Be the Change

I'm going to open up this post the way a lot of bloggers have : I didn't know if I wanted to write about the tragedy that took place in Connecticut, just one week ago today. But I felt compelled to, because it's important to confront the things that we are running from most.

The truth is-I didn't want to think about this tragedy. I DON'T want to think about this tragedy. I DON'T want to envision the faces of those children as the unthinkable happened. In fact, for the first day, I avoided Twitter and even Facebook. Most of the news was wrong in the early hours that it didn't seem to matter: However, the worst part of it had still happened and was very real and it wasn't something I was ready to face...It's something I still have trouble facing each and every day as the AM Magazine gets shoved in my face with photos of funerals for 6 year olds. I can't even read the word Sandy Hook without shivers going down my spine. I remember being bombarded with news about Columbine as a child--and then again Virginia Tech as a college student, but the in-your faceness of all of this seems much more unavoidable.

I'm normally all about the news--in fact, when Hurricane Sandy rolled through, my reaction to the in your face blasts was quite the opposite--it all felt necessary--I wanted to break information to people as often and as consistently as I could. At friends homes, we sat around predicting how bad it would be--what to do if there was a power loss--and how long the trains would be out of service for. The difference is that Sandy was predicted. We were all awaiting it--so when it hit--we were ready. We couldn't prepare for what happened last Friday. Unlike Hurricane Sandy, my friends and I haven't made mention in conversation about the tragedy--and one time when i tried to bring it up, we all changed the subject right away.

I desperately wish I could turn back the clocks and sweep up all those children in my own arms and fly them to safety. I desperately wish the front page of the news this past week was fiscal cliff related, and not human tragedy related. I desperately wish this had never happened.

But there is harm in looking in the past, and wishing things had played out differently--in longing. It's time to heal and to protect ourselves from other situations that might rise similar to this.

As someone disconnected from the Sandy Hook community- the questions , as for most, are how can I help NOW and for the future . There are several answers: I can get educated about gun laws and reform in this country--and then I can educate others. I can also get educated about mental health and  how people can get help for it--and again, educate others. And then I can do the same thing every single one of us can do : I can look inside myself, and ask myself to be a good person, to keep my values and my morals, and to continue treating people with kindness and love--a message that takes only smiles and hugs to send.

 To see change, we need to be the change. We can't change what happened last Friday, but we do have the ability to change what could happen in the future.  So let's start.

Time for Some New Shoes

“Don’t look fate can only find you

You can’t choose for something to surprise you

Set sail without a destination

Just see where the wind will take you”

--Lee DeWyze

No one said that the amount of time you spend in a place is what truly makes it worth your while. No one said that you had to live somewhere for three months, six months, or a year to really understand it, to really grasp it, to really endure it. All you really need is a mind and a heart for adventure. In the last week, after being met with several obstacles, I have made a decision on the next month of my Italian excursion…

….Drum roll….

…I have made a decision on what will be my FINAL month of my Italian excursion…

Yep that’s right—it’s time for a new pair of shoes—or in other words—another change. Instead of returning home in April, like my flight home was booked for, I will be returning home the first week of February, but not before going north, east, and south in Italy, not before getting a taste of every cappuccino on the compass, not before seeing Italy.

A year ago, I had saved up a piggy bank of money to return to Europe over the summer for a backpack trip that clearly never happened. Part of the reason it never happened was because I had never made the leap—taken the chance—and booked the flight. I was scared. Then, when I finally went to book the flight, a volcano erupted, (literally in Iceland), and my plans shifted again. I never jumped.

Then I did. And now here I am struggling to find a job in Italy, but is that what I ever truly wanted to do anyway?

No.

I wanted to explore. I wanted to find new alleyways. I wanted to find cobblestone I had never walked on before. I wanted to go on an adventure.

Did I want to spend time working and worrying about money?

No.

Did I think I’d cut my trip short.

Absolutely not.

Was I worrying about all the wrong things when I was debating cutting the trip short by three months?!

Absolutely.

