[naive enough to try]

I look around me and I am overwhelmed. I wonder why we can't celebrate the victories and keep our eyes on what is positive. I cringe at the negativity of those around me, and I despise every jaded so-called activist who tells me that I can't change the world. That my voice is not enough. That if people older, richer, or more experienced than me haven't been successful, I won't be either.

Bullshit.

I seek desperately the role model that is not jaded, that does not compromise their values, that has made a difference in ways too small for others to notice but large enough to keep them going. I seek someone to point to and say, "Someday that will be me. I can change the world because I can impact those around me."

I have found few. Maybe only one.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough. Have I impacted statewide politics? You could argue that I have, in a small way, by impacting state university politics. But it might be a stretch. I haven't really pushed into city or state politics yet. The people who I wish I could look up to often remind me that what I am doing is too small, too futile to make a difference on such a level. It simultaneously frustrates me that I am doing so little compared to what I could be doing and angers me that those who do even less than me think that my efforts hold little worth.

Then I remember how young I am.

I grew up in another world, and I managed to break free and find myself at a younger age than most. I took risks. I place myself in difficult situation after difficult situation because I am always pushing myself. At 17 years old I dared to start over, and I dared to carve a place for myself at a new school that was unfriendly to those like me. At 18 years old, I dared say to the president of my university what dozens of tenured professors dared not to say. At 19 years old I have dared to follow my passion, to tread the unbeaten path, against the advice of most. And now, at almost 20, I have been homeless. I have learned what some will never discover, that we as humans are resilient and strong and have more to contribute to this world than a 9-5, a white picket fence, and a the carbon emissions of a nice car.

I do not think that I am naive. I have seen and lived so much for someone so young. I have been offered empty promises by people in power. I have had to decode political lies and play political games. I have searched a dumpster in hopes of finding something to eat. I have had to take incredible risks and been betrayed and rejected by my family as a consequence. I have drank in the experiences of those who have changed the world by changing the communities around them, and I have learned from the mistakes of those who have gone before me. I have sat in the circles of conservatives, liberals, radicals, and those who are apathetic. I have helped myself and those around me address issues such as sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV, homelessness, eating disorders, cutting, drug addiction, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and mental illness. I am the person that people come to when they can't go to anyone else, for reasons unknown to me.

And yet, sometimes I wonder why I am not jaded. Why I still believe that the world is a beautiful place. That people are masterpieces. That I can do anything, despite the failures that contradict that belief. Maybe I have managed to retain my naivete despite everything I have seen and done.

Maybe I am naive enough to keep trying.