An Apology. A Promise.

Dear Children in DFS, Foster Care & Residential Programs,

On behalf of the entire social work system, on behalf of every case worker, social worker, Guardian Ad Litem, Psych Nurse, Therapist, Psychiatrist, Behavioral Aide, School Aide, Behavioral Interventionist, and every other mental health worker you have ever interacted with during your stay in residential or outpatient “therapeutic” program placements—

I am Sorry.

I am sorry that today I saw your face on the internet because you are in jail with a $10,000 bond for possession of a controlled substance, theft, and resisting arrest. I am sorry you are pregnant and homeless wandering the city streets high on meth. I am sorry you are pregnant with your fourth child from your fourth lover and will be living off the government for the rest of your life because we felt it more important to teach you not to curse than how to use a condom or get a job.

I am sorry you don’t understand that it is unacceptable to not attend school because we didn’t make you go. I am sorry we watched you cut your body with whatever you could find and called it “coping” until you bled so much the carpet was stained with your suicidal blood. I am sorry that we let you punch us, perforate our veins with your teeth, give us concussions, pull out our hair, throw us down the stairs, and cover our bodies in bruises and lacerations. I am sorry that we let you assault us, and did not press charges. I am sorry that we cannot press charges, or defend ourselves in a court of law, because we have signed documents to protect your privacy.

I am sorry we placed you in a cold, cement, six by six foot room and injected tranquilizers into your backside time after time when we felt our verbal and physical restraints would no longer suffice.

I am sorry we have labeled you. I am sorry we call you oppositional defiant when your parents do not know how to say “no,” and then proceed to add ADHD and any other words that mean we can put you on mood stabilizers, anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. I am sorry we have pumped you so full of medication we have stripped you of your personality. I am sorry we felt it more important to have a controlled classroom than children with feelings and creativity and vigor and heart.

I am sorry we have allowed you to believe you may do as you please, live as you please, harm as you please, as long as you are not yet eighteen years of age.   I am sorry that we allowed you to believe if you continue to fail we will continue to catch you.

We will not.

We will not catch you. One day no one will try to wake you up seven times in the morning to get you to work on time. One day no one will cook for you when you are hungry, and clean up your mess when you don’t feel like doing it yourself. One day when you hit someone, they will press charges and you will end up behind bars. One day when you curse at someone because you are “triggered”—you will lose your job and your ability to provide for yourself and your children.

We will do better.

We will teach you more. We will teach you how to cook and not just how to preheat the oven. We will teach you about healthy lifestyles and the importance of getting outside. We will teach you what it means to look outside yourselves. We will take you to places and show you lives of others who have hurt just as you have. We will expose you to people who are also in pain. People who are hungry. People who are damaged. People who think they are beyond hope.

We will guarantee that when you leave our facility it will be not because you were too difficult or “have utilized all available resources,” but because you are ready to go. Because we are sure you will succeed beyond what you ever thought possible.

I promise that we will not only speak for you—we will help you to find your voice.

One day the world will know. I hope you believe it to be true. And if you don’t, one day you will see for yourself. There are half a million of you. In the system. Much of the world does not know you exist. Much of America does not know you exist. They do not know your stories.

I promise we will tell them. 

You Are Brave

Sitting around the campfire, I listened to your story.

The moon was bright and we were shivering, huddled together as close to the flames as we could get. You told me what happened. You told me what he did you to—for all those years. You told me you didn’t understand. You didn’t know it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t normal. But one day you learned, and one day you spoke up. Now you don’t see him anymore. Now you are getting better. You are healing.

I told you that I hope you know you are more than your past.

You are brave.

You came to us wanting. You came to us feeling you had nothing to give—you had given all you could and all that was left was a traumatized shadow of what once was. You can never unsee what you have seen. You can never forget. You watched your best fall beside you, never to be awakened again. You watched them fight alongside you, with you, for you—but you came back. They did not. You came to us hoping.

I told you that I don’t understand and I probably never will, but I am grateful for the pieces of your story you have shared.

You can do this, you know. We know you can.

You are brave.

I know you will never feel whole again. Not really.  Not here. You will grow and bloom and stretch. But a part of you was lost with her that you will never get back. And that kind of loss is the hardest kind—the kind with no understanding. We want to know why and we do not. We never will. I’m sorry for your loss and I’m sorry those empty words are said to you repeatedly and offer no solace at all. The only way up from here is to look outside yourself. . . but you know this.  

