Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of people and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's life"

They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, right? I think yes but so many of you seem to disagree. The “D” word is so intimidating, so detrimental to relationships and so lonely we shouldn't even talk about it. But what is so bad about distance? Distance from familiarity, home, family, your lover, the ones who have passed away… I find that while I am distant from one, I am close to another. So here are my thoughts on “istanceday”.

Ever since I graduated from high school in 2012 and left for college in Southern California, I've become quite the expert on distance. When you're never in one place for very long and personally know the TSA staff at multiple airports, you're more than likely not physically close to the same people or places for very long. When filling out any type of paperwork where I have to fill in my address, maybe at a storage unit facility for example, I usually just ask the person who gave me the paper, “what is this building’s address?” I am almost always far away from family, mates, lovers, and currently my country, my language and my pup. I want to take an in depth look at all of the types distances in our lives and tell you about the experiences I've harvested as of late. Maybe then we can see why perhaps distance can be cherished with simply a different mindset.

I started writing this entry 7,390 miles from my home, Sammamish, Washington, USA. I was sitting in the Dubai International Airport and the distance between myself and everyone I know and love was very present. I had flashbacks to my first dose of real distance when I left home for college. At first I was nervous and excited. I was thrilled to meet new people and to be in the golden state of California. It was difficult saying goodbye to my parents, my friends and my childhood bedroom, but it was also exhilarating. Independence at last! But Looking back, the distance carried so much more than a thrill and a fresh start. The distance I put between myself and my family and childhood mates depicted the strongest loves I know. It taught me who is in it for the long run and revealed who I now only see scrolling through Facebook. It allowed the constant use of my handmade stationary to aunts and uncles, long phone calls to mom and dad, and personal, independent growth. Perhaps most importantly, that distance showed me the most important characteristics I possess, things I couldn't comprehend without distance from the people and experiences who and that taught me to be this way, the woman who I have become.

Freshman year of college!

The distance from my family showed me the intrinsic values that reside in my heart when no one I know is around. These values were fostered and nourished by my faith-filled parents and my Catholic education and didn't have a name until I was truly alone. When I left home, I realized that without living under my parents’ roof, I still have the traits and an inner voice telling me to do certain things. The things I've grown up knowing are “right”. Positivity always. Pick up that piece of litter, love without caution, serve the less fortunate, maintain self-respect, respect my elders, respect my youngers, take vitamin C, do not cheat, do not lie, fuel my body with the foods it needs, don't eat yellow snow, if I have to ask if the shorts are too short, they are, stand up for myself, education is everything, don't let boys treat me badly, what’s meant to be will find its way, don't forget where I parked, stand up for those who don't have a voice, if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it might be a duck...you can imagine which ones came from mom and which golden nuggets were from dad.The effects of my upbringing were depicted with how I behaved when I was distanced from the reinforcers themselves. This “basic” familial kind of distance is easier to unlock than the dreaded long distance relationship. Oh that LDR. Oh no.

But that's also important to discuss and perhaps this blurb will inspire you to accept distance in your current relationship or maybe go with it in your next one. Now, I've never been afraid of distance in a romantic setting. Warning: I've also never actually had an official long distance boyfriend but I'm still going to give this a go (since I have extremely strong opinions on just about everything). If you disagree with what I have to say, write me a personal Facebook message telling me about it like so many did with my last blogpost (still not sorry).

Whenever I'm dating someone and it inevitably comes down to me leaving, I usually advocate for long distance because I see the beauty in that depth of commitment. Why should something passionate with a potential future end simply because of temporary, physical distance?  No man has taken me up on it, so I leave alone, sad, but eventually ok. My heart has taken on one or two uncommitted lovers from worlds away and I've felt love across the ocean with no mode of communication. I know the magnetic, rare, connection between two souls reaches distances unimaginable. Someone far away without a single text message to send can still make you feel chosen, adored and loved.

