Heroes and Mystics 2024

  When we think of a journey, it's frequently depicted crossing stormy seas, oftentimes in a sailboat. For me, that depiction is nothing short of accurate. I recently joined the CNU sailing team, for no reason other than to try something new, and it has been the best decision that I have made. Joining the sailing team will be one of the greatest markers in the journey that I tell my kids about. I have learned discipline and grit and how to be a teammate, all in one semester. I get up early in the morning to work out with the team not out of fear of punishment, or fear of my body looking a certain way, but for different reasons. I value my own words that told me to wake up the night before, I love my teammates and coaches so I will show up for them, and I want the future of CNU sailing to be even greater than it has been for me.

Upon reflecting on the journey of finding oneself I often go back to my injuries that I suffered from in highschool. With modern medicine I am so blessed that there are such minimal effects that I currently feel, but I definitely think that those were formative times for me in my growth as a person. I think that we all naturally cling to the things that we are good at to define ourselves and I definitely did that in highschool. When I saw myself as nothing more than an athlete, and then suddenly I couldn’t even walk for months… that was pretty devastating to me. All that being said, I believe those years were part of the journey to the person I am now. When someone asks me the things that I am good at or love about myself, athleticism is not the first thing anymore, rather its interior qualities such as loyalty and creativity.

  The urge to go on a run away journey has been STRONG recently. I have always wanted to study abroad, but it's honestly a really long and tedious process. There is a lot of paperwork and meetings and planning. I can be quite the procrastinator, so getting all of this done has been quite the challenge, BUT I am happy to say that I will be going to Lima, Peru this summer. Lima has become so much more than a future service learning trip for me. When I get worried about finals or get sad that I don't have much time to read my books, I think about Peru. Peru is so symbolic to me of going on a journey to find myself. I think of the quote from Gandhi “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” and I hope that that will be me this summer. 

  Recently someone asked me to rank my nicknames that people call me and that question really got me thinking. I immediately went to rank “gabby” as number 1 because it is what most people call me. Is that really my favorite though? I’m not even sure I know the answer to that. I love when people that I am getting closer to try to make their own variations- gab, gabs, gangster, or even the more recent “gabatron”. It feels so special when people try to make a name for you on their own. I think that our names hold so much deep meaning; it’s the verbalization of who we are to other people and they can mean so many things. I do love my name, and I feel a great deal of love for “gabby” and all its variations.

Another one of the many books that I am simultaneously reading with other books that I am really excited about is The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael Alan Singer. Although I am not very far in the novel, I think that the first bit that I have read is already so rich and ties in well to Somewhere I Have Never Traveled because of the idea of the sense of self. Both works mention the idea that we as humans are always trying to grapple with our sense of selves. I think that it is a really interesting concept and my philosophy, perhaps it's just the easy out, is that our brains were simply not created to be able to comprehend things outside of our world. I think it's a great thing to try but I believe that there is so much more knowledge that we cannot know.

One of the many books that I am reading currently is a novel called “He gets us” and it is about asking modern day questions and applying them to Jesus. I chose to read this book because I follow the “He gets us” account on instagram. The book also includes excerpts from Max Lucado, who I read as a child and still really enjoy to this day. The journey of Jesus Christ is the story arch that we can see in any famous movie or literature- Star wars, the classics, disney movies, children’s books, any story where there is a sacrificial hero. For this reason I have found it really fascinating to read about Jesus’ story through a modern lens, because to me His story was the first and greatest hero’s journey.