My Kansas City Bucket List: Ward Parkway/Running

Those of you who know me know that I’ve been talking about leaving Kansas City for some time. Some of you who really know me, know that it’s not about disliking it here but that I long to explore and experience other places. I’ve left before, and it was one of the best and hardest times of my life. I think I grew up a lot in Boston and I learned a lot in California.

I guess now is as good of a time as any to announce that I am moving; I'll share more details in the coming weeks. Yes, I'm going to San Francisco!

I’m excited and ready but in the past couple crazy months of job searching, volunteering, consulting, helping out at the house I live in and being poor, I didn’t realize that this is goodbye. Not forever, Ben and my families are here and we’ll be back often, but goodbye to living in Kansas City.

As part of my farewell, I’ve put together a Kansas City Bucket List of things that I’ve made sure to enjoy one last time before bidding adieu. So tune in over the next few weeks to share with me some of my favorite things about my dear Kansas City.

1) Ward Parkway/Running
My first year of graduate school I spent living with my dear friend and college roommate, Kristin Sullivan (now Calhoun). We lived with her grandmother in a beautiful house just west of Ward Parkway. We were close to everything: downtown, Westport, the Plaza, Waldo, Brookside and the lovely drives in between. My favorite was, and still is, Ward Parkway and the surrounding neighborhoods. Nestled right between Mission Woods, Westwood Hills and Mission Hills, this neighborhood is incredible. I hear it's even featured in the television show Switched at Birth.

That first semester of grad school was very hard for me. A friend died, my dog died, I had to study for and take the GRE and transition into school while working full-time. To cope with the stress, I started running each day when I got home from school. Running through the neighborhood and specifically down Ward Parkway was a calming and incredible experience. Especially in the fall when the trees are a variety of bold colors and leaves blow across the street, it's a site to be seen! The houses are incredible and my favorite is the mansion at 55th and Ward Parkway, the Mack B. Nelson house.

Even just driving down the Parkway is a great experience. So many active people are out on jogs, with their kids or pets, and the big church at 61st resembles a European cathedral more than a typical mid-west church.

This is where I really got into running. After I moved out, I kept it up and in October 2009, I ran my first 1/2 marathon. It was an incredible experience and I learned that I'm really not a long-distance runner. I enjoy it in pieces but long runs are a huge challenge for me. Nevertheless, I have run three more 1/2 marathons since then and found ways to enjoy them...

My friend Gillian, who was with me during the first three and Ben, my favorite running partner, who cheered me on for the first few and finally got to run with me on my last, have made it possible to love my races.

Not to mention my Kansas City friends who I'd find along the course smiling and cheering me on and my favorite water girl Laura Begley who's volunteering at Hospital Hill got me rejuvenated and to the finish line.

I know I'll run in San Francisco, it's a fit and active city and there is so much city to see. I've already sampled the Pan Handle of Golden Gate Park and what I've seen so far is pretty great. I'm not sure if I'll keep running races but I know that whenever I do run, I'll compare it to Kansas City and Ward Parkway. It's one of my favorite places in Kansas City and I'll miss it.

Money, money, money, money...money!

I am broke. I’m making so little money that in response to my reporting my income my loan company recently sent me an updated payment plan…of $0 per month while I make my current salary. Like I said, broke. This isn’t new to me: I was broke in Boston (three jobs, 80 hours a week didn’t help the incredibly high cost of living); broke in Southern California (thank you AmeriCorps for putting a roof over my head but that was about it); and broke now while I do the AmeriCorps year #2.

But, while very broke, I’m doing it. I live on my own (well, me plus three roommates) in a house close to the hotspots of my city. I go out with friends often and my clothing is still stylish enough to hit up the town night or day (no need to hide in the dark). More importantly, I am credit card debt free and put money into savings regularly. I do have school loans although nothing I can’t handle and the Eli Segal Education Award, a large benefit for AmeriCorps members, will help those out a lot next year.

