When we first dropped our bags on apartment floors. Took our broken hearts, put them in a drawer. Everybody here was someone else before.

One of the most common things that YAVs experience during their year is a crippling feeling of loneliness.  We're surrounded by people going through the exact same thing at our sites and all over the world, but we feel so alone.  Like there isn't anyone else going through the exact same thing.

I've found, through actually taking the time to reach out to other YAVs, that my loneliness, my homesickness, and the confusion I'm feeling are not new.  I'm not going through them alone at all.

The YAV program does a fantastic job of getting us connected to others in the program before we even meet the people that we'll be living with during the year.  This has proven to be one of the most amazing gifts that I've gotten from this program.

When I'm having a bad day and I feel like I can't talk to my roommates for whatever reason, I have such an amazing group of people that I can reach out to.  There have been several times in the past few weeks when I've felt so lost and like I'm doing everything so wrong, and all I have to do is pick up the phone and simply reach out to a few of the friends I made and I realize that I'm not the only one that's lost.  I'm not the only one that feels like they're doing something wrong.  I'm surrounded by other young adults that tell me I'm normal.  I'm not failing miserably.  I'm one of many.

The YAV program has given me such a strong network of people that I can turn to, and I haven't even told you about my roommates!

My roommates are the most supportive, loving people I've found since I joined my sorority, but even Alpha Xi Delta can't compare.

Before I am accused of blasphemy, let me explain.  When I went through recruitment I was looking for like-minded women.  I wanted people that were like me, or at least people that were like who I wanted to be.  I found that.  I found a group of amazing women that helped me grow up.  They helped me through heartbreaks.  They helped me find myself (at least all of myself that I have at this moment).  Those were an amazing four years.

Sorry for getting sidetracked. Today is Alpha Xi Delta's initiation and it's made me really think about relationships, which is partly where this blog came from.

My roommates and I were put in to a situation with people from all over the country, with vastly different backgrounds, and, often, conflicting opinions about how day to day things should go.

They are not people that would normally walk up to me and strike up friendship (I'm basing this off of the social psychology class I took last spring).  We have little in common most of the time, but that's the beauty.  I'm learning more and more to see things from the perspective of others.  I'm learning to take advice from an almost completely logical stand point (lookin' at you, Caroline).  I'm learning so much more about myself than I thought possible because of the people that I live with.

I never thought I'd form significant relationships with anyone here.  I know, I'm super positive.  I never thought I'd be able to turn to and lean on these people, but I really have.  Going through these difficult weeks (largely self inflicted), would have been impossible had it not been for the love and support of my roommates.

I haven't felt love like this from (practically) strangers in a long time.  These aren't strangers anymore.  I have found a family in San Antonio.  I belong here.  I belong with these people.


I don't know how I could ever than the YAV program for the gift of all of these other young adults.  I don't know how to thank my church for making this possible. I don't know how to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. And I definitely don't know how to thank the people that have made me belong in this strange city.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

I have no living grandparents.  This is something that's never really bothered me.  I didn't know my Dad's parents very well when they were living, because we lived away and the sad reality is that people drift apart.  My mom's parents had both died before I was born.  Living far away from my family meant that I found family in other places. 

I grew up in a small, Methodist church outside of Atlanta. I remember, in high school, my youth minister asked me to get up and say something about what the church meant to me, and I can remember one thing that I said.  I stood in front of people that I had mostly known my entire life and was able to tell them that I had been raised with more than just two sets of grandparents.  I was one of the lucky ones that had at least five sets of people that I loved and turned to as if they were my own.

One of the men that I considered my own passed away today.  Looking back on my childhood and thinking about my church, very few of those memories don't involve him. He, and the few others, were the people that showed me how much love can be found in the church.  I looked to these people and found the ways in which God calls us to treat others, how God wants us to spend our time, and how Christ's love is found within the people closest to us. They let us into their families and made me feel as though I belonged to something so much bigger than what my genetics gave me. 

In Doug's case, I have learned how a strength and faith in God can get you through the toughest and darkest times.  He has faced trials with a grace that is unrivaled.  

The world lost an amazing, funny, and loving man today. I know that tomorrow the sun is going to shine a little brighter with him looking down on the earth he left behind.  

My thoughts and prayers are with the Strickland family.