It's been a while (4th Anniversary Edition)

So three a few of you took notice that, though what I wrote at the beginning of this blog was pure genius, I have been less than consistent in my blogging.

I blame a few things, which will serve as updates to my life.

1 - I bought a house, which leaves a man pretty occupied.



A garden like that doesn't garden itself



2 - I played a whole lot of kickball (or did it play me... no I played it. The other way doesn't make any sense). Which I also dedicated  some blogging time to http://kickjames.blogspot.com/ if you want to hear all about the season.

This picture should be Instagrammed

3 - My wife and I found out we are having a baby. This also took some blogging time away, though not as much as it should. Those thoughts can be found, with the help of my beautiful Jenna at http://littlebabychew.blogspot.com/

So, I can hear you asking, why now Thomas? Why are you coming back to us? What has happened in your life for this re-emergence into your writing endeavors? I'll tell you.

If you've followed the life and times of Thomas Chew at all, you know I am married to a lovely little lady named Jenna. Today happens to be our fourth wedding anniversary. On August 16, 2008, we gathered in Weston's Mill's at her mother's old house on a gorgeous day to celebrate our lives together. It really was a gorgeous day. It was sunny, but not too hot, bright, but not blinding, there was a breeze that made the air smell good. There were butterflies for god's sake.

Butterflies I tell ya!

I've been thinking a lot about the last four years, which made me start thinking about this whole 29 thing again. I wanted things to be put into perspective, but I'm starting ot think there just isn't any perspective to be had. I'm going to keep getting older. We all are. We're going to watch cool shows, terrible movies, travel to strange, exotic, boring, fascinating, scary, relaxing places. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to learn. We're going to love. Ideally there will be a significant amount of hugging involved.

Through all of this, and in retrospect of the last eight months and the last four years, I am absolutely lucky to say that Jenna has made me better. I haven't always been a perfect husband, nor she a wife. But that's because we're people and people are inherantly flawed. What makes us a great couple (in my opinion), and what has moved us forward and helped us along throughout our relationship is our willingness to be together. We fight until a fight is over. We discuss until all the details are on the table. We call each other out when it needs to be done. Jenna and I are completely different people than we were four years ago and thank christ.

We're growing up. It's scary. Buying a house was scary. Deciding we wanted to have kids was scary. Getting married four years ago was scary. It would have been really easy to say, nope, let's just keep having fun and see what happens down the line. We didn't do that. We took that challenge and it has not been easy. To be honest it hasn't always been fun. Sometimes it has sucked.

Then, four days later I don't even remember what sucked so much, I get to look into the eyes of the woman who has positively changed me and has been such a unique and loving influence on my life and say that she is my wife. To know that the next  time something amazing happens to me, she will be the first one I tell. To know the next time I am being an assbag about something, she is going to be the one to tell me. The next time I'm not being the person I want to be, she will help me find my way and love me throughout it all. The one who is holding my hand when I wake up. The one who tells me I need to brush my teeth in the morning so I can lay in bed and talk to her without my ass breath ruining everything.

I still smile every time I play with my ring.

I know I have influenced Jenna. I hope it has been for the better. I know I want to do for her all that she has done for me and more (so I can win a challenge of who has done more for the other... just kidding). This year of living my life actively. Embracing 29. Trying new things (bone marrow was phenomenally tasty), and being a conscious objector to letting life pass me by has been successful so far. I can do more. I can always do more. I can try harder. I can always try harder. None of it would matter without her. I tried to imagine it this morning and just the thought made me sad. More importantly, I couldn't do it. I have a fantastic imagination for a 29 year old dude, and I couldn't do it. I didn't want to. My life is too amazing with and because of her to want anything else.

Being thankful is part of living ones life actively, so I want to thank my wife, Jenna Lyn Butterbaugh, for loving me, letting me love you, and for making me a better person every single day.

Happy Anniversary love!

Remember the Ice Breakers you hated in college... I loved them!

In the summer of 2001 I attended orientation at St. Bonaventure University.

Pictured: Teen Defiance

I wore a white t-shirt my friend Dustin made me with the Weezer =w= on it.

I did not want to be there.

I grew up around Bonaventure and I wanted to get the hell out. I was too cool. I was meant for the big city. I was going to lawyer everyone about everything constantly.

My orientation leader was named Kara and she did a fine job, but in my teenage angst in homemade t-shirt, I was not into it.

Flash forward one summer. I was an orientation leader.

Flash forward six months. I was named Orientation Coordinator and I was charged with helping hire my new supervisor. I thought it was awesome. I was excited to be a part of it and thought I was so cool for having my position and being so important to the very fabric of Bona's.

(Author's note: I really thought too much of myself back in the day. I know this. For all the good I tried to do, I know I must have driven people crazy. I know sometimes I still do. Working on it (...))

I had no idea at the tender age of 20 that through that interview I would meet one of the most influential and supportive people of my life and my aspirations of lawyerin' the law out of everyone would float gracefully in a drunken waddle out the window.

Flash forward a couple months. Spencer and I checked in at the Seattle Hyatt for the Annual National Orientation Directors Association Conference. He had started the job less than a month beforehand. He had never worked in orientation and from his first day on campus he told me, "you teach me about the program, and I'll do my best to learn it."

There were a few hundred people at the conference, but in my mind it was thousands. Everyone was nicer than the person before them (Except for one lady the first night that had the gall to ask what I was doing drinking at the President's social when I wasn't even 21 and I wasn't a professional staff member... that bitch!). The second day of the conference I turned to Spencer, wide eyed and ecstatic himself, and I pronounced my plans for life.

"This is it," I said, "this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life."

It was all over. I had had my epiphany.

