DON'T FORGET ABOUT YOU
About two and half feet tall and similar to myself, her eyes partly close when she smiles. Her hair reminded me of the days when I would pull a pot down from the cabinet, loaded it up with water, and open up a package of ramen to boil. Her short hair would dance around her head like top-o-ramen would when it slowly loosens from its packaged shape into the stringy coagulated state, spin around amongst the bubbles, and ladled in my bowl.
Her eyes, green. Her skin, white. Her personality, literally a color, a symbol, a categorizing word really does her no justice in this department. I waltzed through the halls of the Sturbridge Hotel in Massachusetts, completely expecting students in blue jackets to meet me on the other side. Well, they had. I stopped to chat, and chatting led to creating a dance to the chorus of the "I CAN, WE WILL" National FFA Convention theme song. If anyone is curious to what this song is, here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Ma21ti4r0
But there was another person I was to meet. I'm glad I had.
Ella.
Ella stood there dancing along, vivaciously to the music being played on YouTube through the student's Samsung phone. Two and a half feet tall. Cheeks kept her smile captive in the best way. Her eyes were green. Skin was white. And her personality dug me up from where I had planted myself for a majority of the month. "Am I doing it right?!" she would ask enthusiastically. I leaned down toward her, showing her the movements a bit slower so she could get it. She was about four years old. Eventually, the girls and I settled for Ella excelling at the first step, cutely skipping over the second part with a confused stare, but lighting back up when she would hit the last unanimous clap of her hands. Later, the girls would flutter away and Ella and I trickled back over to her mama, Heidi.
Heidi had been a rep for the Massachusetts Farm Bureau and brought along Ella to watch her. After chatting with Heidi a bit about her occupation, Ella kept wanting my attention.
"What is your name? Where are you from? Where is California? Why are you here? What is a National Officer? Why did you come here? Do you have family? Do you want to play a game!?"
I asked her if she knew how to play "Red light, green light", and she was all about it, even though she had no idea what that was at all. After teaching her, we played for what had been for less than 15 minutes. But the whole time, I kept referring to Ella as "sister". "Sister, don't forget! Yellow is slow! You got it, sister! You're out, sister! Go back to the start, sister! You are it now, sister!"
She finally asked me: "Why do you keep calling me sister?" I laughed and tried to explain that I call everyone sister (along with homie, dude, brotha, pal). Heidi explained: "Honey, you know all my gal friends I hang out with? We are so close, most of the time, I end up calling them sister. We aren't blood sisters, we are just really close!"
The next day, I walked out of my hotel room and down the stairs to the pool area. Looking for some members to chill with, I catch a pair of green eyes staring at me. These green eyes got bigger as we walked toward one another, with haste. "We have been waiting for you!", Heidi would say as Ella ran up to me yelling endearingly "sister"! Heidi then asked me if I had some extra time! If I had, would I hang out with Ella? Heidi continued to explain that Ella had been talking her ear off about me as soon as they got home the other night. That's when Heidi knew that Ella had to see me again.
I had no idea how long they waited for me to stroll down the hallway and chat with them, but it seemed like they had been there for a while. I didn't worry much about it and proceeded to reach out my hand: "Ella! I have a game we can play! Wanna come?" Ella looked at me like I had asked her a dumb question, which is pretty accurate because we literally just talked about how she wanted to hang with me this whole time.
We went up to my room to grab a fishing board game I had purchased for the New Massachusetts State Officer Team's intro training I had developed. I admitted to her, as she grabbed the game from the couch, that my room had been a disaster. She agreed adding her own comment: "Sister needs to clean her room!" Once with the game, our quest became centered upon one item...screwdriver! We needed a screw driver to put in the batteries in for our new game! So after scouting the hotel, asking the front desk, and hounding some alumni, we found a maintenance man named Chase I had made friends with earlier in the week. He happened to be using a screwdriver for something else and let us borrow it. "That was a nice man! Where can we play this game at, sister?"
After getting the game together, we found ourselves in the convention office where the conference staff, State Officers, and I would chill, eat, and work on tasking items for the conference. "This room is BIG, sister!"
We opened the game, placed the fish in the right little holes, and turned on the button. The fish started turning around and around fast, shutting and opening their mouths again at different speeds as we hung our cheap plastic fishing poles over the cheap plastic fish. After Ella low key cheated on almost every fish she caught, she grabbed the palm tree that was attached to the game and asked if she could keep it. "I don't want to forget about you, sister!"
Okay first off, cutest thing I had ever heard a toddler say to me. Second thing, I didn't want her to either. So, I grabbed a sharpie from Miss Kim's conference desk and wrote my name big on the trunk of this small palm tree. Next to it I wrote: "Love you sister" where ever there was more room. She snatched it from me with pride and proceeded to dance and jump around. Her smile was contagious. My eyes widened and slowly hid behind my cheeks as we made our way to the ball pit.
