"I need your grace to remind me

to find my own."

Last night, I woke up two and a half hours after falling asleep in a cold sweat. I pulled out my favorite journal and wrote this.

"Do you ever feel the urge to simply sit someone down and tell them your life story? Maybe I'm just narcissistic and the only one who feels this way. But there are so many people who, given coffee and enough time, I just want to reveal everything to. Beginning to end. Leave nothing out. And I guess that's therapy, in a nutshell. But I'm not interested in being under the microscope, especially if there's just some random stranger on the other end. But that begs the question: why am I so trusting of the people I do know? Who's to say they wouldn't judge me just as much as, if not more than a random stranger? They certainly haven't revealed as much to me as I am prepared to tell them.

We all spend the majority of our lives pretending we're fine. Just fine. But every once in a while someone comes along who, for some reason or another, we feel needs to know the truth. Rarely are we "just fine," and sometimes we need to tell someone so.

These people should be glad, no matter what hardships we reveal to them. For the type of person who encourages complete genuinity and--more impressive--complete vulnerability in others is as rare as the most precious gem.

I have yet to discover why, in my life, 99 percent of such encouragers have been teachers. What is it about them that makes me want to bare all? I wish I knew. I wish I knew why my 6th grade math teacher understood more about my struggles with reuniting with my father than my best friends. I wish I knew why my 11th grade physics teacher noticed more of the emotional baggage I brought back from Africa than my own family (excluding my wonderful momma of course, who ultimately was the one who nursed me back to health). I wish I knew why walks and coffee with my International Relations professor were more important than time with my peers at governor's school."

When I flipped to the next page of my journal, I found an old bit of writing from Angee--I think it's from the day we went to see Carsie Blanton at Crest [Why are you holding hands? Well, you SHOULDN'T.]. It's the John Mayer quote I use in some of my Ghana footage:

"I believe that my life's gonna see the love I give return to me. <3"

And maybe that's why.

Maybe.