Still Learn and Grow

In order to maintain privacy for these children on my public blog, I will refer to them by their first initials. Godparents and parents praying over the newly baptized, led by the pastor I know that you already know how much you are loved by your whole family, including me, your Auntie Abs. What I hope you’re starting to understand is that you are beloved by God. Sometimes I think little ones understand what that means better than the grown ups. You both are special in your own unique ways, and as you grow up, you will learn how to use your gifts and the things that you love to do to help others. A, I know you love to help Mommy in the kitchen when you’re baking bread or cookies.  I don’t think it’s an accident that you gravitate toward food as a way to bring people together–I think God instilled that in you. L, you’re a jokester like Daddy, and I think you understand how to make people laugh better than I do. I hope you don’t lose that spark in you since your laughter has definite...

I went to the gym three times last week. I went to two group fitness classes and had a 1-1 personal training session. Some people may find this standard, but this is a big deal for me. The last time I went to the gym three times in one week was when I was in high school. At nearly 25 years old, I still have a recurring nightmare that I’m back in high school, and I’m told by my high school gym teacher that I have to go to gym class everyday for the rest of the semester in order to graduate. Gym class wasn’t necessarily scary for me, but it wasn’t my happy place. This wasn’t because of anything that my high school gym teachers did. They are gifted, lifelong athletes who have dedicated their lives to educate and empower their teams into achieving their goals and believe in themselves. When they were students, they broke records and won championships, and they manifest that for their students as well. I made up my mind at a young age that I would never consider myself an athlete. Memories ...

This morning, I dropped my proverbial baby brother Sam off at the airport. After sleeping on my couch that he helped set up the night before, he changed his socks, checked over his overstuffed suitcase, moved some stuff to his backpack, and we headed to MSP on my way to work. He was leaving for Japan for his first job out of college as a teaching intern for math and science at a school in Tokyo. Before I watched him roll his suitcase away, he wrapped me in a hug and said, "See you soon." My eyes welled up as I continued driving to work. They welled up when he texted me, "We're taking off, love you," and they're welling up as I'm writing this after work while he's still on his flight. This year, I'm becoming more intimately familiar with my friends moving away. I'm trying to get better at maintaining friendships (both in person and long distance) better than I did when I was in high school and maybe even college. When I was a sophomore in high...

When I was a child, I would make up little tunes in my head. I played outside in the creek by my neighbors house or climbed the tree in our front yard. I sang all of the time (prompted or unprompted) but these little tunes were very private. I rarely let anyone hear them because, like many of my thoughts as young autistic child, I didn't think anyone would understand them.  To be fair, my child self had a point. The songs I wrote didn't make any sense. They were about the stupid things I wanted, like finally declaring my love for my second grade boyfriend after my parents told me I was too young to be dating anyone. Or working in the concession stand at a baseball game instead of watching it (this is while my dad coached baseball; I got bored pretty easily). I thought I was going to be the next Hannah Montana or Billy Joel's hype man. It was a dream that was my own and no one else's to crush. The TLDR: the worse I got bullied in elementary and middle school for things o...

I love genius lyricism, and as a child of the aughts, I find myself going back to music I would hear on the radio or on my mom's iPod. Moreover, I'm amazed at how often the lyrics become proverbs of my daily life. Recently, a lyric from "Hey Ya!" by OutKast has been trending on social media: "Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance." Andre 3000 (the genius that he is) uses it to back away from his heavy lyrics about people in unfruitful, unhappy relationships and jump back into the contagious joy felt in the rest of the song. It's beautiful and heartbreaking how self aware the Andre 3000 is. He knows that millions of people were not going to download this song and dance to it at weddings for the next two decades for depressing lyrics in a seemingly peppy song. I never read into this interjection at the beginning of the second chorus, but people are artfully inserting it into their conversations about justice and inclusivity. It resona...

A self-portrait titled "Trying my best" The start of 2021 has been chaotic. Upon writing this blog, I finished a degree recital with limited attendance, entered the back end of the most academically intense semester of my college career, and mended my broken heart of two months–as you'll see, each of these are important in illustrating my plight as an autistic college student. Spoiler alert: absolutely no one has their shit together, and I'm glad we're learning to stop trying to pretend like we are. For anyone that is relatively new in my life, I will attempt to sum up my experience as an individual with (incredibly poorly titled) "high-functioning autism." All of my life, I have been able to excel academically while trying to learn common patterns of behavior among neurotypical people. Individuals have recently described me as emotionally intelligent and outgoing. In all honesty: long periods of distance have stepped on my confidence. I'm getting th...

