How I Got Here From There

Today was my last day in the office. At the end of the day as I packed up my family photos and cleared my desk for someone else to use, I had a strange sense of peace. I had expected to have a flood of emotions. Here I was, leaving this place where I had spent most of my waking moments over the last seven years. But now, instead of being washed over with memories of the past, I felt a serene calm.

Maybe it was the rush of work on my way out. Maybe trying to wrap up all the loose ends of my position created sort of a natural rest. It felt wonderful to unflag all the flagged emails in my inbox and clear all the tasks on my task list. While much work remains at the agency, my piece has come to a close, for now. So maybe it's okay that I feel somehow at peace.

I have been reflecting a lot lately, though. I am about to embark on a total adventure, something foreign to my life during these years of increased domesticity. Uprooting our family and moving to a new town for six months might have seemed something trivial during my younger years. But suddenly it seems like a very big deal. We're planning to come back to Juneau afterwards and I will return to the agency. But at the same time, it feels like we're stepping out into the void of change. And who knows where the void leads?

This one of the reasons I started this blog. While applying for the fellowship, it struck me that this experience may be one of huge personal transformation. In many ways, it feels like I've already started a journey. It feels like leaving for Portland and entering academia is putting my journey on an even faster track. I hope that this blog helps me reflect along the way, and make thoughtful decisions as my journey unfolds.

As I take this next step, I've been thinking a lot of my beginnings. I've been in the youth mentoring field for seven years now. Like I said in a previous post, I didn't come at this work with a real background in the field. What I've come to learn has been picked up along the way. In college, I majored in English and History, and took a heck a lot of Italian. I didn't steep myself in social work theory, by any means.

I've been trying to think of the moment when I really got excited about applying research to the field of mentoring. Real researchers may scoff at this, but I think it happened when I read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Reading the book, I had a rush of ideas of how we could use science to do our jobs better at Big Brothers Big Sisters. From reading Gladwell, it seemed like dating companies knew more about making the right match than we did, and we've been at it for more than 100 years. It struck me that maybe a little research could go a long way in improving our programs.

Then I had an amazing opportunity in the summer of 2007. We were just wrapping up the planning for the statewide merger of Big Brothers Big Sisters. It appeared that my job in the new agency would change from Executive Director to VP of Programs and Operations. Somehow I was recommended for participation in the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring at Portland State University. When I learned about the institute, I knew I had to attend. It would bring five of the leading mentoring researchers together with 25 of us from the field for a weeklong seminar.

I applied for the institute and was accepted. I even got a few scholarships from Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and Portland State. I was so excited to be going. And then, a week from the start of the conference, I cooked a big dinner for my friends Eran and Sonya. I spent the whole night after the party awake on the couch moaning in pain. When I called Eran in the morning and learned that I hadn't poisoned him and Sonya as I had feared, I knew I better go to the doctor. Eight hours later, I woke up from an emergency appendectomy at Bartlett Hospital.

My first thought when I woke up was to ask the doctor if I could still travel to Portland in a week. I was so worried that the operation would waylay me and I wouldn't be able to attend the institute. I think most of my family thought I was crazy, but after getting the doctor's permission, I was committed to going to Portland. I couldn't lift my luggage, though, due to the large incision in my belly. So I had to ask strange men to lift my luggage for me. How's that for proof of my interest? I even gave up my male ego to attend the institute.

I was not disappointed. That week was the most thrilling week of professional development in my career. For once, I had the time to slow down and really think of how and why mentoring works in the lives of youth. And it was like being in school again. I got to ask all the researchers a million questions (driving my fellow participants crazy, I imagine). It was all so fascinating to me. I had no idea that there was so much research out there about youth mentoring. My brain got all fired up, just like it used to do when I was a school boy.

I also got to know the institute's godfather, Professor Tom Keller. We kept up a correspondence, and he encouraged me to apply for the Distinguished Fellows program through the WT Grant Foundation. I had no idea if I had a shot at it, or even if my wife would go along with the project. But with Tom's help and Jessica's support, I threw my name in the hat. Now, almost a year later, I am about to become a Fellow. What a ride it has been. I am excited and a little bit fearful of where it will end.