It'll Be Alright...Keep Going

Sitting in my new home in St. Francis, South Dakota, located on the Rosebud Reservation, I find myself thinking about the words of my boss, "It'll be alright...keep going." There's always a smile and a quiet chuckle with the phrase; this is mostly how he ends any conversation.

Ever since the JVC year has begun, I have experienced this idea in so many ways:
     "This isn't goodbye, it's just see you later."
      Just enjoy this moment with your closest friends and worry about nothing else.
      Simply board the train from Overbrook back home and pack that last bag.
      It's only a step on the plane to orientation and then the year begins.
      God...drag me if you must.
      One more plane ride and South Dakota will already be home.

With orientation both for JVC and my local site, I have simply kept going, trusting in the experiences of past JVs, my fellow community, my bosses and coworkers, my friends and family, and my God.

Where I live, the Rosebud Reservation, is a place that can be easily written off if only looked at through statistics: 2nd poorest county in the USA, an unemployment rate around 83%, a rampant and complex system of drug abuse and alcoholism, a history of oppression that has bred severe distrust, one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and broken homes or dilapidated buildings frequently visited by individuals under the influence of any possible substance.

But what if we were to keep going, not beyond this place, but into this place? Statistics and physical breakdowns are hard to move beyond, but what if we consider that we don't need to move beyond, but move with? In tandem with these struggles, we may start to see the community of St. Francis Mission that provides family recovery programs, a dental clinic, religious education resources, spiritual centers for community, a suicide crisis hotline...or maybe KINI 96.1 FM and its mixes of 80s rock attack, classic country, top 40 hits, sports announcements, dances, funeral announcements and condolence messages, job journals, and more...or possibly the rolling plains of St. Francis, Mission, or Rosebud and the blood orange sunsets, all-encompassing skies, and dazzling thunder storms...or the Lakota culture that seeps into every facet of life from rituals to language to food to religion to dress to speech to mannerisms to livelihood.

This is a year where I want to keep going, keep encouraging, keep praying, keep failing, keep learning, keep teaching, keep sharing, keep struggling, keep succeeding, keep communicating, keep pushing, keep dreaming, and keep trusting.

So, as much as I love my boss's outlook, I'd like to make a slight change. It won't be alright. It already is alright, and, frankly, those words disappoint all that Rosebud is. It is beautiful, and I want to keep going.