Memories
By: Sophia

Why does every memory we have, have to be good?
No one likes having a bad memory of something bad that has happened in the past. Everyone wants their lives to be perfect but the reality is that it isn’t and we need to learn from our mistakes and face them instead of trying to hide away those scary or bad memories. Reminisce in those memoriess as much as the good ones.
As a teenager, I have made mistakes, in fact I have made more than a few. I don’t like remembering them and the things I did wrong. But if I didn’t make those mistakes I wouldn’t be the person I am now.
I wouldn’t know that it was a mistake until I made it.
I think that’s part of living. I think it makes you more of a real person.
No ones perfect and if you admit to your mistakes and learn from them you will be a better and stronger person. This year has been a big learning experience for me and it hasn’t been all great memories, but I’m happy that I have made mistakes because it makes my life a little more interesting.
If my life was a book, you wouldn’t be able to set it down!

Change
Written by: Karen

“Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
― Eckhart Tolle

Change. I thought I would always hate it, and yet it has been my entire life for over a year now. Almost on a weekly, and sometimes on a daily basis, there have been changes. I have learned to make change my friend. To look at it square in the face, and say- let’s do this thing.
In my life I have thrived on routines. I am a list maker. I liked to know what was coming, and to watch as I crossed things off my list. I liked to know the borders and parameters of my life. This has proven impossible in my most recent past. I have learned to become accustomed to the unexpected, and to be pliable and to face change without flinching.

Some changes have been amazing, and others have been terrifying. Some have literally brought me to my knees with grief. Seeing it through though, not running or giving up, or calling Uncle has reaped so many rewards. I have learned above all else that there are no borders, that life is limitless in its possibilities.
As a little girl I used to lie awake at night forcing myself to focus on the idea of eternity, infinity, and no limits. I would become dizzy with fear to the point where I would run to my mom’s bedside and tell her I was scared and just couldn’t sleep. She would fix me a cup of Ovaltine, and I would grasp on to the warm solidness of the cup. I would stare into her eyes and know that she was keeping me tethered to the ground; I was not going to fly away into the great abyss of eternity. She would keep me there.
The last year I have not had someone to run to in the night, no one to make me a cup of Ovaltine and to remind me that I was tethered safely in place. I have had to do that for myself. So much change has made my life unchartered territory. I lie in bed in an apartment in Chicago and feel that pull towards fear, that feeling of falling into so much that is unknown. My mind still feels dizzy with fear. And yet, I have survived it all. I have not flown away, I have not disappeared. I have learned that the little girl is still there, and she can still be afraid. But I have also learned that inside of me there is a woman who is strong, brave, competent, and even unafraid.
Change can mean fear. It can mean losses and grief. But what I have learned is that change also means possibility, hope and promise. These next two months are going to be full of change. I have made choices that will turn everything upside down and inside out once again. But when your heart knows what is right, you face the abyss of the unknown with your head held high, and know that there is no limit to what your life can become. No limit. No fear. No regret. Nothing but hope.

Get real.
By: Karen

Let’s talk turkey- (forgive the obvious November reference)
I just read a study in my research class, which said our brain is incapable of recognizing when we are trying to fool ourselves or justify bad behavior. They cited a Princeton Research Study that said 87% of medical interns believe their counterparts are being coerced by pharmaceutical companies gifts, while only 17% believed that they themselves were being coerced.
As much as we want to believe that our intentions are pure, and we are making good choices, very often we are fooling ourselves.
We allow this phenomenon of shopping around until we get the rubber stamp we want for our behavior. If a friend does not agree with a decision I am making, I will call someone else who does so that I can go about my day feeling justified and at peace.
I do not like this about myself, but it is honest.
If a teacher grades a paper of mine poorly, than obviously they were biased or did not explain the assignment well! However, if I get an A, they are only recognizing my obvious abilities.

With all the heavy decisions and daily choices I am being faced with right now, it is imperative to me to make good sound judgments. However, I am self-aware enough to know that I am not self-aware enough.

So how can one possibly make good choices without all the rationalizations and justifications that go along with the poor ones?

Tough love.

All of us hopefully have friends and people in our lives that won’t give us a free pass on deluding ourselves. The friends who truly love us will call us on our “crap” and tell us to back up and try again. They love us enough to say, you are heading down the wrong road, back up, and take the detour.

