I Cannot Summarize Myself

I am taking a patronizingly basic "Technology" class, which makes me want to die buta little - our first assignment was to write a one page summary about myself. I *almost* posted my favorite blog ever -One Hundred Things About Me - but I'm pretty sure (as awesome as it is) that my 501 class doesn't care about my affinity for zombies or my personal history of love. Anyway, on the sappy side, this is what I wrote.

I exist because a couple of people decided to follow their heart. I try to honor this existence, and the risks taken to make me possible, by following my own heart and standing up for what I believe in.

The people that are now my parents made decisions when they were only eighteen or so to dedicate themselves to the Catholic Church – my mother went to the convent, my father to the seminary. Priesthood sent my father to the Philippines and throughout Africa – to a whole full life before the possibility of my existence was ever considered. Through the convent, my mother went to nursing school, after a residency in Labor and Delivery; she left the order – convinced by feelings stronger than those which led her to the sacrament that she was meant for motherhood. Years later my father left as well – to be with her.

These weren’t easy decisions, they were life changing, identity altering, and earth shaking, but my parents had the guts to make them, which makes them two of the bravest people I know. They stood up because the believed in their decisions, their union, their feelings – this is a spirit they passed on to me and I feel a monumental responsibility to live a meaningful life to honor the risks that they took to make my existence possible.

I may not always succeed, but I strive make a difference as I make my way in the world, sticking up for the little guy even when that puts me in sticky situations. I have protested, door-knocked, canvassed, researched, mentored, advocated, written, and listened. My efforts have affected negligible change, but I will keep trying partly for the hope in a bigger impact the next time, partly for some faith in quantum physics, but mostly because my makers had the gull to follow their heart in the first place.