Essentially Eventually

Written sometime after the hard summer of 2023 —

The amount of “stuff” that has happened in the last three years feels like fiction. I moved to Sequoyah with the idea that it would be an adventure that may last a couple years, but that I would move back to the city soon enough. Two weeks after saying goodbye to my Grandma, I moved to the park. I moved into a small room in a small cabin for the first eight months. It never really felt like home, the walls or the people. It was 2020, and it would be weeks before I got to see the full faces of my coworkers. It took time, but strangers started becoming friends. We buried my nephew before we got to see him breathe. My only friend in the park moved away. Friendships started where other friendships ended. I found community in a bible study. I still haven’t really found a church. I became an essential employee, and started making my park house home. I fell in love with the river, Cherokee County, and I fell in love with my job. I become the lodge manager, and learned that it’s hard as much as it is rewarding. I found myself repeating “You wanted to be the lodge manager” a lot, and I did, and I do. For every moment I doubt myself, I have at least ten moments of reassurance. I learned that my aunt was dying, my aunt died. I don’t think that sentence will ever feel real to me. My third nephew was born, breathing. I breathed a sigh of relief, a tearful reminder that Grant is not here. I spent eight hours in a car with a stranger, and we talked about so much life. We talked about college and dream jobs and what we thought was important, how we changed. He told me that I was fulfilling the idea I used to have for my life in a way that I didn’t expect. Hospitality is a gift, you have it or you don’t. I keep getting told that I have it, and that I know how to love people well.

All this to say, that I am happy to be essential.