How is this possible? If you asked me in person, I would simply say it’s magic, and I do believe that. I've recently read a book that explained human magnetoreception and I truly think it has something to do with it (even though in the book it was used to describe sharks’ abilities to navigate the ocean ANYWAY) I'm not entirely sure how it happens, but I'll tell you what I do know: I've become extremely independent over the years and I have never relied on a man for my happiness. I have found my happiness on my own terms– one of my favorite things about myself. When I date somebody, I also look for an independent soul who doesn't complete me but instead compliments my completeness and in turn, we create something unstoppable. I seek an athlete of a soul worthy of my soul as his opponent, trying and pushing to the fullness of each of our potentials. My belief is that when you find your person, you choose them every day even if you've got miles between you.
The choices are often  independent and I imagine they can be difficult. These choices might have tasks that don't even explicitly involve your partner.

For instance,  You can make the decision to better yourself, to become the best you every day. You can choose to learn something new to tell your person later or to simply day dream of them. You can actively keep your mind on them so when you see certain things during the day, you are easily reminded of your person and those daytime thoughts carry into your dreams while you sleep. Then, you wake up in the morning happy that you saw your sweetheart in your dreams. You can then actively wonder what they dreamt of that night. You thank God for them and then write them a note for later before going downstairs for brekkie. (He does not like that type of bread by the way, it's a good thing he's not here because that's all there is to eat. But he would LOVE this jam! I wonder how I can get some of this jam home to him! Is jam a liquid? How many ounces is this container?) Becoming selfless thousands of miles away, and serving someone with your soul is possible. Those choices make distance special.

Unfortunately you can choose someone in the way I described above but for whatever reason, they will not choose you in return. Sometimes you just can't explain the kind of distance you're expecting or craving and you don’t want to, nor have to ask for the communication that you need. They might love you when you are nearby but will not be ready for your explosion of love through time and space and they will not stay. Whatever their reason is, you still must go. They can love you like you've never been loved before and still might not join you on a journey through distance. You do NOT have to inspire someone to join you on that journey. You never have to convince someone to choose you nor the oceans and mountains and space between you two. There is more extraordinary love, more love that you have never seen but that God and the universe have in store for you in this wide and wild world. There is the love who will choose you no matter where you are or where you are going. They are ready to give you the love you need when you get to where you’re headed and while you’re on the way too.  The human you're becoming by traveling and leaving is far more precious than the dead weight who cannot handle your movement. I clearly have not found this ready man yet, but it's something I believe in down to my bones.



The two biggest distances we face in our lives might be the distances between ourselves and God (whoever your God is) and ourselves and a deceased loved one. Two and a half weeks into this trip, I left Nakuru, Kenya for a new orphanage. This orphanage was many miles from town, out in the distant, quiet maize fields, up a long bumpy dirt road where the cows are loud and there are yellow labs. I didn't know anyone there and had met the owner of the orphanage one time for only a few minutes. I was distanced from familiarity of my Kenyan haven and I was a little nervous. The first day I arrived to the baby house in Kiamunyi area, a call came in to the home to go pick up a baby from a hospital. A one-month-old infant who was abandoned by his mother at a public toilet. A “public toilet” in Kenya means maybe a roofless wooden hut with a hole inside. We went to go get him within the hour. I carried him out of the hospital and all the way home. I bathed him, clothed him, and fed him. I was far away from my familiar schools, orphanages, and home stay but presented with the task of nurturing a nearly newborn infant; A task that is utterly natural for me. Now I understand that thing they say about mothers being able to lift a truck off their baby...acquiring super strength in the moment. I get it! When we saw the baby laying by himself on a bed in the busy, loud children’s hospital, gravity, magnetoreception, and the Holy Spirit took me straight to him with no questions asked. I knew this was our baby.

