365 Days Of Love. Day 160

Expectations always worry me. Or, perhaps, my own potential worries me. Last week, I was given my first professional (ish) assignment as a writer. After the initial excitement wore off, I flooded with insecurity. On Friday, I was given two exemplar examples to follow when I started my assignment, which only added to my fright.

Friday night, I worried myself into sleeplessness. Truly, I was up multiple times for varied reasons and each time, I dreaded morning and the responsibility it promised. Morning came, too soon, and I initially sweat out stress.

For the rest of Saturday, I did absolutely nothing to develop my assignment. In fact, I avoided my computer as if it was covered with a contagion. I hung out with my family. I had supper with my grandparents and babysat my nephew, I jet set around town, and ran to the store, but I avoided tapping into any pocket of potential in reference to work.

Given my deadline  ever desire to please those who afford me assignments, I forced myself into sleep with sleepytime tea Saturday night. I woke up this morning and I glued myself to my seat until I finished my assignment. When I sent it to the editor who promised publication, my fingers trembled.

What if it isn’t good? What if he doesn’t like it? What if I’m not really a writer at all?

Whenever someone trusts me with something great, I question my ability to “step up” to the challenge.

I wish I could tell you that the editor loved my work, but he’s busy with company and won’t look at it until tonight. I can say, though, that expectations are frightening, but I’m learning to love them too. Expectations push our limits and open, for us, a broader view of who we are and what we can do.

Sometimes, I really want to hate expectations, but ultimately, I love them. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 159

When I’m really excited, I act like a child.

It makes sense, though, right? Everything was exciting as a little one. Playing soccer for the first time, climbing a tree, doing flips on the monkey bars, eating my mom’s infamous English muffin pizzas. Everything was joy-filled. In growing up, the mundanity of life lost excitement and my spirit lost its childlike joy.

Of course, there have been times in my adolescent and adult life that induced excitement like the past. Falling in love, taking international adventures.

It’s so easy to be drab as an adult, though. It’s so easy to fall into a boring, unexciting routine.

Sometimes, though, I am excited enough to be childlike. When I’m grocery shopping and I see a new product, I’ll dance in the aisles (my parents can attest to this). When I’m consistently conversing with a guy I like, giddiness overcomes me. When I drive 30 minutes with friends for a beer at 8:30 at night, I  am absolutely silly with excitement.

As an adult, this excitement doesn’t happen near enough, but that’s because I don’t make choices that allow it to happen.

I don’t think I should drive an hour every night for a beer (I would be broke, fat, and tired pretty quickly) nor do I think giddiness is the source of life. The spontaneity of these decisions, the newness of conversing with an interesting person are the qualities that induce excitement.

I’m often so consumed with establishing a routine, I forget what it’s like to try something new.

The out of routine moments, those beaming with mystery, are the most exciting moments in life.

It is these moments that establish new boundaries for us, teach us more about ourselves, teach us how to love ourselves a little more.

We should chase childlike excitement, chase the love we had for life when we were little. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 158

This morning, my walk to school was so peaceful. It was strangely quiet out with the only audible sounds being a few barking dogs lost in the valleys of the nearby plains. No wind blew through the trees, no cars zipped over the gravel road, and for a few serene steps, not a single person could be seen in my line of vision.

It was quiet and I treasured it.

I’m not sure if it’s the changing season or my inability to completely grasp my new surroundings, but I crave quietness. This morning, for the first time, quietness came.

I wished myself in that moment forever, that most perfect moment of now. The moment without worry, without wishful thoughts of a different life, without anything but me and my ever constant step.

I love quiet, for seven solid steps to school, I love quiet. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 157

My Media class has been exploring the craft of storytelling. We’ve read multiple articles ranging from the tradition of Native story telling to the autobiographical account of a leader in the Civil Rights movement. From these readings, there was something that profoundly stuck out in our reading from yesterday:

Each story is an interconnected part of a larger story.

It made me think of life and how we’re all, in a sense, dependent on one another. I think about my friends, who offer me so much laughter and joy. My students, who show me resilience and innate benevolence. My family, those who have seen my ugliest, but still see me as a beautiful being. And then, there’s strangers. Like, the people I wave at when I run down the highway or the person making my whole milk latte at the coffee shop.

