My Mental Big Bang

Wow. I almost forgot about this thing. I created it over 2 years ago, wrote a total of 3 posts, and promptly lost interest. I just read a pretty epic blog post from a friend, who I had no idea wrote a blog (probably cuz he only started it a couple months ago and has written about 4 posts, plus I don't see him often...) and it reminded me that I had this silly thing. Normally, I don't really go for blogs. I don't read them unless someone posts a cool-looking article of Facebook, and I don't go exploring. Most of my computer time is for watching shows, email, and checking Fb for important events or messages, and occasionally looking something up. So, blogs are not my thing. But I recently received a journal for a Secret Santa, which I have been trying to write in somewhat frequently. I figure if I can write in that then I can try to write an occasional blog post. Maybe, if this keeps up, I will explain the title.

For a first blog post, I think I will mention an idea that completely exploded in my mind last night. It was seriously like the big bang: it just exploded out of nothing and keeps expanding.

So I recently read a post about a state that is trying to get rid of homelessness. Also, my mom spends a crapton of time and energy making 50 plates of cookies to give away every year at our Christmas Eve service. And I am part of the Honors Program at my college, which promotes volunteerism and does this thing called Cardboard City every year for homelessness awareness. And I was part of HPA (Harry Potter Alliance) which likes to do charity stuff and try to change our world for the better. And then I read this in a book (The Crow by Allison Croggon):

To love is to give everything away for nothing,

To open your house to the dark stranger

And everything suddenly clicked into place. What if I could buy a big house near downtown and convert most of it into a place for the homeless to come get help? I started thinking I'd have a couple rooms of my own stuff and then the rest would be open, and then I stopped. What was I doing? How selfish could I be? Why not just put everything out there, other than extremely personal things, like clothes and my own laptop and cell phone, and let people borrow things and just trust that if they take it rather than borrow it, they needed it more than I did. And then I started thinking about how some youth really just need a good place to get away from their home situations where they can be safe. And what if I could provide some sort of service to help people get back on their feet? Everything just kept exploding and going everywhere in my brain. All of a sudden I had this idea for this giant place where people could come to work on things, get help (resources, resume, etc.), get connected with others who could better help them than we (me and my future staff...) could, and a safe place to stay and hang out. I seriously started making a list of everything I would need, what my goals are, and a bunch of ideas of how to run it and what to do, as well as a bunch of questions to look into. This is nowhere near what I ever planned for my life (I'm majoring in anthropology,  focusing on archaeology), but the way it just exploded in my brain kind of really makes me want to pursue this. Earlier today I even read (on that friend's blog that I mentioned earlier) a post about charity. What is that if not a sign? I have no idea if this would ever be plausible, but I don't want to give up on it yet. I'm trying to learn to follow my dreams to reality rather than leaving them in the clouds. I've started wondering if I couldn't use this as a senior honors project. Who knows, maybe some of my friends might even be willing to help. I'll keep thinking and praying about it and we'll see what happens. If any readers have ever heard of something like this, please comment. I would love to look into what other people have done. I have so many thoughts on this, I might just have to make another post about it.