Like the title? Well, fuck you, because I do. It's meaning will stay with me and any of my team members who remember its meaning.
It seems like it has been awhile since I've posted. I would be lying if I said that nothing has happened that has been worthy of writing about.
We are finally at the end of City Year. I have graduated from the program and my ten months of service to the communities of Seattle is complete. This is a turning point for me. I now have the freedom to return home, continue with the life I have created for myself here, or go somewhere new. I’m not going to lie; trying out a new location is pretty enticing. Likewise, going back to the Midwest and spear-heading social change has a great deal of appeal. However, Seattle has won out. I will be staying here in this amazing city and continuing just being me.
I hope that’s a me who is on his way to graduate school and making them dollaz.
At the beginning of the year we were required to write letters to ourselves. These letters were designed to rekindle our passions and to illuminate the reasons why we signed up for City Year come mid-year when we are worn out and ready to end everything. In typical City Year fashion, we received our letters Wednesday, two days before we graduate from the program and even after we have already completed our end of the year reviews. I have been thinking for nearly a week as to how I can write what’s on my mind but have been stuck at every corner. Perhaps that was the way things were meant to be. When I opened the letter I wrote myself everything came together. Somehow, September Josh knew what was going to happen to me. He wrote a letter to the mid-year Josh that the end of year Josh finally was able to read. The letter documents, in a way, everything about me that was to be fulfilled. It’s crazy how life works sometimes. Here is the letter:
9-14-07
Dear Josh,
City Year is a unique opportunity for yourself. Yes, you have finally been given a chance to get out and be free in a big city but you are also being given a chance to do something with yourself. You have constantly wondered about whether or not your life will have an impact or make any difference to anyone at all. City Year is providing you with that chance.
Some personal goals for yourself will be controlling unconscious judging, becoming more outspoken, and becoming more trusting. You’ve made huge improvements so far regarding judging others. As you figured out, recognizing it will always be the first step. Without recognizing that you are judging, you cannot act in a way to fix that. Becoming more outspoken has always been a challenge for you. All that is needed is pushing yourself to conquer the uncomfortable and engage in public speaking. Lastly, you know that trusting will always be hard for you based on your past. Right now, I am unsure how you overcome this but I have faith that you will because face it: you’re kind of a big deal. Don’t be scared of being burned, look instead for what good may come.
Later gator,
Josh Kemper
Yeah, it may not seem like much, but this later encompassed a lot of what I unknowingly would work towards during my term of service with City Year.
I finally had the chance to get out of the Midwest and to also have a lasting impact. I know that the work I did with my kids, for Seattle’s various communities, and for myself will last long after I am gone. I’ve left a legacy and that feels awesome. So it sounds selfish but I don’t care. I wasn’t accomplishing anything noteworthy in Columbia, Missouri. Now, here in Seattle, Washington, I have had an impact on lives. That’s something to be damn proud of.
I was raised racist. Now I’m not. I was raised homophobic – wow, that backfired completely. Now I’m not. I was raised sexist. Now I’m not. My pre-judgemental self was something that was in the process of being squashed before City Year. CY only helped to finalize things.
So, outspokenness and public speaking. Challenges? Definitely. However, I conquered this area as well. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, public speaking no longer scares me. It’s easy and maybe I even enjoy it a little. I got to speak in front of 700 people at our Ripples of Hope gala, over 400 at my team’s sponsor annual meeting, running and speaking at assemblies of middle school students, and even addressing the mayor of Seattle on behalf of my students during an environmental awareness forum. For those of us who know the Josh of old these are some very fantastic feats.
Lastly, trusting others and not being scared of being burned. I can honestly say that Seattle’s environment is entirely different than where I am from. I was top dog there. I was always in control and I would affect the way relationships would turn out. Oh boy, apparently the citizens of this state never got that memo. For those who read this blog often, you will already know about Michael and I. More recently, however, Patrick and I split up.
When Patrick told me that he no longer felt the same way about me anymore it crushed me to my core. Never, ever, have I had the guts to picture a life together with someone. Yeah, I went there, I was looking forward to a long long happy time with this man. I even talked about adopting kids with him and having him meet my parents. None of my significant others have ever had that opportunity. I guess that I was completely thrown off by the end of things. I knew that his actions towards me had changed but I didn’t know it was that extreme. I didn’t know that he had stopped loving me. I’ll be honest, the L-word was used (and no, this isn’t a paragraph about lesbians) between both of us.
I don’t allow people completely in very easily yet I did for him. It’s sad for me that it’s over; I can’t really say the same on his side.