Before we left to pick up the babe that day, I had joined the aunties in their bible study. Not my thing, but I went with it. We were reading from Luke about when Jesus was resurrected and back on Earth in human form. We discussed what it meant to have a lowly body and why it's important that Jesus walked the Earth as a man with a man’s body, different from the glorified father and the Holy Spirit. During the discussion we all giggled about our body insecurities. I complained about the lips I don't have and everyone laughed. I continued to think about lowliness and what it meant to have a lowly body. The true lowly feeling occurred after we took baby Luca (named thoughtfully after Luke who we were reading from) the next day to the hospital. We took him in to get HIV tested (he is negative by the way!). He started to get fussy in the waiting area and I knew he was hungry. Tracy, the social worker, prepared his formula but I felt lowly for not being able to breast feed him right then. I felt lowly several other times during my stay there. When multiple babies needed feedings, I felt lowly for not having the physical strength to carry more than one. When I took Luca to my room during his naps and laid him on my chest, I felt lowly for not being the woman who created, carried and gave birth to him but who gets to bond with this miracle baby. I ultimately felt lowly for being a single graduate student who cannot adopt him, wondering if he’ll ever have a mommy, who she will be, and if she will raise him how I would have. Will he ever play baseball? Will his mommy make his pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse? Will she sing to him, pray with him and let him play in the mud?

It's unbearable to think that some of the 20 babies I met there will go a portion of their life without the incomparable love of a parent. If you were wondering what keeps me up at night, it is that. I felt distant from my abilities, my body, and from God and it really upset me. I asked God why I was chosen to meet this child and fall so deeply in love with him when I would be leaving so soon without him.

As the moments went by however, the distant feeling I had from God and from my lowliness vanished. I suddenly realized I do have the indescribable nurturing abilities to be a mother. To love a baby I just met unconditionally, even one I did not give birth to, and even for a short amount of time. If you think about it, God usually gives parents about 18 years to nurture a child before they go on their way. Right now my 18 years happens to be a few weeks. And that's ok. Do you know how much you can love someone in 2 whole weeks? The ever flowing love I have for life has been funneled from God through me to make a difference in this baby’s life..or maybe funneled through Luca to me to make a difference in my life... Either way, we were able to love each other for 2 weeks. I pray with everything I've got, my thin lips, small breasts and all, that he feels love in his tiny, squishy body and knows he has a purpose on this earth; that he was created by God with love. I hope he felt warm, safe and bonded to me when I fed him in the middle of the night, when there is nothing to hear but crickets and the urgent sucking of his disappearing hunger. I am 22 and single and yet I have carried a baby from a hospital, named him, changed his nappy, fed him, and loved him. I held his finger when the doctor drew blood to test for HIV. I then stared at the test, with tears in my eyes for either result. I ran my pointer finger gently across Luca’s fuzzy hairline as he stared at me. I watched his eyelids flutter during his sleep, wondering what horrors he has already seen in his one month of life. I wondered what strength this angel possesses to stay alive through abandonment. When his thick black, curly head of hair is resting on my chest, there is no distance from God. Everything I could ever want is swaddled under my chin, rising and falling with our seamless breath.

Now losing a loved one brings many feelings: Sadness, alondedom, confusion, release, any kind of feeling is valid. I never met my grandfather Paul, my mother’s father. I've heard stories and seen photos and wish with every ounce of my being that I could have met him. I know that he was a devout Catholic, a respected doctor, a fiery Italian and he liked to eat salty and sweet things together like I do. I know he used Grumbacher oil paints and often got paint on the brush handles because that same paint still remains on his old brushes that my mom and I use. I know that on his death bed he sang Ave Maria to his daughter. Last Sunday I attended the English Catholic mass at Christ the King Catholic Church here in Kenya. I swear the only fast Kenyans are the Catholics! Also half the congregation arrived moments before the gospel and dined and dashed--guess we’re not so different afterall. The mass was the same as I’ve known all my life and very beautiful, but my favorite part was the closing hymn: Ave Maria. At that moment the distance between heaven and earth became a lot smaller and once again I felt God whispering so loudly “You are exactly where you're supposed to be. Grandpa is so proud of you. Eat more, principessa.”

