No, You Cannot Eat the Ducks

For the last six years I’ve worked for an NGO resettling and serving refugees in the U.S. In that time I’ve greeted them at the airport, shown them their first apartment, enrolled their children in school, taught English, shared meals, taught employment workshops of all kinds, found them jobs, fired them from jobs, ridden public transportation at all hours, taught financial literacy, and coordinated field trips to state parks.

I’ve sat with clients while they’ve received devastating news from home, I’ve explained to clients that you cannot bathe in public pools, how to take a drug test, that you cannot kill and eat ducks at the park. I’ve helped buy cars and first homes, I’ve seen clients and coworkers become citizens and their children graduate high school and go off to college. I’ve been invited to weddings and funerals of friends and strangers.

I’ve gotten to experience a lot through my work and I will always be appreciative.

However, life moves in stages and this may all be drawing to a close. I’ve never been someone with a singular passion and focus, and although I love what I do, it’s limiting in many ways.

Never be afraid to take that next step, to pursue the bigger things you want, to be true to the person you know you are. Sometimes you will need to let go of some things you love in order to make room for more. And that’s okay.

Justin
listserve.justin[AT]gmail.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Favorites

This is a puzzle.

Beyond this message a challenge awaits; In the listserve, no links are allowed, what a cruel fate! The first clue must be deciphered by ROT 8. . Let me know and just email if your brain needs a spark Your first clue is just after this punctuation mark / dsoqwj vwxwfvafy lge jgtafkgf af lg cadd s egucafytajv Listserve Puzzle listservepuzzle[AT]gmail.com
Read more

21,612 is a lot

Hi, everyone. I'm a teenaged girl. I'm not arrogant enough to think that I know much about the world. I'm 18, a freshman in college, and I struggle every day trying to see into the future: into what might be, where I might go. Recently I've decided that my destiny in life is to be a high-school biology teacher, but ask me again later and perhaps that will have changed. One thing I feel passionate about is body modification. Somehow my standards of beauty have developed in a way that put piercings, tattoos, implants and scarification at the forefront. However, my parents have threatened to cut off their funding for my education if I modify myself in any way. I already have piercings, and though my family will never see them due to their private locations, I would love to be able to share this important part of my life with them and express myself through modification in a more public way. Essentially, they have rejected my lifestyle, and through this, they have
Read more

Tiny wings

Hi all, I want to write about a subject that is very close to my heart - bees! I started bee keeping last year, and have two colonies right now. These two already managed to supply my family and my friends with more than enough honey, and keeping the bees is a tremendously satisfying activity. They smell so good, and are very tidy animals, and are just very, very interesting overall. The insects' way of dealing with the world is just so very different from how we as mammals approach it - it seems almost alien. Anyways, what is probably most impressive is the workload these little animals deal with. For one kilo of honey, they visit 4 million flowers, and fly a distance equivalent of more than 4 times around the earth. Think about that for a second. And then, if you start to think about how they "furniture" their housing themselves by the wax they sweat out, how they can control temperature inside the hive to the tenth of a degree, how they collectively make decisions i
Read more