While I was scrolling through Facebook, I heard a devotion from one of my bosses–now also a pastor–from my ol d summer camp. He spoke on texts related to Jesus and young children, particularly the ever-so-famous " Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these (Matthew 19:14, NIV)." Even though I wasn't in a particularly "theological" mindset, I paused and listened. I hadn't listened to a sermon since Christmas, and I thought it would be great to listen to a familiar voice. He was scrolling through a set of older camp photos, long before my time as a counselor. And as he was speaking, he asked the listeners to recall a time where they had nothing about a curiosity about the world and just wanted people to share in their delight. I started to think about the kids I counseled, and how they were experiencing the thrill of meeting brand new people and just getting to see people experience a new plac...

This photo is from a lecture in the class "Hidden Figures in Early Christianity" discussing the behavior of the dominant voices in antiquity, particularly public artwork representing other nations as sad, passive women holding up strong men. I thought it was relevant. All artists have a purpose. The most influential artists have power. Most of us are comfortable with this sentiment. The most impactful artists have an agenda. This is what troubles the casual listener. During my time in Nordic Choir this last year, we had the unique experience of preparing a full-scale oratorio titled "Considering Matthew Shepard," a work describing the tragic story of the murder of a young gay man. Harder yet, the work discussed the aftermath of the media, the backlash, the confrontation, the forgiveness, and the desire to move forward. As performers, doing this work was difficult. Many of the LGBTQ+ members of Nordic Choir reflected their own emotions about their worldly exper...

Here's the tea: the decade challenge is too dense for me because I'm in my late teens. Of course a lot has changed since 2009 because I went through (and survived) puberty. Good meme, good meme. As I close the door on my third semester at Luther and lounge alone in my couch until my parents get home from their adult jobs, I write this blog in attempt to not rewatch the last season of Schitt's Creek or eat all of the cookies left over from my mom's birthday party. Merry Christmas everyone. I stay active on social media, but I close of many parts of my life to the world. It's not because I'm busy (although that doesn't help). Many aspects of my life are painful to talk about. Yes, I know the old phrase "It's not about how many times you fall down, but how many times you get back up." But 2019 has been a slippery set of stairs. I've progressed beyond the points where I fell, but I still feel my bruises with every step. I felt unrea...

PC: Charlie Langton Matt Walsh, an influencer who credits himself as a voice for the young, religious right, posted a blog on the DailyWire with this title: "You Get Your Own Name. It Can Be Whatever You Want. But You Don’t Get Your Own Pronouns." His rationale can be summarized in these points. 1. The new pronouns such as "ze" are fabricated and make no coherent sense. Pronouns other than he/she are grammatically incorrect. 2. People don't use pronouns when they speak directly to a person, so the concept of using correct pronouns does not make sense anyway. 3. People genetically don't exist outside of male or female, so there is no reason to use these pronouns anyway. He claims that the reason that he argues these points is, "Nobody can provide any proof for any of these claims or any coherent answers to any of the questions I have posed. We are supposed to just accept their assertions, however incoherent, and timidly cooperate as they mutil...

As I was turning the page of my "Inspiring Women" calendar for the weekend (wonderful stocking-stuffer, thanks Mom), this quote came up: A few months ago, I probably would have chuckled at this. I love when women are able to respond to seemingly patriarchal comments. But not today. I'm bothered by this. I'm reminded of a conversation: I was talking to two of my friends from first semester–one cis male and one trans female–and, per usual of this group of people, we start talking about social issues. When the male friend started making disagreeable claims about women's rights (not reproductive rights–women's rights), I responded to him out of frustration and recklessness: "Hey, no uterus, no opinion!" To which my female friend says without skipping a beat, "Excuse me, I don't believe whether or not I have a uterus affects my rights in this respect." This was one of those "Oh shit," moments. The moment she started speaki...

Reflecting on a recent celebration of honesty and equality on National Coming Out Day, I remember a casual conversation with my parents and our dear friends Eric and Andrew. During this time, I would guess I am around 12-14 years old. Eric tells a funny story about how he had recently sent an email referencing the fact that he has a husband. The recipient of the email then sends back an email with the greeting reading "Mrs." rather than "Mr." We chuckle because we know that times are changing, and some people just have a tad bit of catching up to do: That being said, however, I reply in true middle school Abby fashion (not thinking before speaking and trying to be funny while ultimately failing): "That's funny," directing my attention to Andrew, "because if anything, you would be the woman in your relationship..." Because Andrew loves me like a daughter, he does exactly what a good parent would do: give me a little glare and a tip of t...