You are stronger than you know.

You are brave.

What brought you here? Who I see is not who I remember. He was bright. He understood his worth and valor. He had a dream and fought beyond reason to achieve it. He did not allow failure to dishearten him—he allowed it to remind him to get up one more time. He is still within you, that man. Every now and then I see glimpses of him.

You are more than you have become and I hope to God you find him again. You can. You will.

You are brave.

Thank you for saying to me what no one else would. Thank you for challenging my beliefs, my worldviews, my lifestyle. Thank you for living beyond the cowardice label I bestowed upon you. Thank you for coming home. Thank you for recognizing the power of wonder—though terrifying it may be.

You are wise and you live with intention, seeking Truth always.

You are brave.

Sometimes You Get Bit by a Copperhead

The other day I left the hospital in a wheelchair with a big, bearded, burly man kindly pushing me to our vehicle, then carefully and tenderly placing me inside, due to I was incapable of standing on my own. My foot was swollen to about three times its normal size and although in quite a bit of pain, I was grinning from ear to ear.

See—it’s funny because—I always assumed that if I were to ever leave a hospital in a wheelchair with swollen feet and a big, bearded, burly man was the one behind the chair, it would be because I had just given birth to our firstborn child . . .

But no.

At thirty-one years old I was not leaving the hospital in a wheelchair post-childbirth with my beautifully bearded husband. I was, in fact, leaving the hospital post venomous copperhead bite to the left foot with my supervisor escorting me to our 1998 silver suburban. Headed back to camp. Where I live in a tent. As the oldest camp guide, affectionately referred to as “Marm.”

Life is full of surprises.

A copperhead bite to the foot being the most unexpected and least welcome surprise to date—I am grateful for a fantastic story if nothing else.

Whilst clearing rocks from around our bonfire ring pre-snake bite, one of my supervisors, “Three,” asked me in the best way he knew how, what exactly I was doing as a Camp Guide at thirty-one years old. Through a series of roundabout questions I finally responded,

Are you trying to ask me why and how I am single, thirty-one years old, and working as a camp guide in the middle-of-nowhere Missouri?

Yes, he admitted, that is precisely what he was trying to ask. “The simple answer,” I said, “Is because I want to be. I am single and thirty-one years old and working as a camp guide making 50% of what I could be making because I want to be. This is where I want to be and what I want to be doing—so I am here. And I am single because I choose to be.”

I have spent the majority of my life making excuses.  

I shouldn’t get married because I witnessed a quite unhealthy marriage for the eighteen years I lived at home. I will never be financially stable because I keep working “meaningful” jobs where I make just enough to scrape by on. I can’t do this or that or all of the above because I am not strong enough. Because I am physically the weakest link in my family and always have been. I can’t travel because it costs money. I can’t speak in public because I am terrified and I am bad at it. Because the only way I passed Speech class in college was by video-taping my speeches for the professor after passing out every time I attempted to speak in front of the class. I can’t facilitate high ropes because I can’t get to the top of the course without shaking with fear and sobbing once at the top. I can’t sing or play sports like ultimate Frisbee because Tomlinsons are writers and piano players and teachers not singers or athletes. I can’t keep moving because what if I never settle down and what if I am alone forever and what if. . . all of my eggs die?!!?

If there is one truth I have learned within the past month and a half here in Steelville, Missouri it is this:

A life full of excuses is no life at all.

There are about a million and one reasons it doesn’t “make sense” for me to be here. Missouri is not my favorite place to live. It is my least favorite. It is hot and humid and swimming with venomous snakes and spiders. I miss Vermont. I did not grow up learning how to camp or build a fire or ride a horse or tie a knot or build a trail. I almost failed my university speech class due to I was terrified of speaking in front of a crowd of more than five. My current income is lower than it has ever been. I am thirty-one. . .

But this is what I chose.

And the hot and humid and spiders and snakes builds resilience. And the not knowing anything of campfires or knots or high ropes makes the new knowledge all the more empowering. And the fear of speaking in public and the fear of heights makes the accomplishment all the more victorious. And the lack of money forces financial awareness and good stewardship. And yes, I am thirty-one years old. I am the oldest camp guide here—the oldest employee here second only to the director. And yes, I am single. And yes. . . my eggs are dying. . .

