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What Love Looks Like

I’m not always good at saying what I mean to say, so here: Mom likes to tell me how you could soothe my crying as a baby by carrying me around the house, pointing out people in picture frames, and telling me stories about them.

Here’s My Dirty Laundry

While I may have left the country a little more informed, I was mostly confused and overwhelmed about how to live life in a broken world with eight billion people who all needed food, clean water, shelter, education, and community.

Expectations vs. Reality

I look at my expectations from a year, or two, or ten ago and realize that I never would have been able to create a reality so bittersweet, so full of wonder, and drowning in grace.

On Conquering Fears

I am irrationally afraid of concrete horrors, like clowns and spiders and people impersonating Talking Elmo, but those veins of fear are hardly the heart of the matter.

I Am Sadness

Sadness drives me toward community in a way joy never has. Sadness bids for honesty, serves as my greatest ally in empathy, checks my anger, and encourages me to look at another side of the story.

On Wonder

When I tell people that the high schoolers painted a building, cleaned up weeds and replaced broken doors, people ask me what the building is for. “Nothing,” I say.

I Joined Online Dating

Every time I have doubts, I ask myself where the line is between settling and compromising. Is this really not working? Are we really not right for each other? Or am I just unrealistic, idealistic, and CRAZY?

Small Fish

I’m twenty-four and should move somewhere far away and then move again once I’ve grown familiar enough to know exactly where to find packets of yeast in the store.

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