Series history: This series unofficially began in 2007 in honour of Keren Berrios. We had started at Anderson University together as international students in 2004. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had come to rely on her as my sense of "home" while we lived in between cultures. In my hurry to get through life, I graduated a year earlier than most in our class. The summer between my graduation and hers, Keren's life ended unexpectedly less than three weeks after she turned twenty-one. As I grappled with grief, loss and the roller-coaster of post-graduation life, I began writing to her. In the years after, this series has brought comfort as I remember Keren's legacy and imprint on my life. More recently, it has provided a way to take me back to a time before disillusionment caused me to stop dreaming, and to keep pursuing a life well-lived.
Dear Keren,
I recently found out that we get Al Jazeera on free-view. Needless to say, this political junkie has been spending a bit of time on that channel.
Last night, I caught a few documentaries and talk-shows one after another about the situations in Nigeria, Eritrea and Libya. Halfway through about the third documentary about Eritrean refugees, I suddenly realised how emotionally unaffected I was, and it startled me.
Perhaps a part of it is that so much has happened since the days of our idealistic we-can-save-the-world college selves that I'm no longer as vulnerable as I used to be. Perhaps it's those few weeks in the cafe with the women on the streets of Berlin that made me feel like a wimp for being so emotional. Or perhaps it's that everyday on the news, there are more reports of violence and disasters that my helplessness has slowly become callousness.
Keren, I wish you were here to shake me up and remind me of that idealistic self that I used to be. Remember when we used to dream about saving the world? Remember that feeling when you discovered your avenue to use your passion to save the world through Displace Me? I want to remember what that idealistic buzz feels like again. Keren, what happened?
Maybe it's that we were young and naive. Even after I eventually climbed out from under that mountain of grief after you died, I still had that desire to change the world--and to do it twice as well to make up for the good the world was missing because you were no longer around. And now, seven years after graduation and your passing, I sit in this comfortable home, even if not a place to call my own, wondering what our twenty-one-year-old selves would think about where I am today.
On days when depression hits its lowest point, I'm convinced we would be ashamed. I haven't fought or won a worthy cause. I haven't started a revolution. I haven't nurtured change in anyone's lives. I haven't joined the UN, helped a homeless person get off the streets, or even protected a child from the consequences of their parents' choices. I have no material possessions to boast of, and heck, seven years have passed and I still haven't found the guts to go experience homelessness like I wanted to. On those days, I want to hide in bed all day and pretend I live in an alternate universe where the last seven years didn't feel so worthless. On those days, I wish you were here to shake me up and remind me that there still are things worth being passionate about, the same way you had been one of the few who didn't think I was crazy or try to talk me out of wanting to experience homelessness.
But then there are better days when I remember that even if I'm no revolutionary like Katniss Everdeen or Beatrice Prior, I still have a place in this world to do all the good I can and more importantly, to love with all that I can. Buried somewhere under all that disillusionment is that idealistic twenty-one-year-old self that still believes she can change the world even if she cannot physically rescue all the girls in Nigeria, find all the victims of MH370, or spark change overnight in Eritrea, Libya, Berlin or even a neighbourhood in Auckland. On these better days, I cling on to that idealism in the hopes that it will teach me to keep breathing when the difficult days come back.
And then I remember that even when I was most idealistic, it wasn't the desire to revolutionise the world that kept me going. No, it was simply the desire to be where simply being who God created me to be would bring a smile to someone's face. And I realise that our twenty-one-year-old selves would probably still be ok with all that has happened in the last seven years, even if, on this end of the seven years, there aren't significant accolades to boast about.
And suddenly, I regain that excitement again. Suddenly in spite of how beaten down I feel, that buzz returns. Suddenly in spite of how I feel like I'd bitten off more than I can chew with The Bridge, I feel it in my bones again. Suddenly I remember that even if it's not my role to spark a revolution, I have a role to play, to journey with the idealisms of the university students as they discover their buzz and to stand with them when they decide they want to experience homelessness, or move to Christchurch, or help with food distribution and disaster relief in the Philippines.
Because I'm no longer that twenty-one-year-old self. My buzz no longer comes from the idealism of starting a revolution, but from being there when today's twenty-one-year-olds discover their buzz and celebrating with them who God created them to be.
Dear Keren, I still wish you were here to experience all this with me so you can sit me down in a way only you know how and help me process all that has happened. But it's ok now that you're not. I've gotten quite used to it now.
Dear Keren... Hey, I miss you. Someday, when we meet again we can go splash in the puddles and dance in the rain, then pile the pillows on the balcony, sip tea and talk about everything that has happened. But for now, I have things to do.
Until next time.
Arohanui,
Me
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