But there is a reason as I left that hospital in a wheelchair I was grinning ear to ear upon realizing the irony of the situation. And it was not because I was smiling so I would not cry. And it was not because I was high on pain medication (they didn’t give me any). 

It was because I realized in that moment there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

I have spent many years wishing for something different. Discontent when alone. Wondering at what could have been. Making excuses for why life had turned out the way it had or what could be better. But here I was—left foot swollen with copperhead venom (not pregnant swollen), being escorted by my bearded supervisor (not my bearded husband), to our 1999 suburban (not our Subaru outback), en route to camp (not to our very first home). . .

And I was elated—because this is what I chose.


A life without excuses. At a camp. At thirty-one. With copperheads.

Highs, Lows and Epiphanies: A Year in Vermont

On trail crew we have a tradition of “de-briefing”—quite frequently. We gather, circle up, hold hands, and share with our crew the highs, lows and epiphanies we have had throughout the week. We do this in order to keep a constant line of communication open with our peers, but also simply to better know those we are living and working alongside.

Due to Sunday being my last day as an official Vermont resident (at least for a season), my roommates and I, after spending the evening at House of Tang and inhaling a Scorpion Bowl complete with an Everclear volcano—which, by the way, I highly UNrecommend—very traditionally circled up to complete a final debrief.

A year in Vermont, almost to the day: Highs. Lows. Epiphanies.

My low was a lot of things? I laughed as I said this aloud to my roommates, remembering the numerous traffic tickets, the being homeless, the bank card being hacked, the insanely draining new job, the snowboarding injury and the family crisis back home in St. Louis. I suppose the ultimate low was feeling sometimes entirely helpless—not for myself, but for others. I wanted to help my clients. I wanted to help my family. And in both instances I was far, far from able to due to literal and metaphorical distance.

My high? I suppose just as there were many lows there were many highs. My roommates were an absolute high. I have had the privilege of always having incredible co-habitants. In fact, of the fifteen or so I have had in life, I don’t think I can complain of a single one. But Sweet16—wow. From weekly, sometimes nightly roommate dinners to walks to town to Deep Thought Mountain coffee to Gilmore Girls binge watching to endless mancronyms to a house full of love and jam-sessions and work boots and empowered women. . .  life in our apartment really was fantastic and lacking in absolutely nothing.

VYCC was another obvious high, as it is what brought me to Vermont to begin with. And, looking back I realize that big red barn was more “home” to me than my apartment ever was. It was where everything started—my first trail season, my life in Vermont, and community so deeply rooted and long-lasting I don’t know that I’ll find anything like it again.

And the beauty. Vermont is easily the most beautiful place I have ever lived, and probably more than anything else I will miss seeing endless winding rivers every time I drive anywhere. And Vermont maple syrup. . . and Cabot cheese and kind people and not being judged for wearing Carhartts and work boots and no make up when going out on the town.

The highs are infinite.

And lastly but not leastly, my epiphanies.

I learned that I appreciate a challenge and I learned that I am resilient.

An hour or so ago I wandered into an art store in downtown Lewisburg, PA. The owner struck up a conversation with me and asked if I was a student at the local university. I explained that no, in fact, I am simply passing through. I had been living in Vermont for a year and was now headed south.

“So, You were in Vermont for the winter???”

I grinned ecstatically and answered that yes in fact, I was.

“Wow. Oh wow. Well good for you. I always know when I meet someone that has survived a Vermont winter they must really be a rugged soul. Good for you.”

Of course, I walked away proudly, having felt I had indeed, conquered the world. A flatlander survived a Vermont winter unscathed. . . mostly.

There were a lot of things I had survived. My first trail crew job. Being homeless. Unemployment. Negative 22 degree mornings complete with frozen nostril hairs. A really, really terrible job in the mental health sector. Being far from family during difficult happenings. Hiking Mt. Ascutney with a twenty-five pound pack and an eighteen pound iron rock bar. . . without my inhaler . . .

There were easy things too. Summer was an easy thing. While my fellow Conservation Crew Leaders spent eight weeks living in tents in the woods with their crews, essentially working sixteen hour days when all was said and done—I worked eight hour days and then went home to my adorable little suburb in Raleigh, North Carolina where I was fed grilled salmon and red wine and spent my evenings taking strolls around the block or watching Netflix with my host family.

I remember texting my friend Ellen as we updated each other on crew life whenever she could find cell phone reception somewhere off the Appalachian Trail. She always had insane stories about her crew life—about how difficult it was. There were endless stories about all of the things going wrong that could possibly go wrong.