I will credit much of my financial success to my parents. My dad is so good with money he’s made a very successful career out of it. My mom is the most frugal person I know and is intentional about every penny she spends. She’s a master clearance shopper and has that amazing thrift store/garage sale eye where she can find incredible buys just about anywhere. Their financial genius was instilled in all of my siblings but I will say that I think I have a knack for money stuff on my own as well and I’ve done well being poor for a long time.

I think the biggest tip I can pass on for those of us struggling with or even just worrying about money is to be smart with it. Even when you stop struggling, it’s still important to be smart with money. Just because you suddenly have a normal paying job doesn’t mean you have to spend that money. Moderation is key to all aspects of life, especially money. Keep saving regularly, put a certain percentage (20 – 30) of your income directly into your savings account and once it’s in there, never touch it. If you make extra money here and there, consider sticking it in your savings. There is nothing wrong with saving too much.

Stay away from credit cards unless you have a really good handle on them. Credit card fees are the most annoying and evil things ever. $35 late fees, $20 service fees, annual fees, they’ll get you anywhere they can. The best way to avoid that is to avoid the card all together. If you’re not good at paying off your balance on time and monthly, I suggest using the card for only one thing in order to establish credit without being tempted to go crazy. Example: use it only for gas. Pay off the $50 - $100 monthly and add to you’re your credit score but don’t let it get so out of control that you end up not paying off the $500 and adding $50 + in fees.

As I said, live moderately. Just because you have money doesn’t need it must be spent. If you want to go out with friends and eat/drink out, do it. Just not every night. If you enjoy having lunch with your coworkers or happy hour after work, do it. Just not daily. Drive a nice car, but make sure it’s in your price range. Buy that adorable Anthropologie dress, but don’t go in there weekly. Don’t stop looking for bargins, drink specials, used items just because you’re not poor anymore. It’s a great way to live and in the end, it’ll help you save for what really matters: kids, a home, an amazing trip to Europe, or even your retirement.

At the same time, even if you don’t have a ton of money, don’t make yourself miserable. Go to happy hour, just limit your beverages. Buy a pair of jeans to replace your worn out ones, just don’t buy anything else. Have your morning coffee, from home and not Starbucks (this has saved me hundreds). And don’t feel bad if you can’t contribute significantly to your savings. Anything is better than nothing and even nothing for a little while is okay too.

Here are some resources and money tips I thought I’d pass on:
Housing: find a roommate, or several. Rent is a great place to save money. If you’re a new couple and struggling, have someone move in for 6-months to a year. It can be an adjustment but can help tremendously with rent while you get on your feet.
Lunch: make lunch for the whole week. You can save so much money if you don’t eat out at lunch. I knew a guy who spent $10-15 a day on lunch. That’s $50 - $75 a week, just for lunch! You can probably make sandwiches and have fruit on the side for $10 - $15 for the whole week!
Happy Hour: want a great way to be social and have a glass or two of wine after a hard day’s work? Look for local specials and jump on them! I know several wine bars in the KC area that have half off bottles on Sunday nights; it’s a great way to save!
Community Dinners: set up a way for you and a couple friends to do weekly dinners where you take turns cooking. Planned the right way, you can pay for one nice dinner a month and get three free!
Gym: Target has some great workout dvds for cheap and there are often community yoga or gym glasses that you can pay for per session. Much cheaper than a gym membership that you won’t use. Or, find a gym that has free classes and make the most of them!

Some links:
Ten Biggest Money Wasters: it’s really easy to save little bits of money by not being lazy or not buying into things.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness: work for a nonprofit? Have a ton of school debt? Check this out!
AmeriCorps: While it pays poorly, it has the Eli Segal Education Award that helps pay off school debt or helps you go back to school. It’s a great way to serve for a year as well!
Mint: a great way to securely manage your money and really see how much you’re spending and where.

I’d love feedback from my readers of other ways to save money: I know you’re out there…some of you ride the bus, got rid of a cell phone, garden, don’t buy new clothing, etc. Share your ideas/suggestions!

My two moms...