As I finish up this post, it’s my last day here. There's a quiet, distant and lonely feeling in my heart. I feel funny not having a baby on my hip. It's too quiet without water boiling for tea, toddlers singing, or moving or helping somewhere. I'm currently sitting on a tiny bed in Nakuru, Kenya. I'm wearing a full length black skirt and an old t shirt. My mosquito bites...and bed bug bites (oh Uganda) itch. There is no wifi. I am distant from everything. But this type of distance, personal distance is perhaps the most rewarding. I've realized that the way I fall in love with wherever I am, makes distance inevitable. The experiences I've had are generally inexplicable, and even if they were easy to explain, many times people don't really care to know. People want to know about what it was like to be the only white woman in a Kenyan town but not what it's like to meet a child who has 7 brothers and sisters and whose mother is pregnant...oldest sister is a prostitute, and there's no food in the house. No one cares to know about one of the only beggars who I saw whose body was so deformed it was hard to look at him. These experiences hold me back from people...once you've seen some of these horrors, you can't quite shake them and there’s always some sort of distance from the present that remains.

The places I love, the people who make me who I am, the smells, the food, whoever my true love is, will never ever be in one place at one time. I will forever anticipate, accept, and encourage distance because it's beautiful and it is inevitable in my life. I will cultivate loneliness and the inexplicability of my experiences as they push the boundaries of my soul. That lonely, hole-in-my-heart distant feeling is not meant to be filled by another human. Expecting to fill that space is too much to expect and it will drive me mad because an element of loneliness will always be there as I move about and experience the world.

The only thing you can do as a wanderer, is to acknowledge the spaces in your heart, understand yourself and your needs, love endlessly no matter how long you are given, write beautiful letters that paint vivid images, count the rain drops that fall from international clouds and hit your face the same way anywhere, and accept no mediocrity in who tries to love your wandering soul. A person who cannot elevate your ambition, mirror your mindset nor match the way you move about the earth is no person for you. You are a mover, a global citizen and no cattle will stand in your way.

God has explicitly shown me that wherever I am is where I am supposed to be. Distance is my dear friend and I will actively choose to cherish her as she comes.

We're So Young. We're So Young.

“We're so young. We're so young. We're twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There's this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lie alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out - that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it's too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.” // Marina Keegan

I haven’t written a blog post since I went to Africa. When I returned from my trip I was still in a colossal daydream. I kept starting almost every sentence I spoke with, “So in Kenya…” comparing and contrasting, trying to allow others to understand; gripping and staring at handwritten letters from 23 angel students and 1 Italian lover; smelling one particular wine cork willing it to smell like it did that one night. I wish I could say that my trip has faded into the back of my mind, but it most certainly has not. I don’t go an hour without thinking about my journey and I desperately wish I was still on that misunderstood, perfectly imperfect continent.

But alas, I am here in Redlands, California and a second semester senior in college. How do I feel? I’ll let you know when I can catch my breath. People keep asking me if I’m ready to graduate, how my experience has been, if I’ll miss Redlands. Yes. Unbelievable. Yes. I am baffled by the changes I have experienced during the past 3.75 years at the University of Redlands. I’m in awe of everything that has happened: the love I’ve felt, the people I’ve lost, the places I’ve gone, and how I’ve become prepared for the next steps in my life. The purpose of this post is to share with you my experiences I’ve personally had with change, but more importantly what in my life has stayed the same.

Change. The kind that sucks the air right from you. 

My very first friend I had at my university is dead. The person whom I thought I might marry now repulses me. The boy I first loved just recently had a baby with the young woman whom he chose over me. The boy who’d never hurt me, cheated on me. I got a puppy. There was a terrorist attack 8 miles away from my campus. There was a terrorist attack 5 miles from my brother’s former campus. That brother is married. My dad had heart surgery. Twice.  I watched a woman leave her infant at an orphanage in Kenya. I fell into love at first sight.