Flash forward six months. Saratoga Springs, NY. NODA Region IX Conference. Spencer and I had met so many people in Seattle and so many of them were in Saratoga. We were celebrities. We were a part of it... I was enrolled in a program called ROLI. It was the second year of the program and I was in a group led by a man named Aurelio. My stiffest competition (for attention) was a kid called JoeGuy. I was intimidated by his confidence, so I threw myself into becoming his friend. I had lunch with a woman named Robin who was, still to this day, the nicest person I've ever met in my life. The type of person everyone wanted to be around. The type of person that inspires people by saying hello. The type of person I thought I was, but really was eons away from and still hope to become.

I didn't know at the time that Aurelio was the founder of ROLI. I didn't know he would eventually hire me as his Graduate Fellow and start my career.

I didn't know that Robin was the Vice-President of NODA, a nation wide organization with thousands of people. That lunch led to her reaching out to me the next year to offer me a column in her, From the NODA Vice-President. Apparently being published in a national review at 21is a big deal. I was just doing a favor for a lady who inspired me over terrible hotel food.


I know this is probably a boring story for you if you're still reading. I understand for those who gave up already (my throngs of readers are fickle at best).

I'm sitting in the back of a room in Burlington, Vermont. The Assistant Dean of Students at Cornell University is giving a great presentation to 40 students during the morning session of the second day of ROLI. I'm in the last four hours of my two year appointment as Co-Coordinator of the program.

Spencer is four feet to my left. I brought him in as one of my mentors for the new students. JoeGuy is four feet in front of me. I brought him in as one of my faculty members. He gave our opening session on a ROLI alumni's perspective, utilizing the program to enhance you're position and future. I smiled throughout the presentation and started writing this blog in my head.

I have been a part of NODA for 9 years. I have been a ROLI student, faculty member, mentor, and no coordinator. I have been to 7 regional and 4 national conferences. In our opening ice breaker everyone had to introduce themselves and share one word that described how they were feeling. Joe went right before me and and used the word I had been planning on using through the other 48 people.

Reflective.

I've always known, but I've never truly acknowledged how influential this has been for me. I have grown up, both literally and figuratively, through this organization and through these people.

This will be my last NODA conference for the foreseeable future. I don't work in orientation anymore and I'm happy to be where I am. But reflecting on my time here and with these people, I am filled with gratitude and I am humbled.

The kid in the homemade Weezer t-shirt was terrified to be humbled. He expressed his gratitude, because that was what he was supposed to do and people would like him more for it. The kid who hated his orientation never would have guessed that he would be where I am. It isn't big enough. It isn't flashy enough. I don't get attention. I don't get credit. The limelight is extinguished.

That kid was a fucking idiot.

For all the good things I've tried to do throughout my life, I know I've done harm, I've done wrong, and I've done things poorly.

The first time I acknowledged that I was 21 years old. I had a panic attack one night. I was alone in my bedroom. I called my dad at 4am, a man I had rarely spoken with personally. He got me through the next few hours, which got me through the next few days. I hadn't slept, gone to class, answered my phone, or eaten in four days when I went to Spencer who made fun of me for looking like shit and then asking what I needed. He didn't ask what was wrong. He didn't ask what happened. He asked how he could help.

I spent two days on his couch watching movies. Spending time away from the place I loved where everyone knew me. Where I was important. Where I was so involved that the President of the University had my cell phone number and I cut the ribbon of the new athletic facility, and had the second biggest office on campus. Where I was sad, lonely, and miserable.

That kid walked into a Seattle hotel on a rainy October day and he fell in love with an idea. He spent the next three years feverishly chasing that idea by embracing everyone. Yes, I'll help. Yes, I'll lead that group. Yes, I'll run for this. Yes, I'll drink that. Yes, I have plenty of time, I can do anything.

That kid was an idiot, but he wasn't dumb. I know, now, at this point in my life, that if it weren't for the ambition I had as a teenager I never would have put myself in that position to break down. I needed to be broken and I needed to learn those lessons. Just like you need to fall in love. Just like you need to be heart broken. Just like you need to be humiliated and triumph and shine and fall and you need to live life. I was so scared that everyone would figure me out. I had it all together and everyone knew I was that guy.

I don't want to be that guy anymore. I just want to be happy. I just want to make my wife happy, be with my friends and the people I love and sincerely try to help the students I work for.

I see myself in all these students. The good parts and the bad. I hope they find a Spencer. I hope they find someone who will challenge them, call them out, and support them unconditionally.

I lost the focus of this rambling a while ago, because my heart is pounding and I'm awkwardly smiling while I type. I am so happy and so lucky to have had the opportunities I have been given. Even the ones I squandered and the missions I failed miserably. I'm actually more thankful for those, because without those, without Spencer, without the kids I'm looking at and the mentors I'm working with and the inspired students I'm watching grow by the minute.

I'd still be that guy. Fun... not effective.

Without all these things I never would have found myself. I would probably be either a lawyer making a shit ton of money. Going home to an empty apartment with a gigantic bank account and an even bigger drinking problem. Either that or I'd be in a gutter. I'd have ridden it until it broke and then broken down with it. I know that about myself. It is what I feared most of my life, but wasn't strong enough to acknowledge until it started happening. Then, only by the grace of goodness, was I picked up and sent to Rixford, PA to sit on a couch and play with a chocolate lab.

Without those things I would never be here, never have my life, my wife, my friends, my family and I certainly wouldn't be proud of who I am. When I was living that life I wasn't proud of who I was, but I am now. The good, the bad, the shameful, the glory, the bullshit. It was all worth it... just so I never have to live through it again.

This is my very long, very arduous thank you to orientation. For what it has taught me. The lessons I've learned, the people I've met, the places it has taken me, and, most of all, for humbling a little shit in a homemade t-shirt.

I wish I still had that t-shirt.