And all I could think, while lying in my full size bed, under a roof, snuggled underneath a down comforter was,

Come trade places with me?

I think that was the first time in my entire life that I wanted a challenge.  I do not remember a time, ever, that I desired to do something difficult and wished for it to be so. It has never been a thing for me. People do not generally say of me,

“Oh, that AmyRose—boy does she love a challenge!”

But Vermont taught me that I do.

My summer was full of incredible projects, a “Dream Team” crew, and the best sponsors we could have asked for; I would not change a thing about it. But it made me aware more than ever of how I crave closeness to broken people. My corps members were easy. They were well-educated, hard-working, emotionally and psychologically sound, hilarious young people.

They didn’t need me.

I think the summer I had was the summer I needed. It gave me the trail building, bridge-building, playscape-creating, and sponsor relations experience that will forever be useful in whatever future I pursue. But perhaps more useful than all experience combined was the realization that in order to truly thrive, I need to be challenged. I need to be with the ‘difficult’ humans. The ones that attack me—physically, verbally, emotionally. The ones that come from a past so horrendous you would think it stuff only of movies and not real life.

On a road trip to Boston recently, my friend Jake asked me why I do what I do. Why social work, when there are a plethora of other much more wonderful things I could be doing with my life?

My answer, was “Because I can.”

I explained to Jake that I recognize all people are made of entirely different elements of ability, passion, desire and skill. My skill is that I am good at loving people—specifically the hard to love ones. I have my mother to thank for that—not because she is hard to love, but because I watch her love sometimes the most ridiculously awful and mean and treacherous people there ever were.

In a phone conversation with Jake a month or so ago, as he was assisting me in figuring out just what the heck I was going to do with my life—he mentioned to me that perhaps I was going back to Missouri because it was “safe.” Because of all of the choices I had—wilderness therapy in Utah or Hawaii, Crew Leading in Vermont, or Adventure Therapy Camp back “home”—Missouri was the easiest, so perhaps that is why it is what I chose.

At that point, I had one of those I-am-realizing-this-just-now-as-I-say-it-aloud-to-you moments.

“Missouri is not the safest choice or the easiest choice. It is neither. It is the hardest choice. It is leaving a place that I love to go to a place that I don’t. It is living in a tent. It is working with psychotic and abused and really difficult children. It is going to be hard as hell—that is why I’m doing it.”

Missouri is going to be hard and that is why I am going. Because two years ago when I came back from Korea and got comfortable (see 2014 February: Silver Spoon, Plastic Bowl) I promised myself I would do all that I could to ensure it didn’t happen again. Vermont became comfortable. Too comfortable.

So now I will drive 1,600 miles south to get a life guard certification and a high ropes certification that at this moment, I am not physically capable of getting due to I cannot, in fact, actually swim 300  yards or tie eight different kinds of knots. I will work sixteen-hour days and get paid less than I ever have and I will be, by far, the oldest Camp Guide there. I will be out of my league. I will be lost. I will challenged. I will live in a tent.

And I will thrive.

 Because I am leaving Vermont knowing great Truth. . .

I am strong. I am resilient. I welcome Challenge.

Vermont

Sitting on my stool post story telling, I beamed with excitement as Natasha and Jared looked on entirely dumbfounded and grinning with gratitude for my efforts at entertainment. All the while, Jared’s new housemate Jenn sat sheepishly on the hardwood floor beneath the wood stove, tanning a sheep hide and I’m sure wondering who this eccentric individual who had walked in and instantly overtaken her home was.

I am a story-teller.

I think I always have been—at least as long as I can remember. Maybe this is a third-born trait, or a classic ENFP trait, or a Gemini trait—but it is most definitely one of my more defining characteristics.

And so, in light of recognizing that I thrive on story-telling, and because it is now the year 2015 and I have not yet told a story this year—I will tell one now.

This story is dedicated to Jared Fehr. The same evening that I barged into Jenn’s home, overtook her living room, and ranted of the day’s happenings, Jared gave me a compliment that at the time, he probably did not realize the impact it had.

Grinning whole-heartedly from the kitchen, Jared said to me,

“You are such an incredible human being. I don’t just mean because of your story-telling, which is definitely incredible. I just mean that your existence, in general, is incredible. You are an incredible human being.”