Dear class of 2016, In the past 4 years we have experienced so many changes on our own, good and bad. Every experience without our family’s immediate support is heightened. With every change, a blindfold is randomly ripped off on the sunniest day of the year. We are all growing and changing constantly. Our attitudes switch at the drop of a hat after one Beyonce song. Our opinions on love and sex flip and flop based on the attention we are or are not receiving. We have become tough-skinned, elusive, unfocused, refocused, lost, found, broken...whole. I promise most of you will look back and think, “Those shorts were too short”, “Why did I treat her like that?”, “Cocaine is not cool”.  We deserve a pat on the back, a hug and a giant cup of ever flowing coffee. Isn’t change a funny thing?

Change can be devastating, exhilarating and enchanting. Change has become my favorite thing in the world, because without change, how do we recognize what stays the same? Without change, how will the subject of your photo, your core values, stay detailed and in focus if you don’t open your aperture enough for a blurry background of change and uncertainty? While change is constant and crucial for our development (Yes we are still young and developing. No we don’t have all the answers. Stop drinking so much! Our frontal lobes are important and not fully grown yet!), I want to highlight the things that have stayed the same.

-My relationship with my mother 

-My obsession with my major and my field of study 

-My best friendships 

-My love for love

Everything I am or hope to be, I owe to my mother. She is my favorite human on this Earth. Everything I do is to put a smile on her face. The radiant, intelligent, sensitive, kick-ass, hilarious, faith-filled woman is the first to know about grad school interviews, the boy who texted me good morning, the A I got on that one horrible chemistry test, that I started my period, that Bia got new treats...everything. She is me and I am her and we are pretty much one super human. College has made me appreciate her even more than I already did. We text every single day...pretty much all day, and she’s my best friend on snapchat (lol). One day, I will be a mommy and my mother will be my daily inspiration (except maybe not with those purple spandex shorts she wore to the YMCA throughout the first 6 years of my childhood...come on mom, you know the ones). 

So what’s your major?

Many college students feel lost with their studies, which is totally fine. We major in what our parents majored in or what’s easy or what might make money, OR what we are absolutely in love with. For me, it was always Comm Dis. Communicative Disorders has become my life. I am always in awe of how humans communicate or don’t with the world. With a unique and wholesome education at the communicative disorders department at the UofR alongside the various supplemental involvements I’ve pursued, I’ve cultivated so many of my core life values from this field of study. I believe healthy communication is a human right. I believe in freedom of speech, religion and the right to bear arms as well...but how will you stand up for that if you don’t have a voice? Ok ok, that’s a little much, but seriously. For those of you who have “heard of Comm Dis but don’t know what it involves” here’s a quick and dirty rundown:

Communicative Disorders is the study of everything speech, swallowing, language and hearing pathology/therapy. From prematurely born infants with feeding disorders to toddlers with neurological developmental delays to the 8-year-old with a stutter to the 13-year-old boy who has autism, to the 15-year-old young woman who has Down syndrome, to the 25-year-old man with cerebral palsy to the 30-year-old woman who has a traumatic brain injury to the 50-year-old stroke victim who lost her language to the 90-year-old with Alzheimer’s. This field is EXTREMELY vast. It includes exciting research and science, exhilarating technology, interpersonal skills, custom clinical care, creativity and familial support. I could rant on and on about it forever. Undecided? Major in Comm Dis! Just kidding. But not.

This competitive field has been the backbone of my education throughout all of college. I applied to the dear ole UofR because they had the program! I’m currently an applicant for 13 graduate schools. Holy. I don’t know where the future will take me. New York? Nashville? Seattle? Back to Africa? All I can tell you is that this field is my life and I feel so blessed every day that I know exactly what I want to do with my life and that I’m on the path to getting there. My fellow classmates, My hope is that you have found something that you are wildly passionate about studying. If you don't know what to do after college, that's fine! But I hope our liberal arts education has served its purpose in allowing you to cultivate a unique and well-rounded education that will eventually inspire you to do something wonderful. I hope you went to class, and I hope you thanked your professors.