Someday, I plan on having an adoption blog. Here are a couple that (while I'm not at all ready to be a parent) I enjoy reading: Bicycle Baskets (a family at my old church who shared their adoption story with me); Love is Waiting (my friends aaron and heather who are in the process of adoption); Grow in my Heart (a random I came across on the web); and What I Want You to Know: Being a Birthmom (the specific entry that made me write this post).

For now, while this has nothing to do with my quarter-life crisis, it's something I thought was worth sharing:

Last Saturday was my birthday. It was a crazy weekend full of working, playing, celebrating and more working. My family and friends were wonderfully attentive and loving, throwing me celebration after celebration. It was really great and made me feel special. While each celebration meant a lot to me, I still felt very alone on my birthday. You see, for those of you who didn’t know, I’m adopted and each year, my birthday is hard, bittersweet and I rarely look forward to it.

Of the few people in my life who I’ve shared that my birthday isn’t just cake, candles and presents, most have never really understood why. I’ve heard many different reactions to this like, “You’re adopted, shouldn’t you feel twice as loved on your birthday?” “You’re so lucky, you have a great family, aren’t you happy with that?” “I bet your birthparents are thinking of you, isn’t that sweet?” Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate these peoples' grasps to understand where I’m coming from, but the reality is they don’t. And for a long time, these types of comments made me feel selfish for being sad on this day. Shouldn’t I be glad someone picked me at all? Shouldn’t I be incredibly thankful that I got my family; they are pretty amazing? Shouldn’t I be overjoyed that I wasn’t aborted and that I got the chance to even have a birthday? Feeling sad on this day felt selfish and wrong and it just ate away at me. Sure, I am thankful, I’m lucky; I’m spoiled rotten and know it. But on April 16th, each and every year, I spend my day not thinking about the woman I’m becoming but thinking about another woman, my birthmother.

I have the greatest mom (the mom that raised me, she's who I will always call "Mom"). Not kidding, my mother has given everything to her five children: education, opportunity, love, support, you name it. She is my guide, mentor, teacher, and best friend. I wouldn’t replace her for anything. But the fact is, there is another woman who I’m connected to as well and while I cannot remember her face, her smell or touch, I feel her because she is part of me. Each year, on my birthday, I know she thinks about me; a truly surreal feeling. This is a day that I miss her terribly and the bond we never got to create.

I have a love/hate relationship with St. Patrick’s Day. I love green; it’s my favorite color. I love the spring that is always in the air. I love skipping work to drink all day and celebrate a ridiculous holiday with friends. But what I hate is that all day, people discuss their heritage. Not just the proud Irish, but everyone seems to take time on that day to talk and brag about where they come from. While this takes place, I usually sit and observe silently because I have nothing real to contribute. I know nothing about me.

My mom and dad gave me a single sheet of paper when I was in high school that had some basic info on my birth parents. It included height, weight, eye color, religion, age, occupation and basic ethnicity. My history on one, old piece of paper. It's nice to know the information on it, to see a tiny piece of what went into me, but I don’t know why I’m musical, loud, why my eyes are almost black and why, when my mother was 5’2” and my father 5’8” I turned out to be 5’9”. I don’t know why I struggle with reading. I don’t know why I love to sing but never in front of people. And I don't know why I hate peanut butter and chocolate. I know that many of my traits were picked up from my current family but there are things that I know didn’t come from them. I doubt I ever will and that’s not an easy thing to live with.

I’ve thought about looking for her. I started the process once but then convinced myself that she abandoned me once, why would I want her to do it again? I’ve never been one of those, “you’re not my real mom” kids, and never sought to find my birthmother as an escape. I was too smart for that and my parents were great ones, even in our hard moments, so there was no real reason to. I’ve never really wanted to get in touch with my birthmother. I’m not sure why. I think because it’d be hard. It’d open a door that might be hard to close. It would be hurtful, for all three parties of the triad. Hurtful for her to be reunited with someone she never got to be a mom to. Hurtful to my parents to share and be reminded that at one point, I wasn’t theirs. And hurtful to me to just be faced with the stories and questions about the life that might have been.

