{"id":1269,"date":"2016-11-09T01:19:30","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T06:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/?p=1269"},"modified":"2016-11-09T01:19:30","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T06:19:30","slug":"you-are-part-of-my-new-beginning-final-bon-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/2016\/11\/09\/you-are-part-of-my-new-beginning-final-bon-air\/","title":{"rendered":"“You are part of my new beginning”- Final Bon Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

I literally don\u2019t even know how to describe my experience at Bon Air tonight. Our night literally ended in a wild group dance party. So how did we get there?<\/span><\/p>\n

I was surprised at how sad I felt on the bus ride over. It usually takes me a long time to connect with people, so the fact that in 5 weeks I bonded with a person so deeply is really an incredible thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When we broke off into pairs, my partner was super ready. He said that he wrote lots of poems in his journal, but since all the boys had just come from the track he hadn\u2019t gotten the chance to grab it. I explained the assignment to him and he told me that he had an idea for what he wanted to say. He said that he found this quote that he really like. \u201cYou can not go back and create a new beginning, but you can start today and create a new ending\u201d He said that he liked thinking about all of our stories and how talking to me and been part of his new beginning. He then told me a story from his past and a story about what he wanted in the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking at the two stories together with the quote is super powerful. He was also super proud of the work we did and wanted me to share it with the group. The boys have a real bond- his future story included one of them as the \u201cuncle\u201d to his daughter. And after all the boys shared some really deep and real things, there was a shift.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The boys showed us their moves. They are all super talented dancers!!!!! I have never laughed so much, watching them all pressure each other to show off. I am by no means a dancer but I had so much fun watching them and I will definitely be busting out \u201cthe elbow\u201d at my next family wedding or party.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that my trips to Bon Air are over doesn\u2019t quite feel real yet. It is weird to think that I will probably never see Alexander again, but I have something so personal from him and we share something special that can\u2019t be lost. Sure, as time passes the details of his stories may leave my mind and he may fall to the background, but I am convinced that this experience will come creeping back into my life at unexpected times and little things will remind me of him. So I guess maybe he is part of my own new begging too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I literally don\u2019t even know how to describe my experience at Bon Air tonight. Our night literally ended in a wild group dance party. So how did we get there? I was surprised at how sad I felt on the bus ride over. It usually takes me a long time …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3003,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44426],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experiential-reflections","column","twocol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7RVTr-kt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/storytelling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}