In the short time I have known Jared, he has not been one to hand out random, half-hearted compliments. He is the type that only gives one when he means it, and when he knows it need be said—so when you get one you know, you have no choice but to accept it as Truth.  He has also, in the entirety of our friendship, never once presented any kind of ulterior motive, or desire to gain rather than give. Nor has he professed undying love and affection to me ever. It is because of this, that this particular compliment made me feel as though I should probably go write a song or a book or start a wilderness therapy program or all of the above. It made me feel as though I could, in fact, change the world. Because, you see, according to Jared, I am an incredible human being.

And that is something.

I learned a couple days ago that Jared is moving back to Colorado. My instinct was to pack up and leave as well. Not because I want to move to Colorado, and not because I cannot bear the thought of Vermont without him, but rather, because the absolute worst part of settling down anywhere, is knowing that at some point in time, I will be left behind—because I am no longer the one leaving.

And so, this story is an official an Ode to Jared. There is no gift to give that could adequately thank him for his recent friendship, and even more so, for the opportunity he gave me with the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps.

What I can give, is a story.

                                      

 *         *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The year 2013 was quite possibly the worst year of my life.

Not the calendar year—more like April 2013—April 2014. This was due to the fact that I had just returned from a year abroad teaching English in South Korea as well as traveling the world with my boyfriend Tim, who subsequently decided that he no longer wanted to be with me just two short weeks after arriving back in the United States. This would have been a ‘normal’  and survivable breakup—except that we moved overseas together. And traveled the world together. And touched the lepers of India together. And taught the slum children of Farridhabad how to play Frisbee together. And rode elephants through the jungles of Thailand together. And stood beneath Big Ben together.  And swam the coral reefs of Malaysia alongside 100-year old sea turtles together. And survived Korea together. And looked at rings and talked of wedding venues together. And prior to all of this, ride-shared to Southern California together while applying to overseas jobs, slumming on the beaches, and ridesharing our way up and down the coast together while making sure to stop at the Grand Canyon at sunset en route to this California adventure.

What seemed an entire lifetime of adventure was jam-packed into one single romantic relationship. And so, for obvious reasons—I was a complete and total wreck when it came to a sudden and unexpected end.

It is okay to write this now. It is okay because it has been almost two years and just the other day I woke up and realized that I am okay. I don’t think of him every day and there is no pining or longing or aching. And that means something entirely wonderful—it means that I have healed.

But before I healed I went through hell. Before I healed I spent a week immediately following the breakup on the bathroom floor of my friend’s apartment in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I spent a week throwing up and dry-heaving and curled up into fetal position force-feeding myself Sprite and saltine crackers in sips and nibbles while I pleaded with God to take away at least the physical pain and eventually the emotional.

I lost ten pounds in two weeks.  I went to the home of the family with whom I had lived pre-Korea and proceeded to go through all of my belongings. Rather than sign a lease and settle down in Northwest Arkansas as I had originally intended, I donated half of my things to Goodwill—some of which were apartment things like a toaster and an iron—but some things included a lifetime collection of piano music and art that apparently I gave away during this emotional blackout and severely regretted several months later.

As soon as I was physically well enough to travel, I loaded up what survived the Purging of Belongings and headed to St. Louis to be with my family and live with my parents for the first time since leaving home at 18 years old.

In the months that followed, I cried a lot.

I watched an ungodly amount of HGTV and I wondered if at 29 years old I was even capable of surviving yet another heartbreak—this one seemingly much worse than all that preceded it. I also dove head first into beefing up my resume, now complete with international job experience. My goal was to secure a job working for a nonprofit organization in the development department. After spending years volunteering for various nonprofit organizations, at one point founding and funding a well in Uganda, East Africa, I felt I was entirely qualified for such a position.

152 denied resumes later, I learned that I am not.

That’s right. One hundred and fifty-two. I know because I made an Excel spreadsheet of all jobs I had applied to, complete with application date, as well as date I was rejected. Not only was I being denied jobs in the development sector for which I did not actually qualify, I was also being rejected for social work jobs for which I absolutely qualified.

I ended up waiting tables part time at a local Restaurant and Winery in the suburbs of St. Louis where I lived with my parents. And when the job ended due to a discrepancy with the owner, I became a barista at Starbucks. I got up at 3 o’clock in the morning to work for eight hours on my feet not making coffee, but emptying trashcans, sweeping floors, and making whipped creams—for minimum wage. Not only was this job absolutely horrible in a thousand different ways, but here I was with a four-year college degree and six years of experience in the mental health field and making minimum wage.

