Thursday, February 21, 2013

Crowbars and Cockroaches

To be completely and utterly honest, when I signed up for New Orleans earlier this year, I could not have told anyone why on earth I wanted to be part of the group. I had possessed a half-hearted attitude to the program for a number of years, thinking it was a clique, a group I'd never be a part of. Especially since the group seemed to be made entirely of selfless, energetic, organized extroverts (four traits I have never mastered). Honestly, part of this feeling persisted through the 10 months it took to get here. But once I arrived, the story really did change.

I never anticipated this group having much of an effect on who I am. My mother always told me how when she grew up, she was always the girl who wouldn't stand by while someone did something she didn't know how to do. If they could do it, she wanted to know how, too. I, on the other hand, can happily stand by and say, "I don't know how, and I don't particularly care". But, on my first day here, I watched a group of girls tramp through manure, carry huge logs around, and pick up cockroaches. Since then, for the first time in my life, I decided to make an effort to not be "that girl" who wouldn't do anything hard, gross, or simply unfamiliar.

Since then, I've used hammers,  kicked down walls,used crow bars to rip molding off the ceiling, climbed a good  10 feet up a ladder (making headway in my fear of heights), and calmed down a mini anxiety attack I had in a stressful situation. And I saw these as stepping stones in my life only in retrospect because they came so naturally to me at the time. Thinking about it afterward made me realize that the people I've been working with have seeped their strength, their commitment, and their confidence into me in a way I never thought possible.

Today, this emotional transition culminated itself as I watched Maria Rios deal with a cockroach at the work site in La Place. Maria told the group a few days prior that she would not save a dying friend if they were covered in cockroaches due to the fact that she was so deathly terrified of them. But, she also mentioned she wanted to get over this fear. So, Nick Adami-Sampson grabbed a cockroach out of a bathrub, called Maria over, and talked her into putting it in her (gloved) hands. Though I did little but watch eagerly from the sidelines, I have never been more proud of a friend for finally getting the courage to hold her worst fear in her hands for a moment. And I vicariously felt her triumph.

In that moment and later, I know Maria holds this landmark close to her heart. What most probably don't know is, so do I. Because Nick and Maria showed me today that your fears have no power over you. That you can do anything you want and need to do by the sheer power of being yourself. That sometimes all you need is a word of confidence from a friend to do things you never thought you could do. That fear is only a verb if you let it be... And if there's one thing I learned this week, I know my fears will run my life no longer.

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