My experience in Kenya has complimented my appreciation for education. In Kenya, if a classroom was occupied, or unable to use for some reason? "Problem nothing". A whiteboard will be brought outside and students will sit around and learn with a purpose while chickens meander behind them and the sun or rain beat down on their uniform sweaters. Education is the beginning of everything. and it's endless. Our brains are magic. Who else is completely thrilled with the capability of being a lifelong learner? This is why I don't text in class. This photo right here is why it can wait.

Ok ladies now let’s get in formation:

Sophia, Marisa, Camille, Alex, Kathryn, Mckenzie, Colie...you ladies are life. I’ve known Marisa know for 20 years now, Camille for 15, Sophia for 14, Alex for 8, Kat & Mckenzie for 4 and Colie for 3. Let me tell you about what I’ve learned about best friendship. Best friendship is not speaking for 3 years and then grabbing a drink, not missing a beat in conversation. Best friendship is devouring sushi then running into Nordstrom together to buy a leotard for your man (you’re welcome, man/you weren’t the first to see me in that).  It’s sitting on the couch drinking wine from your roommates’ “crystal wine glasses that were a wedding present please don’t use them” and watching 50 Shades of Grey. It’s walking around Ted Runner Stadium crying over those we’ve lost. It’s burping me at the bar (the right way). It’s leaving your first college party early to watch A Little Princess in a tiny dorm room bed. It’s girl scout cookie conversations and waiting for me when I had the runs in Office Depot. It’s NYE three years in a row, “Happy Mother’s Day Freck”. These best friends carry us through our years of alonedom. You are my queens.

True friendships do not change. Time, location, nor growth can change these bonds. These sisterhoods are golden and they become so rare as we get older. They are the real friendships that could never be compromised by men, drama or anything because they’re so far beyond that. These are key. Thank you ladies for being the ones.

We were created in love

Now love. Hehe my favorite topic ever. Now people, I’ve been cheated on, cheated with (without knowing), dumped, left, ignored, stood up, played, lied to, stood up again, and again and again and oh glory me it’s been a roller coaster! Anything else wrong a man can do, it’s happened to me ha ha. I’ve watched beautiful marriages end and ugly marriages begin. I watch people rush into love and rush out. I’ve seen people use facebook posts to seek social validation for pregnancy and questionable (yet legal) unions. I watch mediocre love, daily with the couple who lives in the house I rent. By the way, Is marriage really just finding someone to split the rent with and who will answer your every beck and call? Someone to do half the dishes? Anyway, none of this has changed my opinion of love. None of it has scarred or scared me into never trying again. If anything, all of the bad will highlight the good when he comes into my life.

I take love seriously. I am the most loyal woman I can possibly be. Maybe I put myself out there too often or I make a fool out of myself  sometimes, but I’ve never regretted opening up my heart and telling someone how I feel.  One day a man will appreciate me for being this way. 
I have a sneaky feeling that love is on it's way. To be honest, this belief lies in my theory that you cannot truly love someone until you love yourself...all the damn way...and folks, I’m just about there! I also believe that God has an extremely special man whom he’ll send at the right time. I am firm in that faith. And if you don’t believe in God, the universe has someone for you too. If my future hubby is reading this, know that I write to you often, pray for you, and I cannot wait to fall in love with you.

In order to reach my destination of love, I have to keep falling in love with myself first. Then I can be all that I am and more for my partner. And what better way to do that than accept the array of changes and challenges that my life has to offer?

Seniors, as we finish our last few months of college, let’s embrace all of the change that has happened, put the Coors Lite down, and reflect on how those changes have solidified our core values. If you slough off your greek letters, GPA, jersey, and ego, we’re just people trying to make it through.  How thrilling is it that as humans, changes we have absolutely no control over can affect our souls? How exciting is it to taste some icky so we can learn about yummy?