I have several friends that have adopted or are in the process of adoption. It excites me that they’ve chosen this path because it is a hard one. The patience required for the process, before the baby even comes, it’s so much more than nine months. The stress and anxiety of choosing a child out of the thousands in need of families. The challenge of having a child who is nothing like you. The difficult realization of knowing they’ll forever be connected to another. But, the joy of giving a child a life is one that makes it all worth it. I can’t wait to adopt and I know it’s going to be challenging, but it’s the right thing for me to do. I want to pass on the love and grace that has been shown to me by my birthmother and by my parents and family who together have given me the best life possible. It’s not only my duty but my privilege.

All this to say, to friends and parents of adopted children and adults: birthdays are hard and can be sad. Don’t challenge it, just listen, celebrate and understand that having two moms isn’t easy and it shouldn’t be. A book my best friend gave me, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wished Their Adoptive Parents Knew, reads, "Not only does the day mark the beginning of the adopted person’s life, it also reminds the adoptee of what she has lost" (Eldridge). "Adoption is only made possible through loss, and birthdays can bring forward many adoption related issues for adopted people. An adoptee is not being ungrateful for the life provided by her adoptive family by asking these questions, it is just her way of dealing with the emotions only an adoptee can experience."

My two moms are both in me, one of them I talk to almost every day and forget that we look nothing alike. The other one has a face I’ve never seen…except maybe, once in a while, looking back at me in the mirror.

My Kids

My life has been really hard this year. I’ve had some really unfair and challenging things to face and overall, it’s just been hard. Despite the hardships, I’ve found ways to be happy this year: my family, my friends, my future, there are good things happening. But today especially, I experienced something that made me feel really, really good about being me and about the choices and sacrifices I’ve made, as well as our country's future.

Most people don’t really understand what I do, both my National Service and my actual job. I won’t go into much detail as it’s not my main point but basically AmeriCorps is a government-funded program that allows individuals to work in the govt. and nonprofit sectors. It assists the organization by helping to pay for added staff to run many vital programs that support a vast number of social needs. Mine is the Youth Volunteer Corps of Greater Kansas City. We make next to nothing, about $1000 over the poverty line, but it works. We are Team Leaders who essentially run the program under the direction of a program director and a part-time assistant.

For one year we:
A) Cultivate relationships with area nonprofits that have volunteer needs;
B) Design volunteer projects (on Saturdays, after-school, within schools, special holidays like MLK Day of Service and over the summer), these projects are not just working to paint, clean, care for clients, mentor, etc. but also include service-learning components and team and leadership building lessons;
C) We recruit youth (ages 11 – 18) to come and volunteer at the projects; and
D) We volunteer alongside of them while teaching and supervising.

There are highs and lows of the actual job, of course, and it’s a constant learning process whether it’s creating new systems in the office or dealing with a problem kid who doesn’t want to work. The greatest thing about this job, however, is also one of the things that made me commit to the nonprofit sector, both academically and professionally. It's the people who serve.

This morning, we begin accepting applications for our Summer Program. The program consists of 8-weeks (very much like a summer camp). There are five project choices each week at a variety of Kansas City nonprofits. Youth can sign up for one week or all eight and they commit to a max of 24 hours per project (9-3, M – Th). These projects are fun and work for the youth and can often be a huge opportunity for a struggling nonprofit. The amount of work that a group of just 10 youth can get done in 24 hours is incredible, in fact one of our biggest challenges is ensuring that the youth will have enough to do and not get bored! This year we have 40 projects with 560 individual spots for youth volunteers. I don't quite remember the math, but it's about 15,000 hours of service in 8-weeks.

To apply, youth or their parents had to come into the office beginning at 7 am to turn in their application. Last year, we had several early birds so we had been warned to be prepared for a rush of applicants first thing. I arrived at the office this morning at 5:30 am to be greeted by 5 youth and two parents who had proudly claimed their spot to begin the line. By 6:30 am, more than 50 people were in line, by 7 am over 80. By 8 am, after one hour of accepting applications, more than 150 youth had signed up. By the time I left at 6:15pm, 90% of the projects were full. There was no iPad, no concert tickets, no celebrity to photograph. The prize at the end of the line was serving their community…all by people 11 – 18.