The State Officers insisted on a conference ball pit for students to play around in before the conference at a State Social. It was an awesome idea! But because of the blizzard, students didn't come in time for the social. However, we did play a mad game of human hungry, hungry hippo and tubermaid baseball the last day, which was buckets of fun. So there the ball pit stood, in the middle of a group of couches. We jumped in! Ella wanted me to hide her like we were frolicking in the snow and landed on a clear mound to make snow angels or swaddle her in the warm west coastal sand while the waves crashed on the shore to reveal her feet. "Okay your turn sister!" My smile only grew; my roots were lifting.
We parted ways soon after her mama found us in the hallway kicking my red workshop ball around. Heidi was beaming. Heidi and Ella walked with me toward the State Banquet as Heidi thanked me and told Ella to say goodbye. "Bye, sister." I hugged my "sister" tight, not knowing if I would ever see this sweet reminder of the beauty and joy life holds in one little person again.
Today, the other half of my board game is at my house. On it, Ella and I signed the place where the palm tree once stood. It lays in my parent's bedroom, post stamped to be sent to my "sister" so the palm tree can be rejoined to the game. Even though Heidi insisted that Ella will keep the palm tree on her shelf, where it will forever remind her of me, it doesn't always mean she will remember. I didn't need a sharpie for Ella's words to be imprinted on my heart. Oh, I will remember this young girl.
The word "sister". So small, insignificant on a day to day. A word that is said all the time referring to a sibling that is female. A word used over and over again by Ella, and every time, it brought me more joy than I think it did her saying it. It brought me peace.
As a National Officer, I always assumed joy would come from my connections with students. That pouring into others would give me joy. Over this last month, pouring so much of myself was easy and I did find joy in being vulnerable with students! How could it not when around members who are so passionate about life and incredibly strong and inspiring people. Whoever has the opportunity to say they get to be around these people all day, is blessed. I know I'm one of them.
However, this month, I forgot what it looked like to pour into myself. I planted myself in an area of the garden hidden behind a fence and far from the sprinkler. Desperately stretching my roots down to the aquifer of moisture below, insisting on producing a crop still with little being poured in. I hadn't realized how hard it would be. When I was away from family and friends, I knew I would miss them. However, I was still okay- because I was around my team, Miss Cindy, and Mr. Back; people I trust wholeheartedly and fill my bucket.
When we left Indy after our "out on the road alone" training (for lack of better term), I lost that piece but I hadn't realized it yet until it slowly creeped in on me when I faced frustration or challenge. The little things would start to bother me more and more, and the big things would bring me way down. And as strong as I can try to be, the responsibilities of National FFA Office and the struggles of life did collide this past month. It made it hard to insist on doing it alone, even harder when you physically don't have folks close to you to support you.
Meeting Ella, it was like I was prescribed an antibiotic to fix all that. My feelings were elevated, my smile appeared away from the excitement of being around members and advisors. My smile appeared when it was just me. I was happy and the stresses of my life wasn't always on my mind. As the days after continued, I slowly forgot about them; like they were faint memories. The fence was slowly decomposing, and the sprinklers power could reach me little by little each day after. The word "sister" pumped life back into me.
Now, yes. Words are powerful. This message can totally tell that story, sure. The overarching theme with Ella's story is really trying to get down to this though.
Don't forget about you.
I know this may sound selfish, but it is so important to show yourself love and find ways to bring joy into your life. People, projects, and other goals always can bring joy into our life, but sometimes when we invest so much time into these areas, we can loose track of taking care of our spirit; the very thing harboring our joy. Whether you serve as an officer in FFA (or another capacity), take care of children or siblings, work all day, what have you, don't forget about you. When you find that joy, you find peace. When you find peace, you're happy. And when you're really happy, you can offer another worldly love for others that shines from your happiness. This will bring the people you serve happiness too.
So, what makes you happy?
After meeting Ella, I slowly reintegrated my daily rituals that made me extremely happy when I was at home. Still keeping in contact with friends, of course, makes me happy. However, when I don't have time for that, most days I pop open my journal and write down a few things I'm proud of for the day or the positive things that happened. Most days, I open my bible and point out what God may be trying to tell me through the word. Some days, I find myself writing poetry again-something I use to do in high school that slowly gravitated back to me. And every day, I write a quote in my journal to share out-but I feel like my quotes have become more intentional now that I've poured back into myself. They become words I really try to embody through my days, that really hit me hard. Most of these words come from the people I meet every day when chatting with them. I'm glad my happiness allowed me to be present to really listen.
Ask yourself if your happy. If not, find a way to get there. When you are planted behind the fence in the garden with no way to reach the sun, find something to transplant you. When you can't reach the water alone, find something to turn up the water pressure to reach you. Once there, soak in the sun. Feel the moisture on your petals. Don't forget about you.