Join Me as We Encourage Maya

Do you remember being eighteen years old? Graduating from High School and facing life as an adult? It may have meant more schooling for you, or entering a trade. It may have meant leaving home for the first time or figuring out where you wanted to live, with friends or on your own. You may have already had a love interest or were still searching for one. You may have known exactly what you wanted to do next or had no clue!!! It was an exciting time, filled with possibilities and maybe even too many options. I have a nephew and friend that are just turning eighteen and facing life outside the small town in which they have grown up. We plan to attend their gradations (high school and college as they both completed a duel enrollment program), and I wondered, what to give them? They said our attending graduation was the best gift of all, yet who wants to show up empty handed? My nephew is getting something else, which I won’t spoil the surprise by blogging about it. I am making a book for our friend, Maya, to give her words of wisdom.

I have thought long and hard about what words of wisdom I would give her. What can be shared that could encourage, comfort, engage and enlighten her as she enters college with a goal of completing medical school? She is the first in her family to finish a four year degree, attend a major university, she has never lived outside her small town (in fact four generations of her family have been raised in that town), and she wants to be a Pediatric Oncologist. WOW! She’s amazing. Full of dreams and willing to do the work. Words seem easy to come by, yet when documented with the intention of building her up and nudging her forward, I find myself overwhelmed by the plethora of options to include. So, I am making her a book with limited pages. I can only choose 25 topics to include, and my plan is to give it to her at the first graduation ceremony which is one week from today. No worries, I started it last week and am well on my way to finishing it.

My plan is to share each page of the book in blog posts. Stay tuned as I set my sights on encouraging and uplifting a bright, talented, determined woman of eighteen. I find myself shaking my head and wondering if any of it will sink in, then I remember that it is a book she can keep for a lifetime and refer back to it during the ups and downs of life. Join me as we encourage Maya…it’s a secret, so ssshhh…and no, she doesn’t read my blog…yet!