The Rest of my Summer in DC!

So here's what happened: about the second week, our house lost internet connection, which meant the only access I had to the outside world came from my phone, the brief glances at Facebook during work hours (sshhh! don't tell my boss!), and the newspaper I browsed every day during my commute. We didn't get it back until, oh, about week five or six. By that point, the concept of blogging was a faint and fading memory...

Anyway. Here we are. A month after the end of my Summer of Service, and I'm still exploring and digesting what I just experienced.

Like I said in my earlier blog, it wasn't what I was expecting at all. I was expecting politics, policy work, research, changing the world! What I got, however, was much more valuable: connections, direction, purpose.

It was a summer of discovery, not in the way I intended it to be. I didn't discover where I wanted to go to graduate school. I didn't discover what organization with which I want to work. I didn't solidify my area of interest (in fact, I added another one!). I did discover that I was putting way too much emphasis on my resume and not enough emphasis on my relationships. I did discover that I am passionate about many things, and that this is not a bad thing like I had thought. I did discover how to reincorporate my faith back into my life. I did discover that I have all the ingredients necessary to be successful in my future career. I did discover that I NEED to incorporate journalism into whatever that career may be. I did discover that I want (and need) to spend time abroad working before I can enter graduate school with any sense of direction. I did discover that politics could be in my future. I did discover that I love frozen yogurt. That's quite a bit of discovery, if I do say so myself.

Anyway. How I'm going to sum up my summer from here on out is as follows:

This summer, I spent two months living just outside of DC. I lived in a house with 20 other college students who worked on the Hill (lingo for Capitol Hill / House / Senate), and together we learned how to build a community from people with very diversified opinions and backgrounds, how to lead with conviction and integrity ... and how to navigate our nation's beautiful capital :) I spent one day each week volunteering with children from the impoverished areas of DC. These children were a bright spot of my week. We spent time playing games outside together (one little boy and I were the final two for a very intense game of "hold-hands-and-try-to-ram-the-other-person-into-the-overturned-garbage-can-in-the-center" ... he was intense, let me tell you!), talking together, eating lunch together, reading together, and making beaded bracelets and necklaces together. As children tend to do, they filled me with hope and a feeling of joy amidst poverty and rampant crime.

On Fridays, when I wasn't working, I set up meetings with different non-profit organizations to build connections with those organizations and to figure out if I actually want to do the kind of work I think I want to do. To anyone who is ever in a big city - PLEASE DO THIS! It was so helpful to me personally, and I know those connections will pay off for me professionally as well.

Saturdays and Sundays were spent bonding with the people living in the house (what a great group of people - I miss them already!), exploring DC, visiting monuments and gardens and museums, watching Josh Groban perform on the Fourth of July (yes, it was a Monday. Whatever.), listening to the Dalai Lama (by far a highlight of the summer!), listening to Jazz in the Park, visiting Baltimore, going to an Orioles game, spending time on the Bay ... everything. It was so great.

The other days of the week, I worked with a senator's wife. She is one of the most well-connected, well-liked, well-dressed women I have ever met. She walks into a room and fills it with purpose and strength ... and, strangely enough, love. She builds relationships with women leaders from around the world, pulling them away from the stresses of politics and poverty (most women are from less developed countries) for retreats and conferences, times to relax and enjoy the company of other women who are actively pursuing a better, more just world. These retreats, one of which I had the pleasure of experiencing, are not just powerful women lounging around together. They challenge each other to live lives of integrity, to build relationships with their citizens, something frequently lacking in non-industrialized countries, to be good mothers and sisters and wives and friends, to love everyone they meet, to push through hardship. Then, whenever a crisis or need arises within one of those countries, those women can call on each other for help: reassurances, mobilization of resources and funds, prayers ... you name it. One of my favorite stories is that of one country's need (I forgot which country :D) for mammogram machines and doctors to use them, as a disproportionate amount of women were dying from untreated breast cancer. The president's wife contacted the other women, my boss included, and together they mobilized machines, doctors, and funds to bring the testing out to even the most rural areas.

And it's that kind of thing that matters. As we say in Bonner all the time, you are to build a relationship with your community, to acknowledge your place within the community, to understand that what you have is only worth something when you give it away. It is those relationships and connections and results that matter - not the fame of your organization, not the length or prestige of your resume, not the sheer numbers. It's about people. It's about service. It's about love.

Isn't that what we've been taught all along?