It is in these daily interactions with those closest to me and those unknown to me that I connect with the soul of the Universe. It’s difficult to internalize the importance of connectivity when I’m drowning in books or thinking about a cute boy or “figuring out” my life, but this innate connectivity is truly the gasoline of life. These daily connections are the brief , passing moments that subsist us.

We are all a story, an interconnected part of a larger story.

A

Larger

Divine

Love

Story. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 156

Yesterday, I shuffled my feet for as long as possible to delay my return trip to Wanblee. It’s not that I don’t like Wanblee or my job or Rez life in general. I don’t love it, but I certainly don’t hate it either. On Sundays, I take my time leaving Mitchell because I love spending Sundays with my family. I love going out to my grandparents’ house and raiding their cupboards for sugary cereal. I like eating with my parents and brother and sister and law while my nephew traffics food to my dog under the table. I like running in Mitchell without the fear of stray dogs and with the promise of passing somebody I know. I like my friends in Mitchell, I like cleaning my mom and dad’s house. I just really like being home so it’s always hard to leave.

Yesterday, though, was particularly tough. Since I’m sick, we convinced James, my nephew, to blow me kisses instead of offering me mouth wide open kisses. He liberally blew me lots of kisses while I put Emery (my dog’s) leash on her. When we walked away from little Jamesy, though, he started to cry. It broke my heart. My mom was holding him and his arms were outstretched to the door I was exiting and his little eyes turned red with tears. It took everything in me not to cry. To be entirely frank, I’m not sure if he was sad about me leaving or Emery leaving (their the best of friends). Either way, leaving a sweet little sad baby is such a difficult thing to do.

As I started my trek West on 1-90, I thought about how much I love my little nephews. I love my brother and sister and their spouses and I love my parents, but there’s something special about the love I have for the little ones. The sole driving force behind my wanting to be closer to home is the two little boys that (one day will) call me auntie. Embodying “Aunt Nannie” has been the most treasurable experience in my life. I can’t say it’s forced me to grow up quickly or prepared me for parenthood one day (I still have plenty of immature bouts and I’m nowhere near parent material), but it’s internally developed a perfect perspective on life. Little ones are so curious and trusting. They depend on us for safety and, I think, we depend on them for laughter and hope.

I love my little nephews so much and I love that they’ve taught me love greater than I knew before. A love rooted in an innocent perspective on this most beautiful life. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 155

As much as I love meeting my friends downtown to have a few drinks, mingle, and (perhaps) bust a move, I most always prefer quiet(er) nights at home with good friends after quiet days at home with my family.

Yesterday, I woke up at 7 with swollen glands and a sore throat. I buried myself in my dad's sweatshirt and meandered upstairs where my dad was watching The History Channel on the couch. I sprawled out on the couch perpendicular from him and watched "Most Extreme Airports" and lured my dog into cuddling with me. I was supposed to run with a friend at 8, but the overtly obvious sickness meddling in my throat acted as a run cancellation catalyst. Because I revert to behaviors similar to 5 year olds when I'm sick, I shuffled to my mom's room and crawled in bed with her until 9. Then, the two of us met my cousin in a small town a few minutes away to watch her son's football game. My grandparents joined us shortly after. Around 11:45, my dad's promise of a chili lunch drew us back to Mitchell. We detoured to the Urgent Care clinic and then, per my strep throat diagnosis, to the pharmacy. A little later than initially expected, we had my favorite Fall lunch with my dad and then took a family trip to the grocery store. I spent the afternoon baking, showered,and then went to my grandparents' house for supper (my grandma makes wonderful meatloaf). Despite being sick and lacking my normal spunk, yesterday was a perfect day.

Last night, some (new and old) friends came over and we shared stories around a fire. I drank a Red Hoptober and Crispin Cider and felt pleasantly warm. We made s'mores and ate too many marshmallows. I loved it.

As I watched the logs burn, I though, it's nights like these, after days like today, that subsist life. It's not extremely wild, it's not necessarily memory-making fun, but it's peaceful and warm and pleasant.

It's lovely.

365 Days of Love. Day 154

At the beginning of the year, I hysterically cried after an elementary class (I literally blubbered) because a girl hit a boy and madness preceded to follow. It was, I thought, my ultimate demise as an educator. I felt as if I had failed.

