I was young.
New to the job.
Trying my best to do my best and to make a good impression.
“I want to talk with you.” He said.
My boss.
I gulped.
And so we talked.
He laid out possibilities for me which I had never considered.
Never imagined.
He ended by saying, “You can do this. You need to do this.”
That conversation literally changed my life.
I am who I am today doing what I am doing today because he saw
a tomorrow for me that I could not see.
Not the specifics, but the direction.
The possibilities.

I still need voices like that.
Maybe now more than ever.
The voice of those who both see and know me and see beyond the edge of what is
and catch a glimpse of what might be.
And say to me with a certainty beyond what I know or feel at any given moment
“You CAN do this.”
“You can DO this.”
Because the world I imagine
The country I imagine
The neighborhood I imagine
Feels farther from my grasp today than it did yesterday.

So as we do our best to figure it out, here is the hard truth.
WE can do this!
We CAN do this!
We can DO this!
We can do THIS!