Migrant Trail

I feel so unprepared. I have been so caught up in work and everything else that I forgot to mentally prepare myself for the journey ahead.  Feel like I may come back with a new prospective or something. I don’t know. I am kind of excited though. Up close and personal with the border fence and the graffiti, the desert, the desolation. I want to see it, all of it. I want to feel it, to touch the sand and dig my fingers into the dry hot crystals. To remind myself that this isn’t a dream, it’s reality.

So much of the time here I walk down the street with the brick and adobe houses starring at me that I think it’s in a film, not real. Not until it’s dusk and I can feel the heat of the concrete and stone mixed fences around the houses still hot from a foot away. I have to stop walking and just touch them to remember that El Paso isn’t a dream, that I really did move here.

So, here I go. Packed. Blue bag and knapsack. Ready to go on this adventure, remembering the words from the vision statement in the Migrant Trail handbook:

The precarious reality of our borderlands calls us to walk.  We are a spiritually diverse, multi-cultural group who walk together on a journey of peace to remember people, friends and family who have died, others who have crossed, and people who continue to come.  We bear witness to the tragedy of death and of the inhumanity in our midst.  Lastly, we walk as a community, in defiance of the borders that attempt to divide us, committed to working together for the human dignity of all peoples.

La realidad precaria de nuestra frontera es un llamado a caminar. Somos un grupo diverso en cultura y espíritu quienes caminamos juntos en una jornada de paz para recordar a nuestros compañeros, amigos y familiares quienes han muerto, los que han cruzado, y quienes continúan cruzando. Testificamos acerca de la tragedia de muerte e inhumanidad en nuestro medio. Finalmente, caminamos como comunidad en contra de las fronteras que intentan dividirnos, comprometidos a luchar por la dignidad de todos.

Selfishness does not bring about change.

I'm not sure when I wrote this, maybe a couple weeks ago. I wrote it on a piece of mail when I just had to get it out of my head.

Sometimes I find myself feeling so ungrateful, so selfish. Feeling like so many other people get everything while I had to fend for myself, getting so mad at God for leaving me out. Then I just have to slap myself in the face and say WAKE UP, ELAYNA, WAKE UP! You have no idea what real suffering is. Be so grateful that God has not given you so much, that he has shown you some of the evil of this world. You understand the hate and greed and envy of others. You have felt it, but He has also showed you wisdom. The empathy that goes with understanding the sadness of others.

More and more I see why God chose the path he did for me. I would not feel the pain of others, the compassion I have in my heart, if it were not for the pain I felt growing up through the years. More things come together each day, but I still tend to forget some of His greatest lessons, that of humility and love. Love is never ungrateful.

I am one of the most independent people I know. Would I still be the person I am today if I had been spoonfed everything? Maybe a bit because I tend to rebel against the people who try to control me. I don't know. I'm just happy that God maybe about to use me. I figured out a little while ago that God doesn't need me or anyone else; He's God! But, He can chose to use me for his good works, and I hope that he does because He is my hope in this world that can be so unforgiving.

Today

Sometimes I feel like I’m missing out on so many things, like I want to go on an adventure. I keep forgetting that I just packed my bags and moved across that country 3 months ago, but I‘m antsy already. I have this need to explore the world. I’m worried that I won’t get the chance to. It’s like I can never be happy with what I have, like I think that there is always something better and that my life is lacking sustenance. I keep getting closer to the border, but not for very long. I don’t know if that means something. I was on the bus a lot today and I was so tired by the end of the day. I think I learned something today about being an adult. I’ve been trying to tell myself to suck it up for awhile now and I think that today I did just that. I decided to be joyful, and it was hard, but it was so much better than being crabby today. I did a presentation on budgeting and identity theft in Spanish today by myself because I had to fill in for one of the other VISTAs and I think that I did a great job.

 On the bus on the way home I was looking around and I did feel like I fit in with everyone else who has to ride the bus and lives in low-income housing (where I gave the presentation). It’s too bad that I don’t feel the same way at work. At work I feel like I’m the only one who struggles, everyone else seems to be so worried with impressing their boss. It’s like a game; who can make up the most BS? Me, I can!!! Oh, Pick me!! I’m living between two different worlds, but maybe that’s the point, maybe that’s suppose to help me understand both sides of the story. I don’t know. Maybe this is the beginning of wisdom, understanding, and then action. How do I act on this? Where do I start? How do we break down these walls?

