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| Pictured: Kinda how I feel coming back to the real world. |
All throughout this, though, I've been feeling kind of... removed. Coming back from LAUP to old, familiar things (e.g. my apartment, my parents' house, getting pho with friends) feels strikingly surreal in a way I was absolutely not expecting, like going back to the baseball fields you played on a decade ago. You still recognize everything and it's still the way you remember it, but it's just... It's different somehow. I'm still struggling to describe it in a way that makes sense, but the best I can do right now is that feeling of mild disorientation.
That being said, LAUP was incredible. Having the opportunity to work alongside former gang members and prison inmates isn't something that I've been able to do before, and I had no idea that working at Homeboy Industries would change me more than the change I expected to bring. Quick teaser for the next post: I helped a guy who spent twelve years on death row learn Excel functions. That was a weird experience.
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| Pictured: My expectations meeting my experience, and my subsequent reaction. |
I'll write more soon, I promise; I just needed to get this little one done and written to get the metaphorical ball rolling. Don't change that channel, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.
SDG,
-Gordon