Both classes have since been occurring with only minor kinks. Yesterday, though, during my 2^nd grade special, I nearly cried again. Only this time, it wasn’t out of frustration or feelings of inadequacies. This time, my near tears were rooted in the mangled combination of joy and disbelief.

Two second graders were on either side of my lap while we read an I Spy book. One is a teacher’s dream student. She raises her hand, she participates, she reads above grade level. The other is a sweet little boy who struggles to sound out sight words.  As the three of us read and searched for the hidden pictures in the book, I felt so connected to the little beings that graced my knees. I could have spent the entire afternoon finding pictures in that book with them.

Then, I remembered reality, the unbelievable reality.

The Rez is sad. It’s not sad because the people are sad, it’s sad because it seems so barren. It seems so lost. I haven’t been here long and it would be unfair for me to draw conclusions about this community, but I know the people living here deserve more. I know the second graders that snuggle close to me deserve more.

Reality is hard to choke down especially when it seems so loveless, when it withholds opportunity from such deserving people. But, in those deserving people, in my second graders and fifth graders, there is a vision for a stronger reality one day.

There is a vision for a lovely reality. 

365 Days of Love. Day 153

I frequently take thought trips, wrestling with the ideas of oppression and empowerment. I understand how slip into oppression. I’ve lived in communities where one’s existence is solely dependent on another person or entity. I’ve also seen friends seek unrealistic proportions per some image they’ve been told is “right.” I’ve witnessed incredibly kind people turn bitter after being taken advantage of one too many times. Even I, an educated, supported individual, don’t feel especially worthy of anything special. I get oppression. I hate it, but I get it.

But what about empowerment? How do those who have fallen into the vast barren land of oppression become empowered? How do people internalize their worth and then use it as a driving force for change?

I feel like this concept has been translated to the cliché, “teach a man to fish,” which is great and lovely, but let’s be real, how do you teach worth to someone who, for so long, has been told, “you are nothing, you will never be good enough.”?

Our worth is frightening because when we internalize it, we realize we need to act. When we understand that we’re powerful individuals, we also understand our responsibility. We understand that for societal smoothness, each individual must understand their worth as well, each individuals must believe they are important and needed. Then, our life becomes a relentless fight to undo so many things that have been “normal” for so long, so many things that have resulted in the oppression of too many people.

Where do we start?

This is far too reduced too, but I think there’s only one place to start.

Love.

Each second of everyday, we can love. We can love the cashier at the grocery store, we can love the old woman driving too slow in front of us, we can love the teacher who tells us to “roll with the punches” as she dumps books outside our space, we can love the student who is defiant, we can love the breeze, and the chill, the colors, the smell of rain. In each of us, in all of our days, there are moments to love.

It seems simple.

For people to be empowered, they must feel loved. It’s not a matter of doing one good deed a day or preventing meltdowns when things don’t go our way. It’s a matter of genuinely loving as many seconds of as many moments as is humanly possible. 

Love is  empowering. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 152

It’s amazing how quickly life can change, how temporary so many aspects of life are.

I woke up this morning and confidently slid into the outfit I neurotically picked out the night before. I walked to school in step with my neighbor and clocked in well before I was expected to. I visited the teacher I’m closest with before I trucked to the library. We visited for awhile before I offered to help her get an activity ready for her students. I sat down in one of her student chairs and started boxing off the paper and filing the boxes with synonyms and antonyms.

And then…

I realized I was slightly stuck to the chair. I sat in gum. I was wearing brand new pants and I sat in gum. I tied my blazer around my waist, speed walked home, and changed only to arrive back at school right as the morning meeting started. 

Whatever, not the end of the world.

I bunkered down in the library and perused the internet for a second-grade friendly story on Halloween. When I went to print, I was met with an unfixable jammed printer.

Okay, still not the end of the world.

And then…

Multiple people came into the library, exasperatingly expressing that they were “bringing the books up from downstairs to put on the library floor.”

Every single expletive I knew raced through my mind. It took every ounce of self-discipline I have to not have a two-year old like tantrum on my floor. I’ve spent hours, my mom and grandma have spent hours cleaning out this library. When books were initially purged, I asked that they be discarded or given away. My request was translated to “please transfer the books to an empty room downstairs.” And now, those books are returning to the library.