I lasted a month.

And after that month, I decided it was time to give teaching try—again. This time in the States. Because according to many of my fellow ESL teachers, teaching ESL overseas is entirely different from “really teaching” in the States. My substitute teaching career was a mix of kind of wonderful and very awful. The very awful parts were the days I substitute taught middle school in the ghetto. I will spare you the details. The kind of wonderful parts were the days I spent substitute teaching at a private Hebrew Academy in the nursery-aged classroom. On those days I built towers out of cardboard bricks and learned the Passover song in Hebrew and made arts and crafts and drank juice and learned what Kosher meant and pushed tiny Jewish children in swings in sunshine alongside incredibly kind teachers as we all sweated the day away in our ankle-length skirts and wrist-length, collarbone-covering shirts as was required attire.

It was during my time as a substitute teacher at Epstein Hebrew Academy that I decided teaching was not for me. I decided this not because it was a dreadful experience, but because it was actually a quite nice one. It was in fact, the best substitute teaching experience I had. But upon realizing it was the best teaching experience I had—and that it still meant being indoors for about seven hours a day, confined to one classroom, I realized that if this was as good as it gets, it was not for me. I am not meant to be confined.

And so the endless job search continued.

A Google search for “nonprofit jobs in Asheville, North Carolina” led me to a job posting on indeed.com for the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps.  Why I decided on Asheville is unbeknownst to me. If I remember correctly, it was simply because numerous individuals had throughout my life, spoken its praises and ensured me that I would “love it there—it’s so you.”

I had given up on St. Louis. Not because I wanted to—I was resigned to the idea of living there for at least a few years as I now had a nephew, my parents were only getting older, and it was quite nice to live in the same city as my family for the first time in eleven years. But the fact that I was still underemployed a year after returning from overseas and after a year of aggressive job searching and applying led me to believe that just maybe, there was something for me out of state.

I applied to Vermont Youth Conservation Corps thinking that I would be training in Vermont for a couple of weeks and spending the remainder of my employment with the organization in Asheville, North Carolina, as that seemed to be what the Indeed.com job posting implied. I remember very clearly getting off of Skype after my hour and twenty minute interview and saying aloud to myself mid-laughter,

“They either think I’m crazy—or I just got myself a job . . . or maybe both. Probably both.”

According to the job description I would get to live in the woods with teenagers while building trail. So—I would get to live and breathe and eat outside and potentially change the lives of adolescent youth. Just my cup of tea J

I received a phone call from Jared two weeks after my interview. I was in the parking lot of the Hebrew Academy and immediately after getting off the phone broke into hysterical sobbing. A year of rejection and barely surviving on a total income of $7,000 and I had finally secured a job that wasn’t waiting tables or emptying trashcans for minimum wage. Not only so, but it meant adventure. This meant leaving the suburbs and traversing to an entirely new place that until then I had never even visited—the Northeast.

Doing so meant selling my most prized camera lens to pay for a catalytic converter for my car in order to make it successfully pass Missouri State inspections. It meant driving four hours south to an affordable mechanic and it meant quitting my incredible volunteer job as a freelance photographer for a documentary film crew. It meant packing up and leaving my family to move to a state I’d never been where I didn’t know a soul.

A twenty-two hour road trip turned into twenty-seven road hours stretched out over three days due to stopovers in Louisville, Indianapolis, and Lewisburg. And let’s not forget when my check engine light came on at around 1:00am in Akron, Ohio. I spent the night in a budget motel that reeked of mildew and had hair on the pillowcase and sheets. I cried myself to sleep that night as I remembered the last hotel stay I had was in London, England with Tim after walking the shores of the Thames River at dusk.

Halfway through New York I ran out of gas. At three o’ clock in the morning, the nearest gas station was 31 miles away. Not a single lamp lit yard of highway in sight. I still have no idea, aside from pure miracle, how I made it to the next gas station.

What I remember all to vividly is puking into a Winnie the Pooh gift bag. The gift bag my best friend Fern gave me during my stopover in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The gift bag full of road trip munchies and good reads for my time in the woods. The gift bag I spastically dumped out and proceeded to puke into, while driving 70mph on black New York highways without gas, as I called my mother sobbing, asking whether or not I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.

