hello, welcome

"When I get older, I will be stronger, they'll call me freedom, just like a Waving Flag..."

This is the beginning. My hope in creating this blog is to create a space for reflection, community, conversation, and to document my experiences. I intend for this blog to speak to the human struggle. I write to inform, reflect, and engage in conversation regarding everyday forms of prejudice, racism, oppression, privilege and strife. I will write from my experience; sometimes this will also just be about the random and silly--everyday observations.

I am a young women who has worked as a counselor, case worker, researcher, waitress, lifeguard, house cleaner, coffee slinger, retail worker, etc.......While I could write about crazy times at all these jobs, I'll most likely stick to the first three. For full disclosure, I am a Caucasian woman. I come from a privileged background and perhaps because of this, I know that there are so many out there who choose not to see what I can now see or have not had the fortune to get the ground ripped from under them and blinders taken off. There is suffering all around us and I experience it everyday. I'm still learning how to see and I fully expect that there will be disagreement about my assessments of certain situations. However, I invite you to join the conversation.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

The title of this blog comes from a song by K'Naan. I find inspiration and healing in the words he sings. K'Naan first went to Canada and then the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia. Since I currently work as a counselor with refugees in Chicago, I found it fitting to title this blog based on one of my current inspirations. Enjoy.