Since I’ve started here, I’ve gone from not having teaching responsibilities to teaching multiple classes. I went from a middle school teacher to a high school teacher, I’ve subbed, I’ve been asked to teach elementary, and now, my space is being dumped on with things I already deemed unworthy of the library I am attempting to create.

Change is (obviously) inevitable, flexibility apparently needs to be the number one qualification for this job, and I’m finding it’s best to not question my worth at the school (because it leads to me feeling absolutely worthless).

Today, though, already weary from the kinks thrown into my (thought to be) fluid plan, I’m reminded of something of lovely.

Life isn’t about the things that flee quickly, it’s not about the books on my library floor or the hours of work I’ve put into creating a semi clean space, it’s not about my new pants with a streak of white gum across the back pockets.

Life is about the things that last, the things that mark us and make us. Life is about hysterically laughing while trying to catch a mouse in my neighbor’s house (that actually happened), snuggling with my dog a few minutes past my alarm, helping a student pick out a book, spending time with my family, sipping coffee until noon on Saturday, singing songs (off-key) with my best friend, dancing like a fool, having long conversations while hitting the pavement with my running buddy, waving to strangers, connecting with people. 

Life is loving the things that matter and learning from the things that don’t. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 151

My all-time favorite movie is Away We Go. It depicts the journey of a young, recently-pregnant, couple as they explore hip cities in search of a place to reside. Ultimately, they end where Maya Rudolph (the woman in the relationship) began., her deceased parents’ house on windy shore. When I first watched the movie, it set with me like a wishful romance that I wanted my life to one day become. Most recently, when I’ve thought about the movie, I’ve seen it in an entirely different light.

There’s something powerful about going back to where you came from.

When I was in Haiti, I was envious of the Haitian-Americans who were working in the homeland of their parents, returning to their home to empower the community. I was envious because their ties to the country ran far deeper than mine ever would, they were innately connected.

As a teacher in South Texas and, now, as a librarian on Pine Ridge, I ambiguously beg my students to leave, learn the stories of others, absorb the knowledge provided by independence and experience, and then come back. Come back to transform your community, to empower individuals, to lead, to tell a different story.

Oddly, though, whenever I considered this idea of return for myself, I scoffed.

Mitchell (South Dakota in general) is too small for me.

There aren’t jobs for me

What would I do for fun?

I would be selling out, settling prematurely if I were in South Dakota

Now that I’m back in South Dakota, that I’m frequently able to sneak home to Mitchell, I’m flirting with the idea of, perhaps, residing here. At least for a little bit. I feel connected at home, connected to people who initially poured into me and connected to the stories that authored my life after I left home. I feel potential power, power to mobilize a community, power to pursue the things I’m passionate about, power to make amends with the petty pits that at, one time, made me hate home.

I have no idea where I’ll “end” up, but I am warming up to the idea of solidly returning to where I came from, returning to place I first learned

Love. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 150

I find that I am frequently reminding myself that beauty isn’t determined by size 0 pants, long legs, and a va-voom rack. Growing up, I struggled to ever appreciate the way I looked, I felt like the ugly duckling of my friends. I have a single mole under my left eye and for the longest time that was the only quality about myself that I liked.

I’m partially grateful for these feelings because they forced me to internally cultivate a person that I was satisfied with. I joined a club soccer team, organized a fundraiser for a friend’s family, and worked hard in school. These things led to opportunities and adventures that I’m profoundly grateful for. What bothers, me, though, about these negative feelings toward myself, is that there seems to always be a nagging voice in my head saying,

“You could be skinnier, your butt is too big and your boobs are too small, your face would benefit from a nose job, and your hair resembles brown bushes in the height of a drought.”

Most times, I can refute the voice with promises of working out more or eating less or buying the newest hair product to tame my mane, but such promises only act as a Band-Aid. Such promises don’t actually promise anything beneficial, they don’t promise a re-definition of beauty. So, the nagging voice remains, sometimes softly and sometimes screaming. The nagging voice is always present.

In my attempt to define love per the past 150 (plus) days, I’ve briefly considered beauty as well. I feel the most beautiful when I am being most loving. I wear less makeup; I take less time to get ready when I’m doing something that is truly soul-satisfying.

What is beauty?