I have been thinking for so long what happened that caused things to be different. What did I do to make things change from the perfection that was how we were? I still don’t know. I probably never will but, someday, that won’t matter. As of right this moment, I am leaning towards a few directions. He said that he didn’t want to have to worry about someone else being in the picture. The Thursday night before we broke up he had gone out with one of his friends to a bar while I was working. I got off work and had all of my Gap stuff with me and all of my City Year stuff with me. It was almost 11:00pm on a week night where I have to be up and work the next morning. He and his friend tried to get me to come out with them but I had to refuse. If I had been caught with any of my City Year stuff in that bar I would have been fired instantly. I would have immediately lost my education reward and everything I had been working for nearly ten months would have been out the window. I would have wasted a year of my life by trying to find some cheap fun in the bottom of a bottle. Sorry, but my kids mean more than alcohol to me. I asked that Saturday night when it ended if I had gone out with them would things be different. He said no, but that Thursday night made him realize that he didn’t want to have to worry about another person being in the picture. Alright.
I thought back to where this line of thought might have originated from and came up with a few options: barbeque, Bellingham, and Las Vegas. At our Memorial Day bbq, I crashed early without telling Patrick. There were a lot of people over at my place and when I overheard someone say that it was 1:30am, I realized that I had to be at work in six hours. I promptly went to my room, set my alarm, and crashed. He asked the next day if I was mad at him, which I wasn’t, and after I explained why I went to bed, he said that he told everyone that he guessed he should probably go to bed too. This alone may have only planted the seed. However, there was a weekend where we were supposed to go to Bellingham. I was able to get off of my second job for Friday night, Saturday, but not Sunday. I had to opt out because making Patrick bring me back home either early Sunday or late Saturday night was absurd. I told him that he should go because his friends there really wanted to see him. Yeah, I wanted him to be with me too, but I also realize the importance of friends, especially ones that have known him far longer than I have. Las Vegas is much the same story. He was planning on going there with his friend Toby and invited me. I couldn’t afford it (hello, I worked for AmeriCorps for ten months, I live pay check to pay check, there is nothing in my bank) but I told him that he should go. He questioned if I was being serious with him that I wanted him to go, I said I was, and that I would miss him while he was gone, but as long as he didn’t hook up with anyone, then I would be okay.
As far as all of this goes, maybe I was being too lenient. Maybe it seemed like I didn’t care if he was there or not. I sure as hell did care. I was trying my hardest to keep him (and therefore me) on good terms with his closest of friends. Far too often I was left behind while my friends in college met significant others and stopped hanging out with me. That sucked, so I was really trying to avoid recreating that with his friends by not monopolizing all of Patrick’s free time. I think that’s a pretty noble endeavor but I can also see how it could have caused a feeling of him not being valuable to me. Perhaps that line of thinking led indirectly to a cessation of returned affection. Maybe that action made me come off as not caring. Who knows now?
Or maybe I just lost my fun appeal. I spent a crap ton of money when we were together and towards the end, I stopped being able to go out. I would opt for more nights at home and less out drinking, just so that I wouldn’t go bankrupt and be forced to go back to Missouri. I have no one else to fall back on financially; I am my own bread winner. That could totally be the reason. I love going out. I love partying and I love having a few (or a lot) of drinks. But if I have no money for it I can’t do it, comprende? Bueno.
The entire thing couldn’t have come at a worse time. City Year is ending. My friends are leaving. I will lose a lot of the people I have become close to up here and in some cases I will have to start over. I knew that this was coming when I was with Patrick but being with him made the entire thing seem like everything would work out. Now, hah, I’m alone again. Story of my life, eh?
What does this have to do with the letter? You may have wondered that a few self-loathing paragraphs ago. Well, I took a valuable lesson from Patrick. Yeah, I loved him, yeah, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and was committed enough to work at it so that it would be feasible but I also realized that he is not the end-all of everything. No one is. I can go out again and meet someone new, all it takes is trying. I was doing much better by Tuesday (probably because I forced myself to mentally prepare to lead ex-gang member middle school students throughout South Park, Seattle in an effort to get rid of graffiti complete with a police escort) and was able to talk about everything and even joke about what had happened.
I’m not saying that what we had mattered so little, in fact, how fast I seemed to feel better scared me a little just because I did love Patrick very very much, but rather that I acknowledged that Patrick can only decide things for Patrick. Likewise with me, I may not have liked that he was dumping me, but I also didn’t make him dump me. I can’t control his thoughts, actions, or emotions. He wants to be friends still (PS – the people you like who I live with are leaving soon, so you better find a way to see them if that is what you meant by coming back to our house) which I am thinking won’t happen because of two reasons: 1 – I can’t do it right now. I don’t think I could hang out with him in the same room and pretend everything is cool and, 2 – By the time I am able to, he will no longer care or even think about me.
I left my soccer game that Sunday afterwards early. I couldn’t stomach the game. I didn’t want to try. I didn’t want to run. I didn’t care if people got past me or if I scored (which is completely unlike me, I am competitive to the core). However, on my way to the bus stop I saw this young lady. She looked as sad as I felt and I realized something: everyone has their down times, what I’m going through is no worse than someone else is experiencing right now either. Because I got dumped the night before doesn’t mean the world stopped turning. I paid respects to what we had in the form of our team's Legacy Binder. There is a collage page of me with my favorite picture of Patrick and I as its center. Forever, that will be tribute to what we were for a very awesome two months of my life.
This is life. So, I’m bottomed out right now, the only way is up, right? My letter seems to say so.
