In Fact, The Small Steps

     Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here I am, tying the title of one post into the next and the title of the second into its post body. This blog is just going to drive you bananas, isn't it? Progress comes, and the small steps often create the most of it in the long run. What am I thinking about? Activism in general.
     As I'm preparing for my two-week trip to Serbia that has youth activism at its focus and am drafting a letter to my local representatives concerning net neutrality, the plastic bag ban and funding for charter schools, I have to reflect on the progress I've made. Yes, by preparing for my trip I actually mean sitting around writing as I fight off the tail end of the cold I got over the weekend, but that's beside the point.
     What's really got me thinking isn't the fact that I feel like my throat is so dry and scratchy that talking too much may spark a fire- what has me thinking is more along the lines of how much progress I've made and how long it's taken. Even more than that, I'm thinking about my friends and peers that have complimented and admired me throughout. Earlier today I found myself thinking. . .

Where are they?

     On the lonely, long nights and days of the beginning of the research and website, the question wasn't one I asked. Of course I was doing it on my own. I hadn't been aware enough to have an interest in this a few weeks ago, so why would they? As the context of the situation changed, the question occurred to me in passing, perhaps, but I never committed more than a fleeting second to it. I was too busy trying to get things rolling to wonder about what anybody else was doing. Like a shadowy villain stalking an innocent victim, I airily went along my way, sensing but ignoring the question that hauntingly dogged my footsteps. Now, it seems, the question has finally caught up.

     For quite a while, the preliminary everything has been in place. The website is up, and though content is still edited when I come up with more inspired wording, I'm satisfied with it. The facebook page continues to garner handfuls of new followers every few weeks. Posters are accessible and I've colored hundreds of print-outs myself. Why, then, the feeling of standing in a big, fat field of nothing and nobody?

     The work was rewarding and I could do it on my own time. The commitment led me to all sorts of growth, allowed me to develop a sense of purpose and learn from my mistakes as well as loosen the chains of young angst that come to  bind you when you wake up from infancy, open your eyes and note to yourself, "Oh. It certainly does look like everything is going wrong with the world."

     Granted, some people never wake up from the small bubble, or never get farther than poking their heads out and quickly retreating again, but that isn't the case for most people I know. Why, then, did I see nobody standing anywhere but behind me? Countless people giving me looks of approval and not a soul to battle out ideas with or challenge me to create new ones. For a long time I resigned myself to being an oddball for my motivation and that people would come along in time. Unfortunately, or perhaps I'm unfortunately tardy in this, I grow impatient. So what if some people haven't found the motivation or clawed their way to finding their potential? What about the people I knew and my friends that had grown to respect my attributes? They were stirred, so it's not as if they had no feelings on any issue, but I had yet to see any save a tiny few take it anywhere. What made all of them say to me that they wished they were like me, but weren't?

     It was then that I realized I was drafting my first ever spur-of-the-moment, no-forwarded-petition-text letter to my representatives. I began to wonder why it had taken me so long. It's not as if I hadn't had feelings and ideas before today. It was thanks to my participation in my school's Youth & Government program that I had finally felt confident in doing it. I chuckled a bit when I realized that it had taken this many months and steps since my mother first began encouraging me to write to our local politicians probably years before. It's approaching a year since I started this boycott campaign, and I'd done just about everything within my power, except something as basic as writing your representatives, to become involved in activism. Granted, my progress was somewhat unconventional in the path, but despite a lack of convention it had been, undeniably, a process. I hadn't magicked myself onto an activism pedestal- I changed myself slowly over time to create a person. It was just me taking the leap from the area where I felt most comfortable jumping blindly off of, and it just so happens that it wasn't where most people would start. There were definite disadvantages, but it has been one of the most formative leaps of my life. I could never live passively again, and I hope people join in.

     Moral of the story? I'm sick, exhausted, and needed to write something long and ramble-y so that nobody misses me for the two weeks I'm in Serbia. At least, that's my excuse for a winding post that has no end (and if it does, I'm too deliriously tired and headache stricken to recognize it. I was doing fine with this cold with tea and vitamin C to keep it on it's hands and knees, but).