Writing instead of blurting...

I feel like graduation was so long ago. the process is never ending, graduating and then starting school all over again. Now that you've graduated, what are you going to do next? Grad school? The real world. I have just started working in the real world and already it feels like I have been here forever. I don't really like this real world. I want to go back to fake world. let's wonder around the country in a van that breaks down all the time. Where is the adventure. People want to settle down and buy a house and raise a family. WHY?

What is so good about being stuck in some town for 15-30 years paying off this mortgage with a bunch of screaming kids that say they hate you? You come home from work, sit, eat, maybe read or watch tv for a few hours and get up and do it again. What is so great about that life? Yes, maybee you have a nice car and a great house, but for what? What is so exciting about it?

Maybe I just have a different set up than most people. I need to travel; I need to experience. Being stuck in the house for long periods on end drives me crazy. It's like I need to get out; I need to feel something; I need to feel like I'm living and not trapped in subtle suburbia. Maybe it's the routine; routine is boring. I think in the end it's just security, it makes people feel safe.

I don't want to be safe. We only get 1 life, Let's use it!

April Thoughts...Part dos

Random thought *I think it's funny that the types of cars I had growing up aren't even close to safe to most people. So many high schoolers these days have such a cushy life.

Random thought #2 *Sometimes I think that professionalism is funny. It seems like your acting, playing a part to fit in. The effective workers do something, everyone else seems to pretend to do something.

Another day:
I don't think that I'm helping enough. My job title is Volunteers In Service To America and I still think that I'm not making a big enough impact. I'm trying to find more ways to volunteer in my community, but the places that I'm used to aren't working out here. I need to ask around, but not that many people around me volunteer. I forget that my whole 8-5 job is helping the community; just because I'm not getting my hands dirty doesn't mean that my work isn't making a difference. In fact I'm learning that the most significant amount of change tends to come from working on the inside. :)

April Thoughts...

So throughout the month I have been writing down different thoughts that come to me while I'm sitting at my desk starring at my computer screen. Not sure which ones came first. :)

1.I'm not always thinking about how my words are effecting other people, or even how it makes them think. I comment about $, not having a lot, or something that insinuates the lack there of and then I'm not ready for the response. Stopping to consider the outcomes of my words before I say them would be better than what I am doing at that moment. I am just end up babbling because I just want to talk. I don't seem to care what I say or how it effects another person's thoughts.

It is so hard for me to just be patient. I don't understand why I think that I am so important and that what I have to say can't wait another minute to hear another person's thoughts. I feel so selfish lately. I came here to be love; to practice humility. I feel like I am failing at it. If I learn nothing else, I need to understand that humility is the highest degree of wisdom. I was reading in "The future of Peace" today and i read something very powerful. "If your mind doesn't stay with your body in the present, all sorts fo evil things--all sorts of distractions--will come flowing in to overwhelm it, making it fall away from its inner worth..."

I too often find myself making up my own stories in my head trying to make sense of everything or imagine scenarios of how things will go in the future. A lot of times that alone makes up my mood. If I just concentrated on living in the present, I would be a lot happier.

"If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind." -Seneca

Travel...it's gonna happen

I'm making a plan, a decision, a goal right now to do what I've always wanted to do...I'm going to travel. I want to spent a whole summer, that's 4 months (yes, a college summer), traveling through South America. I am going to start saving my money now and for the next 24 months, that's two years, and have enough money to spend a whole summer traveling.

I want so badly to see the world. I see people hiking through the jungle on the travel channel or friends climbing up mountains in the Andes and I just shake with excitement. I want to go out...I want to sleep in the rainforest and get down poured on...I want to see el Tierra del Fuego and learn to tango in Argentina. I see so many of my traveling friends experiencing all these exciting things and I want it too. If anyone wants to join me on this quest...let it be known...

2013 here I come!