“MOM I CAN’T STOP PUKING AND CRYING AND MY STOMACH IS IN KNOTS AND I HAVEN’T SLEPT SINCE I LEFT ST. LOUIS AND I’M OUT OF GAS AND THERE ARE NO GAS STATIONS FOR MILES AND WHAT IF I’M WRONG?!??! WHAT IF THIS IS THE WORST DECISION OF MY LIFE?

            Am I making a mistake?”

My dear mother, in true Lynne Tomlinson fashion, talked and prayed me through the night.

Eventually, I made it safely to Richmond, Vermont. I rolled into training three hours late, stomach in knots, head spinning. I was wearing $200 Diesel jeans, Birkenstock sandals, a St. Louis Cardinals shirt, and a full face of makeup.

Everyone else was in Carhartts and work boots. And zero makeup.

From what I remember, I appeared to be at least somewhat confident and thrilled to be there. In reality I was scared out of my mind and entirely out of my element. It wasn’t until a few days later that I learned my five months in Asheville, North Carolina was not at all the plan. I had unknowingly moved to Vermont.

The following months presented the most intense culture shock I have ever experienced.  I have lived in the suburbs of St. Louis, the ninth ward of New Orleans, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Korea. And still, being on trail crew was the most intense cultural shock experience I have had to date.

Maybe it is because when I lived overseas I expected the shock. I expected not to fit in. I expected to be out of my element. I expected to not understand things—to not know things. What I did not expect, in moving to Vermont and joining a trail crew, was all of the above.

But I didn’t fit in. I was out of my element. I didn’t understand things. I didn’t know things. And most of all, I felt entirely inadequate. There was a time we stood in a circle at training with a tarp full of tools at our feet. We were instructed to pick a tool and describe its use, how to safely carry it, and why we find it useful. There were two tools I recognized. A shovel and a flathead screwdriver. The flathead screwdriver turned out to be a chisel and not a screwdriver at all. Thankfully, the shovel was not picked up on the first round so I was safe. I stood in awe as my fellow crew leaders proceeded to pick up tools such as pick mattocks and McCleods and describe in detail just how incredibly useful they could be in building trail.

What. Was I thinking.

I am a social worker. I am a writer. I am a freelance photographer. I am many things. What I am not—what I was not—was a conservation worker and a trail builder. And yet—this is where I was. I was in Vermont. I was a Conservation Crew Leader in Vermont with not an ounce of experience in the field. My co-leaders told story after story of experiences on other trail crews out west. I sat silently by, in awe that this world of trail crew even existed, and wondering how I could possibly have not known of its existence for twenty-nine years.

The following six months were a blur of freezing mornings, coffee addiction frenzies, twenty-pound weight gain, fireside chats and jam sessions, once-a-week showers, endless carbs, dirty hands and a whole new world of trail-building. It was eating constantly and never being full. It was hours at Laundromats and realizing that the $20 in quarters we were instructed to bring would not be get me through the season. It was realizing that Merrell ‘water-proof’ hiking boots are not waterproof at all. It was learning what it meant to “pack light” and finally admitting that I will never fully grasp how to “pack light.” It was lots of rain and lots of cold when in Vermont—and lots of heat and lots of hot during my summer in North Carolina. It was recognizing how vital a co-lead is, and also recognizing that not only am I a decent leader after all, but I actually enjoy it. It was blazing a trail where there was none, and seeing the ecstatic and thankful faces of those for whom we built it. It was constructing giant teepees out of sweet gum. It was learning what an armored crossing was, spending days building one, and hearing each other's life stories as we inhaled coffee and tea in between digging and picking and rock hunting and setting. It was putting up with, as well as putting out--a whole lot of flatulence. And on the very worst of days--the days that I was cold and wet and hungry and scared to death of what may or may not happen at the end of the season because I would be unemployed again. . .  On those days it was me looking up for just a  moment to see a canopy of maples and smelling the fresh air of the forest and feeling the ever-constant drizzle of New England rain and saying aloud, "At least I'm not at Starbucks."

It was creating something useful and preserving something beautiful and living alongside some of the most amazing human beings I have ever known.

What I came away with was a love for the outdoors that I always knew I had but never knew how vital it was to my very well-being. I didn’t know how at home I would feel in a big red barn or in a tent in the woods or how familial a group of near strangers could become. I didn’t know that I would ever be okay going out into public without an ounce of makeup on and unshaven legs. I didn’t know that I could ever actually see muscles on my very own arms or successfully carry an eighteen pound rock bar up Ascutney Mountain. I didn’t know a lot of things before VYCC.