I was worried about what other people would think of my decision to come home. Like I was giving up or that I was running away. Like I had failed. It took a certain someone reminding me that people at home wouldn’t be disappointed in me—that I wouldn’t be failing—that I would be returning to people who loved and cared about me…that they wouldn’t suddenly hate me for making a choice to come home to them. And now I know where I want to be, and what I want to do and I think it took coming back here to realize it. I do want to continue traveling, and I want to continue writing, and I want to continue producing, and I want to get started on my company…my production company…My dream.

And under the circumstances that finances will eventually run short, that I will soon be an illegal “alien” (or a new-wave Italian) here in Italy, and that I will not have had the opportunity to see outside of the box I have squeezed myself into, I think it only seems right. They say that distance is what you make it. I think that goes for time too. You can live in a place for your whole life and never SEE it. There are people here who have been here their whole lives and who have never seen the Colosseum. There are people in New York City, who have lived there their whole life and have never made it north of 125^th street because “It’s scary.” This is not the route I want to take. I don’t want to be scared. This is not the way I ever want to spend my life…I want to see everything. I want to take the route where I buy a train ticket and spend one month of my life seeing everything I never knew.

A friend asked me where I was looking to live in Rome, a few weeks ago, and I told her “Prati.”

“Didn’t you live there already?”

“Yah, but I loved it.”

“But you need to look at new places…you need to SEE new things.”

“Naw…I love Prati…”

And I love Rome—but my friend is right. Prati is not the place for me to return to, and I am starting to think settling down here isn’t for me either. I really am meant to run all the miles in my shoes at marathon runner pace—I really am meant to move around a bit. As much as change scares me—it’s the only thing I truly know.

Like I mentioned, I was worried that if I came home sooner than planned—that I had failed. But that’s not true. If I come home sooner than planned, and before then, I find a new world of exploration—a new world of cobblestone—a new world of cappuccino--a new world—then I will probably have exceeded my expectation of this trip—and I will probably be more content with the outcome. I will be happy to board a plane home with memories of fulfilling one of my main goals in coming back here: Discovery.

And discovery can take on so many meanings. It can be in the way that you travel to new places. Or it can be in the way that you discover new things about yourself. I like to think I got a taste of both—I am going home seeing my cappuccino cup (well over 150 cappuccino cups) as half full, not half empty.

Watch out New York City…I am coming home.

Occupation: Superhero

At my pre school graduation every single one of us was asked to tell the audience composed of parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family friends what we planned to be when we grew up. The answers ranged from firefighters to doctors to lawyers to dentists. Why our pre-k teachers were asking us what we wanted to be when we were barely old enough to pronounce three syllable words really is beyond me, but nonetheless, I responded by saying I wanted to be the first female president. If I had known what that meant, when I was just a four year old, I probably would have said “Anything but the president.”

And if it were four years ago, I may have said “I want to be a sports broadcaster,” but now I know exactly what I want to be, and that is a superhero. I want to be able to save the world one great cause at a time. I want to impact someone who then in turn impacts someone else, which thus results in a continuous line of impact.

I want to provide the world with a kaleidoscope of viewpoints. I want to make a change.

I think part of me first realized this when a teacher once told me that I was going to change the world. This was soon after learning that my college field hockey program had been cut from the University of Rhode Island. At that point in my life, I had completely believed that sports were the only thing that mattered and that if sports didn’t exist then well, nothing else did either.

The other part of me realized how much I wanted to make a difference in the world when I was exchanging emails with a newly acquainted pen pal on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Instead of defining myself to him as an athlete or field hockey player, I told him that I was a writer and a traveler and that I had hoped to learn of new things of the places I was traveling, with his help, since he had traveled before as well. I wanted to learn more about the world so I could impact the world as it was impacting me.

In the last nine months, I have lived in New York City, wishing that I could help every homeless person to a piece of bread, and every child without an education to a simple math problem. I have lent my hand to people by opening the door for them even when they walked away without saying thank you, and I have given up my seat to strangers following a long day at work. I have made an effort to save the world one small task at a time, and at the end of the day I have felt both wonderful and inspired because of it. Since coming to New York, I have been changed. I may not have a full-time career just yet, but I know that putting the word superhero next to occupation is beginning to look more and more like the full-time job that I would like to take on.

And to be honest, while sports scores interest me on a “brain candy” level (as my tenth grade English teacher might refer to it)…saving the world just seems much more appealing.