Bonus Post: “You Will Be Found”

“Out of the shadows

The morning is breaking

And all is new, all is new

It's filling up the empty

And suddenly I see that

All is new, all is new

You are not alone

…

Even when the dark comes crashin' through

When you need someone to carry you

When you're broken on the ground

You will be found!”

--“You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen

12-13-2019. You know in Deathly Hallows Part 2 when Hermione tells Harry, "I'll go with you"? That's how I feel about you guys. I'll go with you wherever this life takes us--through all the ups and downs, when the darkness seems endless, and when the sun finally comes back out. Thanks for finding me, guys.

!!Bonus post alert!!!

This is the only song that I’ve added to the post listing since I finalized it back in February—and would you believe me if this song was in the early drafts? I originally cut it because the cast recording has dialogue in the middle of it that fits the plot of the musical but not necessarily our lives. So I cut it, and I was fine with it.

But then Ben Platt and the original Broadway cast, along with some other “Evans” from other iterations of the show, performed this for one of James Corden’s at-home Late Late Shows without the dialogue break. I took it as a sign that maybe this was a message we all needed.

9-21-2019. As mixed up as everything is right now, I'm so glad
 we had moments like this on Dustin's birthday. Thanks for
teaching me how to go to bars, guys--even if still don't know
how to order drinks.

I feel so lost right now. I’m burying myself in books and crafts and music and freaking Harry Potter AUs to quell the rising panic I feel coming on. Because, despite an unprecedented global pandemic, people still want to know if I’m renewing my lease or where I’m going to work this summer or what I’m going to do during my gap year. And I’m like, “Hi, I literally can’t answer that because the entire global economy and job market is rapidly shifting, and no one knows when it will settle.” But that’s not really enough for some people—like my landlord.

And when things get like this, I think about this song. I thought about it a lot in the days immediately following the tornado. I mean, you’ve got to have something to sing along to while you’re digging through the remnants of your childhood bedroom, right? And, if I learned anything from those post-tornado months—aka the hardest time of my life—it's that you will be found.

I don’t know how much I’ve told you guys about the tornado. It’s not exactly a fun story. (Here's an op-ed I wrote for my undergrad paper that goes into some more detail about my family's experience.) But, basically, we didn’t have “nothing,” but we had a whole lot of useless pieces. We didn’t have a house, but we had some plastic dishes. We lost all of our furniture, but we had my childhood soccer trophies. My dad said we had the important things—each other—but even he faltered a little when he saw that we’d lost most of the records his dad had passed down to him. At one of her lowest points, my mom admitted that she sometimes wished the tornado had swept the whole house away so we wouldn’t have to go through the emotional trauma of finding more and more things that had been ruined. Because, the truth is, you don’t get to decide what the tornado takes.

So we effectively had nothing. And, I don’t know if you guys can tell, but I hate needing help. I love helping, but I hate being on the other end of it. I don’t want to be a burden. Yet, there I was, making Facebook posts on behalf of my bereaved parents, asking the Facebook universe for everything from boxes and cat carriers to Diet Coke to beds and furniture. It’s the kind of humbling experience that I hope and pray none of you ever have to go through.

3-20-2018. This is what my house looked like the morning after the tornado. See the far left of the picture where the roof is collapsing? That's my bedroom. There's a giant hole in the wall where the window used to be. I'm lucky I wasn't home that night.

12-12-2019. Nothing says "home" to me more than
Christmas, and I'm so glad we got to spend 2 Christmases
together. It's not enough, but I'm still grateful that we got
this many.

But what I quickly came to realize was that we weren’t totally lost. I was on the receiving end of so much kindness in those months. When you lose your home in a small Southern town, you kind of expect a few things—casseroles, iced tea, Wal-Mart gift cards—the basic acts of hospitality. But our community went above and beyond. The mother of one of my mom’s preschoolers slipped her an envelope with $900 in it from her church (that we don’t attend!). Her coworkers volunteered to wash the damp, moldy clothing that we were able to save and had been storing in trash bags. We had homemade dinners delivered to us at my dorm every night for weeks. A friend of mine and Eric’s held a fundraiser for us at the Chick-fil-A in her hometown, and our friend group presented us with money and cards and fast food gift cards and buckets of cleaning supplies at the surprise 20th birthday party they threw for Eric 11 days after the tornado. My dad's best friend and his wife wrote us a check for over $5000 so we could put in brand new windows and doors that insurance wasn't going to pay for (but that the house definitely needed). 

I still tear up when I think about it. I had never felt more loved, and I’ve spent every day since trying to put that same kind of love back into the world. I hope one day I can repay it in full.

So, what I’m trying to say with that very long, very sad story is that there’s more darkness right now. But it’s not just me who’s affected by it this time. It’s everyone. We’re all feeling this. No one is lucky enough to come out of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic unscathed. We’ve all lost something. But I keep thinking of the bridge: “Out of the shadows / The morning is breaking / And all is new.”

This isn’t forever. I know it can feel like it now. I’m getting more frustrated every day. But I remember a time when I felt like the rest of my life was going to be waking up, going to my house, wear a surgical mask and gloves while digging through molded memories and broken pieces of my 22 years, go back to my dorm, shower, have “pity food” delivered, and repeat.

But it wasn’t.

Spring Break 2020. Right before things turned ugly. From Denver to Manhattan and from California to Connecticut, there's nowhere I don't think we'd find each other. 

Four and half months later, I moved to Kansas. I met you guys. In so many ways, you're the morning that broke after those shadows. You probably didn’t know it then, but I was still healing from that tornado. Hell, I still am. I probably will be for a long time. But I made it. And we’ll make it through this, too. It’ll hurt…even after it’s over, it’ll hurt. But I can’t help but be grateful that, this time I’m experiencing a tragedy, I have people who “get it.” We might not be feeling the exact same things all the time, and we might be in different places financially and mentally, but you can empathize with me when I’m feeling particularly scared or overwhelmed or stressed or just angry. And that’s just one more reason I’ll love you all forever.

If that tornado taught me anything, it’s that even the darkest nights don’t last forever. And that I’m so, so grateful that we each other until the sun comes out again.

Love ∞,

Me