Amberlee's Adventuring: Life in Seattle: Hope(day38-41)

We both have a love for icecream

HOPE (def.) :
- the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life

-a feeling of desire for something and confidence in the possibility of its fulfillment

- to wish

It's been more than a month since I moved here, and between my two jobs I've been working a LOT. I'm more than 2,000 miles away from my family, my friends, and all the people I hold dear to my heart and all those people that help me get through the ups and downs of life....

So it's only natural that I was starting to feel a little down and tired.
Don't get me wrong, I do not have any doubts about moving here and I'm just as happy as can be in this city (and this weather!) but sometimes you just wanna go where everybody (or even just a somebody) knows your name (yes yes, cue a montage of Cheers).

Sometimes, we just need a little extra dose of something to give us more hope.
This week's dose of hope came in the form of an awesome person named Alicia.

Alicia and I met a couple of years ago through a fiction writing class at OSU. We became writing/editing partners and friends for life thanks to that class. What I didn't realize at the time was that she is from Seattle, and what neither one of us realized at the time is that I would be moving there in a couple of years! Mysterious, how life works sometimes, eh?

Seeing her was a breath of much needed hope for me right now, and I couldn't be more thankful for the time we got to spend together. We also realized that we saw each other exactly a year ago to the day in Seattle last summer (both times during an event called the Bite of Seattle). Amazing to see how much our lives have changed in this year.

1. It's okay to need a little something or someone to inspire and refuel your hope.
In fact, I think that's the point. We are here to help keep each other going.
I find hope in a beautiful rainy day, in a cup of coffee, in the Starbucks workers who remember my name (NEVER underestimate the power of remembering someone's name). I feel hope in a sentimental song that randomly shuffles through my ipod, in a piece of mail, in a special voicemail left for me while I'm at work, in a phone date with my Mom. Sometimes hope is in flashing lights and mountains that make us jump with belief in ourselves. Sometimes hope is the peace in our hearts, that tiny tiny voice saying, "yes." And sometimes hope is seeing a friend again, eating sushi and icecream, and just walking around the city and talking about life.

You're awesome Alicia

2. "Whatever you do in life will be insignificant, but it's very important that you do it." (-Gandhi)

I agree with this from the viewpoint that because of whatever we do, there is significance within that.
Like that fiction class I took at OSU. It was insignificant. In the bigger picture of life, it was just a class. But I felt like I needed to take it, and so I took it. That has made all the difference. I took away so many great memories from that class, a higher level of writing skills (or at least I like to pretend) and I met Alicia. These things have all added to the person I am today, and the journey that took me to here, and wherever I might go in the future. There is nothing insignificant about that.

So just when you think things like "Who am I? I'm just a stay-at-home mom. I'm just a teacher. I'm just a student...A barista at Starbucks. An artist. A sales associate....."
Think again. Because while all of these things perhaps are "insignificant" in the huge picture of life, you are important. And even if you never discover the cure for cancer or AIDS or become President or fly to the moon, so what?
You are a star. You are the parent to the world changer, the person who makes coffee that jump starts the day of the person who cures cancer. The artist who inspires the next President, the next CEO, the next anything.
You are the next anything. And whatever you decide to do changes the immediate world around you. Superficially significant or not, by all means, is insignificant to the fact that you should do what you have been called to do, whatever that is, no matter the cost. Doing this- fighting for your dreams, maintaining hope and love in the face of discouragement or disaster is quite possibly the most significant thing we could ever do and very important that we do it.