Per the persistently present nagging voice, the voice that is never satisfied, the voice that simply seeks a degree of immeasurable physical portions, beauty is an unreachable, indefinable figment of my (our) media-influenced minds. That’s not satisfying, though. That’s neither attainable nor desirable, really. What is the point of pursuing something that I (we) will never be? Beauty has to be something more. Something like love, something that takes years to figure out, something incomprehensible, something that we are innately, but have tried too hard for too long to repress. Beauty has to be what inherently lies in the intricacies of humanity, the thick bonds of one to another.

Beauty is love and love is human. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 149

I like to talk about love (duh), I like to experience it in connections with strangers or intimate exchanges between my closest friends or in the serene moments of absolute vulnerability in my family's presence, but I don't want to be in love (I can hear your arguments already, "Oh, Natalie, yes you do. You just need to find the right one"). It's not that I never want to be in love and I'm certainly not waiting for the imaginary divine-chosen "one." Rather, I'm confidently content with the single song I'm singing and I'm undecided on the melody I'd like to accompany it. There is, though, something about Fall that rumbles every romantic bone in my body. The other night, I suggested to a friend that Fall is innately romantic. His response catalyzed renderings of the mind, of the whimsical spirit that dictates my life.

When you think of what Fall represents, I think you're probably right...

Of course.

 Fall begs us to put on an oversized sweater and drink coffee not only for caffeine, but also for the addition of warmth. After a summer of consistent 100 plus degree days, Fall speaks new life into sidewalks and Sunday walks. We wear hoodies and pack blankets to the final baseball games and fellowship around our big screen TVs rooting for god-like men running a diamond shape ball to a small section of grass. Fall is colorful and apple-endorsed. Fall fills us with Octoberfests and pumpkin bread and squash soup. Fall smells good. Fall's breeze swipes my hair from my eyes and tucks it softly behind my ear.

Fall is my melodious lover that simply needs a kiss from his true love to stop the stupor he's fallen  into. (Obviously, I'm wishfully thinking.....)

Fall asks I draw close to people, cuddle, in flannel and scarves, with a good book, learn something. Fall is the North Star for romantics.

Fall is lovely.

365 Days Of Love. Day 148

I'm freakily obsessed with cleaning. Part of it is because I'm hyper sensitive to smells, especially those remotely resembling smoke, dust, staleness, old food (smells I think most people are/ should be hyper sensitive to). My obsession is also, in part, to the hope cleaning offers.

Weird, right? Hope in cleaning?

When I clean, dust transforms to glean, smells are eradicated, and an innate freshness fills the air. The same space that was previously dirty is restored. It reminds me of the way people can be restored. We're all born, more or less, the same. We can eat, pee, poop, cry, and sleep. Occasionally, we can coo too. Somehow, though, per the environment in which we live, the family in which were born into, we change into wildly different people. Differences in demeanor, personality, interests, are all grand things that contribute to a fluid society. Differences in opportunity are injustices that result in clusters of broken communities, a break in humanity.

This is where Saturday morning cleaning translates to human hope. Internally, we're all in need of some sort of cleanse, a dusting of our privilege coupled with our desires, a wash of our impatience,and an uncovering of the kindness we're inherently meant to express. Internal cleaning aids in uncovering our place in creating a fluid Universal community, a place where differences in opportunity simply aren't.  I reckon there's a degree of dirty in all of us, a restored self seeking.

And when we, as individuals, are restored, we, as humanity, are a little bit cleaner too, a little bit closer to love.

365 Days Of Love. Day 147

On one of my last nights of summer, I went for a motorcycle ride with my neighbor. When we got back to his house, his mom and dad, Judy and Charlie, were prepping their motorcylces for a Sturgis-bound journey. They invited us in and conversation commenced.

When I started sharing my (at that time) ensuing adventure, Judy said, “Natalie, you’re not nerdy enough to be a librarian.” I immediately refuted her, promising that I was actually probably far nerdier than the standard librarian.

When I was getting ready for work today (a 3 hour work day without students), I tied my hair back in the modern-day librarian’s bun, put on an oversized sweater and jeans, and completed the look with my –too large for my face- glasses. The cracks in my skin are filled with dust from aged books and my fingertips are glossed by the brittle paper those books contain.