In our lives we will be judged, disappointed, and hurt. We will be faced with the ugly monster inside of us that tells us the world owes us something for being so hard on us. But perhaps our greatest challenge is self-honesty and awareness.
In order to be the very best people we can be, we have to recognize our own weaknesses and short-comings, and to be very aware that where our reasoning is concerned we will suffer from blind spots.
Faced with a tough decision? Use your phone-a-friend card, and be prepared to hear the truth. It hurts at times, but it will make all the difference in the world. After all, it is so much easier to recognize another’s shortcomings, and friends who truly love us, want us to be the best we can be.
Love yourself enough today to hear the truth and be prepared to make a detour.

Friendship
By: Sophia Rose

Why is it in our humanity, that people think we need a lot of friends. Then, if you only have 4 friends you are supposedly alone and don’t have friends.
Well I am here to say I only have four true friends I actually hang out with.
I have more friends at school and know more people, but only four that are truly my friends.
A thing about me is for some reason everyone trusts me, it could be my best friend for over 5 years or a person I just met, I somehow get to know their whole life story and what they are struggling with.
People have come up to me and said Sophia I’m so lonely and I only have a couple of really good friends.
I sit there for a second kind of dumb founded. Why is it that if we aren’t the popular person and only have a few really good friends then we are loners?
I, of course answer, and tell her: “You’re lucky. Wouldn’t you rather have a couple of friends you could tell everything to instead of having a bunch of fake friends?”
What I have learned is you can have lots of friends, but sometimes still feel empty and lonely inside. If you have even just one great friend that you can tell everything to and trust, you should count yourself lucky.
It took me awhile to realize this myself. But I am a true believer that you don’t need a lot of friends to feel whole inside.

Grace

Grace.
By Karen

“It seems that all my bridges have been burnt
but you say that's exactly how this grace thing works.
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start.”
Mumford and Sons, Roll Away Your Stone


Grace is a funny thing.
People talk about it all the time in different ways.
It is discussed in religious context, grace periods for car payments, or even a saving grace, being saved at the last minute unexpectedly.

For me grace means a second chance. Grace means that no matter how far down you fall, or how many mistakes you make, there will always be another opportunity. Or as Mumford and Son’s so eloquently states, it is having all your bridges being burned, and still having your heart changed.
Grace also is God intervening for you in a very real way.
No matter what your religious affiliations are, grace is a powerful force in anyone’s life.

I have come to be a both a great believer in, and a great dependent of grace.

I am not a perfect human being. I make mistakes on a daily basis, sometimes many, many mistakes in one day. In fact I have found that each day is an opportunity for me to learn and to grow, because with utter certainty I can tell you that there will be something within each day that I mess up or forget.
I try each day to wake with the renewed determination to do the next right thing, to be the best human being I can be, and to make good choices. Then I have my first cup of coffee, head out and the world confronts me with its frailties’ and challenges. How I encounter these things is different on any given day, thus the reliance on grace.

Today was one of those days. Today it seemed the world was conspiring against me. Everything that could happen did, and many were things that were completely unexpected. I tried my hardest to confront each issue as it came, and to handle things with dignity, strength, and courage. But alas, I was drained and felt defeated, I felt alone and afraid. So I did the best I could do, and trusted in grace to do the rest.
It is almost the end of the day, and I wish I could say something profound happened. That there was some amazing miracle that happened to get me through, and I could tell you some amazing story of an angel swooping in to save me. Grace does not always work that way.

Grace is sometimes quiet.
Grace is subtle.
Grace can mean the smallest of things that help you survive.
In looking back on this day that I just want to forget, I see grace everywhere.
There was grace in the phone call from my girlfriend who encouraged me to not give up, who made me laugh about selling everything I own, even the beds in my apartment to pay the bills. Who told me I was not just good, but excellent. The texts from another friend who reminded me not to give up and that life can change in a second, and what looks hopeless now can be an opportunity in the making.
There was grace in the fact that the kids I nanny both took naps at the same time so I could get phone calls and homework done.
There was grace in free coffee being handed out on Michigan Avenue, and finding a bag of Swedish fish I had forgotten about in my backpack.
Perhaps most importantly is that there was grace in surviving.
Grace in not giving up and not crying defeat.
There was grace in persevering and overcoming.
The biggest source of grace is in knowing that when I close my eyes tonight, I will wake up to a new day, a new morning to strengthen my resolve. A second change. A do-over. That is the biggest grace of all.