and that I can't please some people, but I guess this internship isn't about pleasing people.

There are so many other things I could say, but I've rattled my thoughts off on this blog enough for now.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Engagement

My brother is engaged!

Monday, March 12, 2007

Right Around the Corner

"Baby don't give up. Cause we're the kind of folks who will always live right around the corner from something big."

This is a line from Derek Webb's song "I Hate Everything (But You)" on his "Mockingbird" cd. There are many ways to interpret this line, and I have a few interpretations of my own.

When I hear that line I think of my kids in my neighborhood and at Breakthrough. In my mind I picture the top of the Sears Tower, the part I can see from my neighborhood. It's kind of like East Garfield Park is right around the corner from something big- that huge structure.

That tall and grand building represents more to me than just height. It represents the economic center of Chicago. I beleive that so many of my kids will go on to do great things.

But I wonder, how discouraging is it to look up and see the top of that tower and then look eye level across the street and see a vacant lot? Do these kids feel that they will always be right around the corner from something big but never attain it in their own lives? I beleive they can attain much more than some of them seem to think, but they have to beleive it too.

I wonder, exactly what is it like to feel you will "always live right around the corner from something big?"

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Question

So I really want to be able to set up links to other peoples' blogs. Does anyone know how to do this???

Saturday, March 10, 2007

BUILD and Finances

For those of you who get my weekly email updates while I'm in Chicago this will be pretty repetitive. The thing is, I have had so many things to think about this week.

I'll start with the BUILD class. BUILD stands for Breathrough Urban Institute of Leadership Development. People of different race, economic backgrounds, and locations come together to discuss a variety of topics such as social justice, race relations, and how to implement our faith in making these things better.When I interviewed for my internship I heard about this class and was immediately excited. Ever since Waco I have had a passion for these very topics.

Well, I went to my first class. It was more difficult than I thought. There are a variety of people, but since we don't really know each other too well most people talked about themselves. That's not a bad thing, but it starts to get old when almost every phrase begans with "I". I was feeling pretty frustrated about the whole thing. I appreciated when one girl spoke up and said it's not a competition of my hurt is better than your hurt, but that's what it felt like it was. As if everyone thought they had a deeper understanding of the issues because of their life experiences.

I grew even more frustrated because the students in the class didn't seem to know how to have a discussion. They would keep going on and on, override the facilitator, and jump in when they had something to say.

As Christians we love to talk. We're good at it. I don't want this to be another class where we just talk. I want some action. For a lot of students in the class this is probably their first exposure to some of these topics. I guess I just kind of felt like I was on social justice overload. I realize that sounds bad, but it seems like it has been at the forefront of my mind for most of the past year and a half.

Perhaps that's absurd because I'm going into a ministry where it is very much a center peice of what I will be doing. It's just that I want to move past talking. I don't want us to all sit around and pat ourselves on the back because we recognize the problems. I don't even want to sit around and just talk about how are faith is involved. I want to get out there and do something. Do what? I don't know. But I want to take action. I hope this class goes beyond "we have problems and need a solution" to actually helping us move in a direction where we can implement solutions, at least in the local realm. I hope that after this class I won't have to say I have no idea what I can do, but that I will have a plan that I will carry out.

I do have to admit that I was a little offended, as I think people are going to be every week. Just about every opinon given is biased in one way or another, mine included, because much of our opinions are shaped by our experiences. I don't have an experience of growing up in poverty and I don't have an experience of growing up in wealth. I want so bad to say what I do have an experience growing up in, but then I would just be feeding the "I" obsession that seems to flood our classroom. It would be so cool to think of it in terms of "we" rather than "I". Because even though the bonds of poverty and wealth are very different, I refuse to think they are so different that they can keep unity from the body of Christ.

Then there was the case of going to a local high school. This school was unlike any high school I had ever visited. It is clear that the vast, vast majority of these kids are from upper crust families. The night I went to see a play there they were having a benefit dinner. I scoffed at the idea because the gorgeous new fine arts building sure didn't leave the school looking like they needed anymore benefit.

I realize this is an attitude of judgement that God has to work with me on. There is nothing wrong with being middle class or upper middle class and sometimes I find myself dreaming about a house in a suburb by the city, with a wraparound porch, and a huge backyard. No, that is not wrong, but it is wrong for me, because I'm not called to that.

I think of my kids at Breakthrough and how they will never get to have the resources and facilities that these kids at the Academy had. For crying out loud it seems like the Chicago Public School system is only a part-time program, with as many days as they get off school.