And there was pain there. There was pain as well. There was an awkward and unprofessional almost-relationship with my supervisor and the scars that followed when I was sent to North Carolina for the summer and did not hear from him again. And there was my nephew being born two weeks after I left St. Louis. There was my grandmother dying three weeks into my season and another family member being placed on suicide watch while I was thousands of miles away and without adequate cell phone reception. There was the end of the season and having no idea what the hell I was going to do or where I was going to live or if I was going to stay.

There was living on a near-stranger’s boat in the bay for a week, in a cabin at a state park, on a couch at a friend’s apartment. There was unemployment and a quickly dwindling bank account and fear of the unknown.

And then? Then there was social work.

Then there was taking a job with Washington County Mental Health as a Behavioral Interventionist. There was realizing that just maybe, although I swore time and again I would “never go back to social work” that is where I am supposed to be.

So here I am.

I am living in Montpelier, Vermont. I am living in the Northeast, where sometimes I wake up shivering because the temperature has dropped to sixteen below zero and I failed to turn on my electric blanket before I went to bed.

Sometimes when I go outside in the morning my nose hairs freeze, and sometimes I come home from snowboarding and my toes are frostbitten and white and numb and I call my roommates freaking out because I think I’m going to have to have them amputated.

I spend my mornings with Heather, siting on our couch staring out at ‘Deep Thoughts Mountain,’ convincing ourselves that we are not required to be motivated or productive until 1 o’clock in the afternoon on non-work days. I spend my evenings with my girls—my clients—attempting to convince them of the potential they don’t believe they have.

And the time in between?

The rest of the time is spent cooking roommate dinners and writing songs and watching live bluegrass and realizing how very small Montpelier is as I share a microbrew with one of ten total bartenders at one of three bars in town. The rest of the time is spent learning how to snowboard and shooting video for my musically inclined friend Britt Kusserow. The rest of the time is spent researching wilderness  and outdoor therapy programs as I attempt as best I know how to start my own right here in Montpelier, Vermont.

When I first came here I only saw the beautiful. I came to Richmond. That was home. And I came to build trail. And that meant the parts of Vermont I saw were the trails and the mountains and the rivers and the postcard towns.

But now I work for Washington County. Now I work in Berlin and Barre. Now I see the reality of Vermont—and that is a great disparity between the very rich, upper class and the welfare heroine addicts and the 25-35 year old nature-loving transplants. And it is not so beautiful anymore. It is painful and real and not so much a temporary dream as a permanent choice and way of life.

This way of life that is not so beautiful anymore is still the best I’ve ever had. Vermont to me is not heroine addicts and rich upper class and extreme liberal views and maple syrup and Cabot cheese and tourism. That is not what I choose to see.

I choose to see the Green Mountains and golden capitol building at the bottom of our hill and the rivers that run through every town as far as the eye can see. I choose to see the broken young people that I am privileged enough to be given the opportunity to love. I choose to see the wonder that is Bolton Valley  Ski Resort and all of the endless snowboarding and skiing and beautifully bearded men the world has to offer. I choose to see my candle-lit living room and my dear roommates and friends as we write music and sing our hearts out and don’t give a care that most times we are out of tune and can’t figure out the harmony and don’t actually know how to play more than four chords on guitar. I choose to see the countryside littered with red barns and cattle and sheep and horses and solar panels and cedar homes. I choose to see VYCC alumni coming to stay and visit every other weekend because the bonds we’ve formed will last a lifetime.

And what else to I see?

I see that for the first time in many years I am alive again. 

 My job is heart-wrenching and terrible in a million and one ways but it means something. It means something to get to go to work and know that I am making an infinite impact—though I may not see that impact until ten years down the road. And although I am no longer building trail or living in the woods I know what it means now. I know what it looks like—to live out of a pack and to always smell terribly and to eat three times what I would in my ‘normal’ life and to look up to the sky midday to see that I am surrounded by paper birch and white pines and covered in mineral soil. I know what it is to live alongside fellow human beings that understand what it is to travel, to roam, to love the earth, and to continue to survive on almost nothing in order to do something that makes us feel alive.

So thank you, Jared Fehr. Thank you, VYCC. Thank you for taking a chance on a young woman who had never held a mattock.

Thank you—for bringing me to Vermont.