How special is that?

People say this country is in trouble. People say youth have no voice. People say that family and community values are lost. They are wrong. This country has its issues, duh, but how incredible is it that kids will wake up hours before school to ensure that this summer, they get to volunteer? To commit to this program, youth are giving a large part of their summer where they could otherwise be working, playing, sleeping, traveling, you name it but they have spoken. They want to volunteer.

This sector that I serve allows that to happen. It houses amazing 501c3s that change bad to good. It gives back. It teaches kids the importance of caring about where they come from and helping those in need for no reason but because it’s the right thing to do.

I’ve had a crappy year, there’s no doubting that. But these kids have changed my life and made me see love in a way that is truly, truly special. Not sure what your summer plans are but I guarantee you, my summer plans are pretty unbeatable.

My Myriad of Experiences = Fail?

Believe it or not, my year in AmeriCorps is nearing the end. I still have until the end of July, but when you’re the planner that I am, that means it’s time to look ahead and start making decisions about what is next. In college, I was always that student who was ready to plan out the next semester only two weeks into the semester at hand. I’m still like that and in October 2010; I was already scanning job listings at organizations in San Francisco. Now that the time has arrived however, the prospect of moving on is terrifying me.

It’s not scary because of the new city, moving, or leaving my community, my friends and family. It’s scary because the last few years of my career have severely damaged my self worth. I’ve had some really awful work experiences and blamed myself for them. It’s something I do, that I’m working on, but when something bad happens, I too quickly assume I’ve done something to deserve it. In any case, I’m scared that I’m not capable of having a grown-up job because the last two that I’ve had have resulted in my being degraded in ways I didn’t realize were still allowed in the workplace. To top that off, I’m also scared because I feel like I have nothing to offer anymore.

I received a wonderful letter from one of my dearest friends today. She and I have a oddly, similar school experience. We both homeschooled all 12 years (never knowing each other, I might add), attended the same undergraduate institution, took a couple of years off and returned to school to finish our graduate degrees in our late 20s. Our friendship is such that I’ve never been afraid to admit my fears about myself or my life to her and we’ve often discussed how confusing our past 10 years have been. Her letter was sent today without any prompting and she said something that I couldn’t have said better myself, “I have the weirdest resume; it attests to my lack of commitment and my propensity to try way too many different things. I tried to minimize how scattered my work life has been through my twenties, but it was difficult.” How immensely true are her words! I feel as though my work life is one, giant scrambled mess and I made it that way on purpose! Now, as I look to the future and really do want to settle down both personally and professionally, I find myself fearful that I’ve made such a mess of myself that no one will ever take me seriously. I mean come on, who’s going to put faith in a resume that includes: piano, fire fighting, teaching, volunteering, juvenile justice, public administration, marketing, serving, writing music and national service!? Sure, it was a ton of fun to do but now that I long to be taken seriously as a manager who is seriously going to look at that and be impressed?

I’ve been so lucky in my young life to have the opportunity to try out a lot of stuff. I remember year one in college, my mom wrote me a letter. She encouraged me not to look at the college experience as one where I would work hard at the things I was asked to do and succeed, but one where I saw a giant to-do list of opportunity. A list where I could, and should, try anything I wanted and never be afraid to fail in places or decide some things just weren't for me. It was wonderful advice. I did my basic stuff but pushed myself in new, scary ways and the experiences I’ve had were priceless. The problem now is that I did that after college too. I tried lots of stuff and now my resume reads like my giant to-do list with some great successes, but some things I tried and didn’t like as much. Nothing long-term, no obvious theme. I like to think that there is an underlying theme though: that I love to serve people. Not volunteering (although I do love doing that to some degree), but as my career. I love the nonprofit sector and that is my theme: to serve the nonprofit sector in order to meet the many, unique needs of our society.

My mother's advice was perfect and I am glad that I took it past college into my 20s but I'm not sure the professional world will agree with me. I only hope that the readers of my resume can find my theme and not only respect it but the diverse amount of experience I’ve chosen to have thus far. If not, I’m doomed because it’s all I have and it’s truly, all I am.