Rugrats: 90's cartoon classic and staple in my brother's and my childhood. As a "big kid" (more along the ages of 5 or 6) it was funny to look at babies and their thoughts on the world around them, including the lyrics to "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and thinking a lizard is the child of a cartoon dinosaur. But recently, I watched an episode of Rugrats that made me realize that the fictitious thoughts and opinions of babies help us understand the simplicity of some things in life. To give some context: at this point, the babies are all children of three sets of parents that are friends and neighbors: the Pickles(s), the DeVilles, and the Finsters. In this episode, the Pickles and DeVille parents fight in a game of charades, insulting each other. The two sets of parents end up in a fight that breaks the relationship. The Devilles then take their children home, and they end up fighting. This is where it gets familiar. Mr. Pickles starts ...

I've just started watching Glee  for the first time (don't know why I hadn't gotten into it before, but that's beside my point). Most of the episodes allow me to indulge what I love about musical theatre–setting a story to music. However, a moment that hit me right in the feels was about the cheerleading aspect. Longs story short, Mercedes (a bigger girl) joins the cheer squad to show off what she can do at a larger scale than on stage. Her coach wanted her to lose weight to fit into a skirt, and she ends up in the hospital because of a developing eating disorder. Quinn (a former cheerleader) knew how she felt, but Mercedes said that Quinn always had being skinny, blonde, and beautiful to fall back on as a tear rolled down her cheek. To make things clear: by no means have I ever heard a real coach say something like that, and I pray that no coach ever will–and if there has, I hope they never do again. Other than that aspect, I remember fitting day for cheerlea...

For many days, I tell myself, "Their words–they might be true. You weep because you cannot change How God created you." I went to gain a sense of worth From others' way of words; The problem with my expectation: My needs, I never heard. I longed so, for a better me, One that's not too loud, Not too tall, too large, too silly, Too open, too sassy, too proud. My heart would have to tug my head To stand itself back up: "Among the things you wish could change, Are some that others love." I have the strength to tell myself, "Your confidence make me blush; If anyone says otherwise, Don't think you are too much." "Your body's fine the way it is– You're tall to touch the sky; You laugh so loud, so lovely, dear, So hold your head up high." To those who long for comfort now, What I say is true: Love yourself, for you can't change How God created you.

Over the last few days, I've heard comments about someone in our school. The comments were along the lines of that someone being too spoiled, that someone being hypercritical (mostly non-verbally), and that someone being more inquisitive than necessary. These may seem insignificant in nature, these subjects being "just an opinion" but I want to make this clear–that is an example of bullying. Ah, that word. We've seen it countless times in elementary and middle school, but we don't recognize it much in high school unless someone got physical or yelled inappropriately at someone. Much of bullying discussed in elementary and middle school are now referred to as "opinions", so it makes it sound like they have a right to say something mean about someone else. I'm not saying that I'm not guilty of this, but some people pass it off and don't realize it. This situation I talked about above is not an exception. Why is it not an exception? Why a...

Disclaimer: While this is mostly about suicide, many similar things can be said about substance abuse or distracted driving, so PLEASE consider the following. Recently a student in a neighboring town took their life. While learning about probability in math class, our teacher compared (statistically) the probability of us failing math unintentionally given we are students at our school vs. the probability of having serious thoughts of suicide given that we are a teenager in America. The main reason the prior has odds of slim to none is because the school constantly circulates those academic needs back to us and makes sure we know resources are available. That doesn't mean the resources to combat the latter are not available, but apparently some people have yet to be aware of or to comprehend their availability. My teacher then made it clear that any teacher, whether you have a class with them or not, is willing to talk things out. If you don't find luck, this is the ...

I wanted to share this because I come across people that have problems with themselves all of the time. I want to make sure those people understand that many (not all) people of whom they see as confident and secure are often on a very fine line of doubt. I appear to have a general "I don't give a butterfly's behind of what you think" attitude. Many people view me as super outgoing and confident, and I appreciate that. But though I have a lot of good days with generally good thoughts, I can't say it's like that all of the time. That's right, I doubt myself. A lot. These are all things I've thought of myself over many days for the last three years. "I'm not pretty enough to be a cheerleader." "I'm far from being as good of a musician as that person, maybe anyone." "I'm not smart enough to be in this class." There are days where I can just pick an outfit because it makes me feel like me, but other...

The busiest day I have had as a musician through the whole year has been Solo/Ensemble Festival: a full day of students singing and playing pieces of music prepared for a judge and possibly a small audience. I participated in eight events, overall learning 13 pieces of music. I had five acts as a vocalist, four collaborative pianists, three acts as a violinist, two lovely directors, and a partridge in pear tree–it was overwhelmingly awesome and beautifully exhausting. As my day at Solo/Ensemble was about halfway over, all was well until I came across something that not only didn't amuse me but also broke my heart . I ran into a student from a different school whom I had known from various other music events; the only thing–after years of "only" perfect ballots–this student was concerned with was getting a "Best of Center" rating for their solo (an honor distinguished to only one act during the day by the judge–this student hadn't achieved this yet). Thi...