The
holidays were spent with relatives who I have not seen in years. This means all the questions were the
same. What are you doing these days? How
is life in Charlotte? I kept my replies
simple. Life in Charlotte is great! I’m
a high school teacher and spend lots of time volunteering with the non –
profits in our city. The details of my journey aren’t significant to most of
the people around the dinner table so, I left them out. Yet, immediate family mentioned that I’ve
started to blog. This year has been
difficult and my blog is among my greatest accomplishments. I might’ve left out the details around the
dinner table but so many have encouraged me to share. This
is meant to be a heartfelt honest reflection space. There is a sense of hope in every post but
this week I chose to highlight the difficulty of friendship.
Along
with family gatherings I had lunch with my middle school principal. We spoke about my teaching journey and then he
asked me an unexpected question. What do
you do for fun? I answered telling him
that spending time with students at a local non-profit each week brought me
great joy! This is 110% the truth but,
so is the fact that my handful of friends live anywhere from Atlanta to
Alaska. This makes fun days at the
movies few and far between.
Finding friends
has always been a challenge for me. I
have three best friends. I met one of
them on the first day of High School during lunch. She sat down across from me
looking just as bewildered as me.
We said hello agreeing that our first day of lunch was awful because we knew
nobody! We spent the next three years as
dear friends having lots of simple fun.
I didn’t stay up late and school football games weren’t my favorite. She was one of those very special young people
who understood that there was more to my life than having cerebral palsy.
We
parted ways in college. So, like every other college freshman I was faced with
the challenge of finding my place in a new community (even though I was only 30
minutes from home) along with overcoming the obstacles of my disability. I understood that going to a four-year
university as a student with cerebral palsy wasn’t going to be an easy feat. I chose to be History major; this meant that
my nose was always in a book and there wasn’t much time for fun. Not to mention, creating friendships seemed
more exhausting than exciting.
Nonetheless, I needed a break from my studies.
I was brushing my teeth one morning when I
heard a group of girls talking about the Center for Active Citizenship and
mentoring students at Sedgefeild Elementary. Our freshman class had completed a service
project at the local Title I school but
I wanted to get more involved. I asked
the girls what they knew about the university partnership with the school. They
simply said they had seen a flyer. It’s sort of funny that brushing my teeth
helped me my find my place in college. Community living really does build
community! For the next four years my escape from school was school. I met with
my Sedgefeild students twice a week. We
did homework and talked about life from an elementary school perspective. Going to Sedgefeild was the most meaningful
and memorable part of my college years. In addition to my weekly after school visits, I
went to book fairs, bingo Fridays, and organized school supply drives for
students over summer vacation.
My life isn’t much fun. As a student with
several learning disabilities, I’ve always had to invest most of my time in
“making the grade”. In my spare time I
love to read, listen to music, bake, and walk.
For better or worse, all of those activities can be done alone. The focus of my life has never been fun. Instead, I aim to be fulfilled! Serving and giving to others ---- especially young people is my greatest joy!
I subscribe to a blog called Social Good Social Good Charlotte--- The writers of the the blog posted this picture to Facebook. I was inspired by it and wanted to share! My city is full of visionaries who are changing the world. Check it out!http://www.socialgoodcharlotte.com
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