Travelling Home

Where I work, we have a company Toastmaster's Club. The point of Toastmaster's is to improve your public speaking skills. This past week, I gave my first ever speech as part of the organization. After giving the speech, other members of the club give you constructive feedback. I've decided to share my speech here, it is based on my Easter weekend trip back to Michigan:

Travelling Home

 I love to travel. Growing up, my grandparents would take me on trips all over the country. I wish I had been old enough to appreciate visiting places like New Orleans or the Grand Canyon, but as an eight year old, I was more concerned with when we were going to hit the pool.

Now as an adult I still love the adventure of visiting new places. That was a large part of the appeal of moving to Boston for me – a new city, a new state, new people. And while I have loved every part of this adventure, my new favorite form of travel is travelling home.

My grandparents and I moved from New York to Michigan when I was in high school and I was not a fan. I didn’t think I would ever enjoy this stupid, Midwestern state. But I grew to like it, even love it. And now that I’ve moved away, I genuinely miss it at times. And having never lived more than two hours away from my grandparents, I genuinely appreciate the time I get to spend with them and my little sister.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to fly back and spend time with my family and friends for the long weekend. And while some may think that a trip back home to the Midwest is nothing special, I beg to differ. From the moment my plane touched down in Detroit, I had just about every moment of the trip planned so I could see as many people as possible in my limited and evanescent time.

One of my best friend’s from college picked me up from the airport and she had arranged for a large group of our friends to go out to dinner. It was perfect. We didn’t do anything too exciting – just dinner at a casual place that I’ve been to a dozen times. But I was with some of my favorite people in the whole world, just talking and laughing and catching up.

Saturday, I made my way back to Grand Rapids to see my grandparents and have dinner with an old friend. My grandparents are both in their mid-80’s and I’ll be honest, sometimes their mentality and habits drive me nuts. Both are very strong, determined individuals who are notorious for a “my way or the highway” mindset. My grandfather actually once said, “I don’t care if it’s wrong, that’s how I want to do it so that’s how we’re doing it.” But since I don’t see them very often, and really only have the chance to talk on the phone with them about once a week, I really enjoy their quirky ways when I’m around them now.

My grandmother has recently become very addicted to the TV show Mad Men. So I spent my Saturday night binge watching season two with her. She thinks Don is quite the stud. And while this might not be the crazy night out most people want on their vacation, I couldn’t have been happier just sitting on the couch with her.

For Easter, we drove back across the state to visit my little sister who couldn’t come home because she is in the middle of finals week for her senior year of college. Driving with my grandparents often gives me anxiety. I’m all about getting from point A to point B in the fastest, most efficient way possible. They are not. They don’t believe in GPS’s or cruise control and like to take bathroom breaks about every forty-five minutes. However, instead of becoming annoyed with our day trip, I found it to be almost comical.

What I’m getting at is I don’t think it matters where you go or what you do on a vacation. What matters is who you are with and how you enjoy that time with them. The relaxing familiarity of being with people who you know and love can’t be beat. And while I still love planning trips to new places, I look forward most to my trips home. Vacations are supposed to be relaxing after all. And what better way is there to relax than with your loved ones in a cozy, familiar place?

A vacation doesn’t have to be an exotic getaway or an adventure packed weekend. It can just be a simple weekend, spent watching Mad Men with your grandmother on the couch. I think this might be the best kind of vacation.

Birthday Celebrations

This past weekend was my birthday - and it was a good one. My past few birthday have been big "going out" events involving getting dressed up and heading to our favorite bars in either East Lansing or Royal Oak. This birthday was different and I definitely enjoyed the change.

Saturday, Laurissa arranged for us to all (myself, Laurissa, Jimmy, Karl, Dave and Alyse) to go to dinner at Port 305 in Quincy. She picked Port 305 because she knows the beach and ocean are my favorite place and this restaurant overlooks just that. Before dinner, we went for a short walk to the beach where we admired the view of the Boston skyline. While on the walk, Alyse pulled out some fantastic pink, sparkly party hats that read "Party Princess" and some glowsticks. I think the best part of this whole affair was that Karl was excited to put one on and wore it the whole time. Don't let the picture below fool you, he was mostly smiles.

After our walk we met up with Glines and got dinner and drinks. Port 305's cocktails were amazing. I don't care if martinis are girly drinks, they're delicious (and Glines ordered a hurricane, so...). The food was really good too, but the view was my favorite part.

Sunday was my actual birthday and it started off perfectly. Homemade breakfast rolls by Laurissa and mimosas. Everyone came over and we continued with some day-drinking before we headed to a "Guac Off" in Davis Square.

If you know me, you know that guacamole/avocados make the cut for my top five favorite foods. So a guac off on my birthday could not have been better planned - and it was free. The Painted Burro hosted it and in addition to trying all of the guac, we tasted a few delicious margaritas as well.

After spending the beautiful afternoon walking around exploring Davis Square, Jimmy, Karl, Laurissa and I went to grab dinner on the roof deck at Daedalus. Again, my favorite part of this was the view - being able to see out over all of Harvard Square and parts of Cambridge. I said I liked being outside in nature too and was quickly told that it didn't count as nature. I still disagree with this because I had three whole trees in my line of vision...

Finally, Monday at work, after a sort of failed team outing. I was surprised with delicious cannolis from Mike's Pastry.

All in all, an awesome birthday weekend! And I am so looking forward to this weekend in Michigan!

Inspiration.

Today I read no less than three different articles that brought me to tears. (Not an easy feat if you know me!) Each of these pieces showed such raw human emotion and inspiration that it was actually bone chilling.

I remember reading Marina Keegan's beautifully written essay just days after my own college graduation and thinking how perfectly she had captured all of the thoughts, feelings and emotions that I had been struggling to summarize. And I remember that cold, sad realization that also set in while reading it that this extraordinary young woman was no longer with us. It was truly mind-blowing to thing that this beautiful girl with clearly so much a head of her and so much to give, was gone so suddenly. We were the same age. Practically at the same spot in life: mere moments past our college graduation, ready to take on the world. But she was gone.

Today, a book of Marina's work was published title "The Opposite of Loneliness." The title comes from the first sentence of her now famous graduation essay where she states in the opening line, "We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life." This BuzzFeed article, written by one of Marina's close friends is a wonderful tribute to her memory in showing what a spectacular human being she was, with so much to give in life.

Today also marks the 20 year anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide. I remember watching the movie "Hotel Rwanda" when it first came out and being horrified that things like that still happen in the world. In the "Book of Life," Rwandan's (both victims and perpetrators) of the genocide write letters to the dead - loved ones, family members, people they murdered. One letter a day will be read live on the Rwandan radio network for the next 100 days. The same number of days that the genocide lasted.

These letters are like small glimpses into the lives of the people affected by the genocide. A brief look into the daily suffering it caused, and stills causes them. A few excerpts from the book can be read here.

We are also coming up on the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. The strength and resilience shown by all of the victims of that tragedy is awe inspiring. However, I found this story of a young bride and groom, both gravely injured during the bombings, who have conquered so many challenges and obstacles in the past year, who were given the opportunity to stand up in front of everyone they love and profess their love for each other so beautiful.

All of these events are terribly tragic. But the messages that come from their victims and their survivors are so inspiring it is impossible not to find yourself in tears.