I am a librarian. A hybrid librarian that occasionally substitutes, teaches a High School class on Media, and corrals little ones by convincing them that all books are truly mesmerizing.

 I’ve always been confidently convinced that the degree of nerdiness I possess far surpasses the threshold set by an imaginary board of librarians. Until recently, though, I felt nearly purposeless at this school. When school started, we were missing teachers and I felt if I volunteered to be one of those teachers, I would be more valuable. I embodied insecurity.

Today, though, confident in my full physical conversion to a librarian, I also feel pretty good about my purpose in the school.

I’m a nerdy librarian. I’ve always been a bit (or far more than a bit) of a nerd, I love that my nerdiness now has purpose. 

365 Days Of Love. Day 146

I literally just witnessed an incredible sight. Today, our middle schoolers are having their first football game. At 1:30, there was an announcement calling them down to the cafeteria. Boys barreled out of classrooms and bounced down the hall, clearly amped for their ensuing game. When I joined the hallway of quiet chaos, one student, Tyler, a husky 6^th grader, was shifting from foot to foot at the top of the school’s ramp. In perfect tune with his body, his head rolled from side to side as he beckoned another boy to “run down the ramp” with him. When the other boy joined him, bull-like huffing commenced and Tyler started his rapid trek down the ramp (the other boy took the stairs).

I can hardly remember what it was like to be that excited about something.

I should, though. I should seek that excitement.

Self-satisfaction always spirals back to pursuing my passions, but I’m learning that in pursuit of our ultimate passions, we can be satisfied by excitement about the journey (and the stops along the way). If I remained a librarian forever, I don’t think I would be ultimately satisfied. I think my soul yearns to be a writer or a public health advocate or both. What I forget to recognize, at times, is that this step, this stop, is helping me reach the next one. This one warrants just as much excitement as the “next” one. In fact, this one warrants all my excitement because it is the only stop I have.

Right now. For now.

How enjoyable it must be to live a life with excitement like a middle schooler on his first football game.

That must be love, living excited.  

365 Days Of Love. Day 145

I've lost myself.

Luckily, I'm en route to finding myself again, slowly stopping the spiral that I allowed my life to temporarily become. I believe mystery and adventure are the two things my soul needs to be satisfied. Chaos and a lack of discipline are the two things that most frequently prevent my soul's deepest...needs. In pursuit of mystery and adventure, my soul seeks something else, the qualities that have combined to create me. Often, these qualities surface in writing, running, and connecting with people, new people, all the time. As is obvious, at this point, to anyone who reads my blog, I took a hiatus from writing. My runs went from 75 minutes to 34 and connectivity came in quick, anxiety inspired, conversations with the maintenance man at my school. The worst part of all of this, as I watched my life spin out of control, I knew I was allowing my soul to rest (die would be too harsh of a word here).

After a Saturday of binge eating chocolate and candy corn (unwrapped from my grandma's assisted living, this is an all-time low), I realized that I was making myself feel like shit (literally and figuratively) and just as I could self-depriate I could also self-encourage.

Er, I could be myself. Not some - chicken with my head cutoff - version of myself.

I went on a good run today, I cooked my favorite foods for dinner, I took my dog for a walk, cleaned my house, and I'm writing.

My soul is singing again. A sweet soft song.



It'll be roaring (again) soon.

365 Days Of Love. Day 144

I believe everyone wants someone to tell them they can to do more, can do better. Today, I had a 5th grade student write me a note in which she said, "SSLANT changed me, I love SSLANT" 

For the non-teachers, SSLANT is a acronym that establishes behavior expectations. The first S stands for smile, the second S for sit up, the L for listen, the A for ask and answer questions, the N for nod yes and no and the T for track the speaker.

By the middle of last week, a girl smoked a boy in my class and the two jetted to the hallway to hammer it out before another teacher separated them. I was horrified and thought it was a sign of my absolute failure in the realm of public schools. The next day, I implemented SSLANT, some fancy guided notes, and the promise of a party for good behavior. My class transformed. Students were raising their hands, kids I didn't know had voices were volunteering. The girl who, days earlier, said, "we're stupid Rez kids" was literally bouncing out of her chair to answer questions. 

Hopelessness runs deep here, distrust is defense, but we can do more, we can be better. We, my students, their families, my friends, myself, we just want someone to tell us we can do better, we can do more.