On January 25th, 2006 at 6:00 in the morning, I nervously and sleepily boarded a plane that would take me three thousand miles from home.  At the time, I honestly had no clue what I was getting myself into.  I had had my eye set on this program called AmeriCorps NCCC ever since my senior year of high school and now, four years later, I was finally doing it.  I knew that over the course of the next ten months I had the potential to learn new things, meet new friends, and even have my life permanently altered by these experiences.  But these possibilities were just vague ideas in my head - the future was a complete mystery to me.  I didn't know then that all of these ideas would come true, tenfold.  I didn't know when I first pulled up to 1104 3rd Street that it would become home to me in every sense of the word.  I didn't know when I first met my housemates that they would become not only best friends, but sources of comfort, each one of them representing home in herself.  And I had no idea that first day I met my team that we would become not just a group of randomly selected 18 to 24 year olds, not just a team - but a family, a solid unit made up of eleven people who truly love and respect each other.  I had no idea that morning getting on the plane that I was about to begin the most challenging, emotional, and amazing year of my life.
            To try and describe the past year to an outsider has proved itself absolutely impossible, as I’m sure everyone who went through it with me has figured out by now.  Looking back on all we did this year, I feel like we opened the door to some secret little world, a world filled with people, experiences, and emotions that ten months ago we could have never, ever imagined knowing, doing, or feeling.  There are so many things I thought I knew about before AmeriCorps, that now I realize I didn’t have a clue about.  Before this year I thought I knew what sadness was.  But now I know that sadness is not just crying over an inconsiderate boy.  Sadness is not just something you feel when something happens to you or your family.  Sadness is holding a kindergartner while she cries because her mother refuses to come to her class performances.  It is sending an adorable, bright child home to what you know is a neglectful household.  Sadness is seeing firsthand the state of the public school system in poor neighborhoods.  It is watching a teacher struggle to do her best in a system that is stopping her from doing what she knows is right for the children.  Sadness is trying to explain to 25 teary-eyed five-year-olds why, after just six short weeks, you have to leave them.  Sadness is the first time you drive down Highway 90 in Mississippi and see a community frozen in devastation.  Sadness is the first time you come across a destroyed family photo album while gutting out a house.  It is the first time you meet a homeowner and hear their story from their own mouth, and watch them break down and cry right in front of you, not caring that you are a perfect stranger.  Sadness is knowing that there are people and communities suffering, while the government and the general public pretend not to notice.
            Before AmeriCorps I also thought I knew what being in love was.  But now I know that being in love is not just a feeling reserved for a relationship with one person.  It is holding that very same kindergartner and watching her tears turn into a smile because of your hug.  Being in love is helping a child sound out a word or figure out a math problem and seeing the look of pride on their face when they finally get it.  It is sliding down a slide with ten kids at a time, hearing their roaring laughter and letting them make you feel like a kid again yourself.  Being in love is walking through the cafeteria at lunch time and feeling like a celebrity.  It is the feeling you have after spending six weeks with the most genuine and loving people you have ever met – all of whom are under 12 years old.  Being in love is working side by side with a homeowner in Chalmette, Louisiana.  It is hearing them tell you how much they appreciate everything you are doing, even if to you it doesn’t always seem like much.  Being in love is the feeling you get when you step into a house that you de-molded several months earlier and see how far it has come – a house that was once just an empty skeleton of a building is now finally, over a year after it was destroyed, beginning to look like a home again.   Being in love is standing with a homeowner in her FEMA trailer and crying together because you both are so thankful for each other.  It is knowing that you truly are making a difference in someone’s life.  And being in love is most of all, what you feel for the ten other people that have experienced everything you experienced – every little bit of emotion, every inside joke, every moment in your life for the past ten months.  It is being perfectly content with spending eight weeks in a little cabin in the woods with these people.  It is the feeling of comfort you get every time you’re around them.  It is knowing that even when you are annoyed, frustrated, or downright angry at each other, you will always come around and remember why you love one another.  Being in love is every crazy van ride, every late night talk, every early morning hug, every tear shed together, every song sung together, every sushi dinner, and every uncontrollable giggling fit.  It is all those moments where you look around and suddenly realize how lucky you are to have met these people.  It is knowing that you have a group of people who understand what you have gone through and who you have become like no one else ever could.
            On November 9^th, love and sadness came together in a way that even in all my days of endings and goodbyes, I have never experienced before.  That day was so much more than just saying goodbye to people – it was saying goodbye to a way of life; to everything I had come to know and love in the last ten months.   It was knowing that I had to return to my previous life, but that now I was carrying an almost overwhelming amount of experiences and emotions.  And at the same time I had to say goodbye to the only people who would ever fully understand all of these things.  It was a heartbreaking day, but it was also a beautiful day because I think it was when we all really, truly realized how much we meant to each other.  I shed more tears that day than I knew I had in me, but I walked away from Perry Point with a smile, knowing that everything I had done and seen and everyone I had met that year made all the sadness more than worth it.
            In many ways I am the same person now that I was when I first joined AmeriCorps.  But there is no denying that I have been changed by all that I have been through this year.  I feel as though I have become closer to being the person I’ve always wanted to be.  And even though I’m still figuring out where to go from here, I feel content knowing that somehow I will continue to make a difference in the world, because now I know that that is something I can do, and have done already, in so many ways.  All of the things I did this year and all the people I met along the way have meant so much to me and taught me so much, and I will never forget even those who I only had brief encounters with.  But the people that have meant the most to me are the ones who have been with me through the whole journey.  And so to my beloved Doozers – Danielle, Kristen, Kyle, Marissa, Megan, Michelle, Nate, Schotty, Tasia, and Tosh, and to my amazing housemates – Audrey, Erin, Julie, Lisa, and Nicole – thank you all so much for everything you’ve done this year, you all helped to make it the best experience of my life.  I love you all and I will never forget you or all the times we had together, no matter how many years go by.