#77: I Wouldn't Be Here Without You
There was a CFC zoom session about a year ago where we discussed the possibilities that could sprout from operating from a mindset of abundance and expansion and problem solving RATHER than scarcity and feeling there is not enough (people, things, health, time, money, etc..) During this zoom session, we chose our favorite food and then tried to guess how many people, employees, and hands all the different ingredients passed through before getting to our plates. And Lauren, I love that your blog brings me back to this space of gratitude and appreciation for every one I've come across and that have helped me on my life journey or have brought joy to my life, in large and small ways. Thank you for sharing your perspective. Your words reminded me to say a few extra words of thanks to the flight attendants, shuttle driver, pilot, and TSA employees throughout my day today as I traveled back to school here in Florida. :)
- Amanda
Lauren Culbertson lauren@restorenyc.org
I Wouldn’t Be Here Without You
I tell people movies make me cry all the time, but in reality only three movies actually make me cry:
1. Les Miserables (as everyone at Restore unfortunately found out one day)
2. Beginners (my all-time favorite movie)
3. Big Fish
“Big Fish” tells the story of an old dying father who has known to stretch the truth. His soon-to-be-a-dad son is jaded after hearing all his magical, mystical tales of his life, which the film plays out vignette by vignette. At the end of the movie, right before the father dies, there is a scene where he asks his son to narrate the end of his life - for once, he is not the storyteller. Somewhere between dream and reality, the son tells the story and we see him carrying his dying father down to a river, and standing there waiting for him are all the people in his father’s stories we just met, smiling and clapping and nodding and waving goodbye to him as he goes down to the water where he is gently released. It makes me teary every time.
I am convinced that no one can stop getting emotional when they think about all the people who they have met along the journey of their life. Beyond your cliched Oscar awards speech, I’m talking about the simple act of reflecting on all of the people who have in some way helped you get to where you are today. I’ve been doing this this a lot recently as I prepare to move from New York to London. There are so many people who I have met and am not longer with that I wish I could go back to and say “here I am now and I wouldn’t be here without you” - from the PhD student who said five years ago "you can do it," to the UPS employee who took my visa application to be mailed to the UK consulate and graciously answered my nervous questions.
There is beauty in the fact that we can get nowhere on our own, we cannot flourish in isolation. I sometimes daydream about the end of my life and put myself in that Big Fish Scene - who would I pass? Or for whom would I be standing on the shore for, waving goodbye to? I think the name of what I feel when I imagine this is, simply, love.
Lauren's first-person bio:
Someone once told me that I "move" when I see the “earth out of alignment,” which is just a fancy way of saying that I’ve always had a natural inclination to pay attention to what happens in the margins; that’s where the most exciting things happen, after all. That brought me to Restore NYC, an anti- sex trafficking nonprofit, where I work to inspire generosity and help our fundraising team make data-driven decisions. I experience the most joy in my work when I witness two things clicking inside someone: sex trafficking is a major issue that is closer than we think, but it has a solution that we can all be a part of.