Today is Tuesday. And I am so, incredibly tired. I’m on my 4th cup of French Pressed Coffee. I do not care how many calories that means I have consumed, either. (I mean, I’m working out reguarlly, sooo…. I can’t be too bad off, right?)

I was going to blog today about my second day in Old Harbor… but instead, I’m going to blog about someone I met my second day in Old Harbor.

A girl named Chris. I don’t remember the exact minute we first officially noticed eachother on Thursday, it was probably during lunch, or passing in the halls between classes at school. After school though she came over to Mark and Heather’s house with all her Algebra homework and her friend, Cami.

She sat at one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter, and sooner or later, we wound up talking over lemon drops and swedish fish. It took about 5 minutes to figure out her personality: sassy, bold, impossible to ignore, curious, searching, and craving the things she couldn’t have just yet. There was no mistaking her age, she was 13, on fire and almost dangerous if you got too close to her. At the same time, there was something that seemed much to serious and sad for such a young age.

Over the course of the next two hours or so, I helped her with her homework when she got stuck on fractions. She pestered me with questions and called me weird for not thinking Edward Cullen was hot. I played some songs I wrote on guitar for her. Chris really liked my song “Ordinary” and asked me to play it again and again. We talked about her life in Old Harbor. She wanted to leave and go someplace else. She said, “I hate it here. It sucks. Anywhere but here would be better. I don’t know why you like it here”

I never did ask Chris why she wanted to leave exactly. Maybe she was tired at staring at the same thing, day after day, living amongst the same people, with the same drama repeated over and over again. Maybe she wanted to forget and pretend she was something different than who she was, a small town girl with a million dreams that would never come true as long as she was stuck on this island of 300 people. Maybe she wanted someone to actually look her in the eyes and pay attention to what she had to say. I don’t know.

One thing I can definitely say, though, is during that small amount of time I spent with Chris, I watched her change. As I listened to her, laughed with her, explained how to divide and multiply fractions, I saw something in her personality unfold and break. The rough edges came off, she opened up and blossomed into someone captivating and interesting, instead of her normal harsh and protective self, always on guard. Her smile looked real and her laugh became contagious. By the end of the two hours, she didn’t want to leave. She kept begging Mark and Heather to stay for dinner. Eventually she had to leave, but the next day at school and over the weekend she always made a point to come over and say hey.

Looking back, that was definitely the highlight of my trip to Old Harbor. After hanging out with Chris that afternoon, I realized that I wanted to come back and make more of a difference in kids’ lives. It was amazing to watch what a little time and encouragement could do.
I saw that Chris had so much potential, and I think I helped her catch a glimpse of that too.

That sunny Thursday afternoon is going to forever stay locked in my head. It was when I helped some girls with homework, but more importantly, it was when I finally found out what I wanted to do with my life.

I want to teach kids. What? I’m not sure. Where? I don’t know yet. All I know is that I have NEVER felt so awesome before after watching someone reach for their full potnential, all because they got help and someone paid attention to them for longer than 2 seconds.

I’m not sure where the road ahead leads, but I do know where it began…. it all started with a small-town girl named Chris in Old Harbor, AK on a sunny October afternoon.