The Academy offers scholarships so I researched them on their website. 20-80% of tuition. About a quarter of the kids receive aid. Even at an 80% scholarship the family would be paying $2,000 a year. The chances of getting that much looked pretty slim.

So basically I think the scholarship program is a wonderful resource to ease some of the financial burden of sending kids to this school. I also concluded that it seems to only help families who could pretty much afford to send their kids anyway, but could honestly use a discount. As for the kids in my neighborhood, the scholarships still wouldn't be enough.

On top of that the application process involves submitting test scores. At first this seems absurd. What test scores does an 8th grader have? I guess they have standardized testing and I think states now do the yearly tests that I didn't have in school. My kids go to schools that are underfunded and more than not produce test scores that would not get these kids into privelaged high schools.I pretty much decided that my kids wouldn't have much of a chance to go to a school like that.

And then I sit here and think, if I had an extra $40,000 to send one of the kids to that school for four years of high school, would I do it? Well, I don't anticipate having that money, but what if I did? If I saw a student who had such great potential in an area the school excelled in and I had the resources, would I love them as much as my own child to provide a scholarship for them? Would I take the time and energy to make sure they had transportation? Or would that be too much of a burden on me? If so, then maybe I contribute to the gap between the advantaged and the less advantaged.

Maybe I can't rely on organizations to always provide the needed support, maybe I have to do it myself. I once heard someone say that in giving to God we are to give until it hurts. If we can't feel a result of our sacrifice, if giving 10% doesn't phase us at all, then maybe we should give more.

When I say it doesn't phase us I don't mean for people who have such a heart for giving that it doesn't phase them to give that much. What I mean is, if we give 10% because God requires it but it doesn't affect our lives, we should consider giving more.

I'm no idiot and I know God wants us to be good stewards of our money and that includes taking care of one's family as well. I know it honors God to keep some money to take care of other needs, that's why he doesn't ask for it all. What I am saying is that if we don't sacrifice anything in our Christian walk then what are we gaining?

Just some thoughts.

Monday, March 5, 2007

Splinter Troubles

So, does anyone know how to remove a splinter? It is totally in my skin and isn't sticking out anywhere. Soaking my foot does nothing and tweezers might as well be plastic spoons. At the good suggestion of my friend Lauren, I looked up splinter removal techniques online. I prefer not to apply wood glue to my foot or wear a baking soda paste for 24 hours.

Any suggestions???

Thursday, March 1, 2007

A Childless Suburbanite

Yep, that's me. I pretty much planned to be pregnant by now. Wasn't that how it was supposed to be? I'd go to college, after graduating at 21 I'd marry that guy I met, and two to three years later we'd be introducing our first child into the world.

HA!

When I was 14 I decided I liked the finer things in life. I wanted to live in or near New York and spend lots of times going to Broadway plays and writing. I was convinced my taste for the slightly expensive was quite different from the athletic aspirations of the rest of my family.

Well, I got the urban, but I sure didn't get the luxurious. Yet, isn't there something strangely luxurious about making your way in one of the biggest cities in America and loving people all day long? Add to that the fact that you're following God's call on your life and theater in pricey black dresses doesn't seem as cool.

I hail from suburban roots. I was 18 before I got a job on my own merit and that's because I chose to leave the last job that practically got handed to me. I went to a private, Christian school where the cool thing to do on Wednesday nights was go to youth group.

I recently heard the the high schoolers employed at Breakthrough as mayors throwing around freestyle rap about LINK cards (food assistance, for those of you, like myself, who had no idea what that was 2 months ago). My youth group sang along to Butterfly Kisses.

I'm convinved I developed socially later than most of my friends. I didn't really care about makeup till I was 16 and didn't listen to anything on the radio but oldies till high school. In jr high and early high school I thought it ridiculous to even want to wear what was in fashion and my mom said I was born a century too late.

So should I be suprised that marriage is coming later in life too? Now that I think about it I'm not wondering about it too much. Marrying young does have benefits such as children knowing great grandparents and grandparents longer, but it wasn't for me. I think I'm finally figuring out what I want and more of who I am at 24. I'd hate for a guy to have put a gold band on my finger at 21 only to find out I had a complete change of career direction at 23 and felt called to leave out middle class life for an apartment on the West Side.

I think things are working out just fine, and as I hear my mom snoring one room over while she visits me here in the city I think, this is good. Thank you God, this is good.