Restart

As a new college graduate who had never lived anywhere other than their childhood home in the essence of Northern Virginia suburbia, I took a chance. I moved twenty minutes from Atlantic City, New Jersey. I was treading entirely new water, and after ten months, nearly succumbed to the height of the waves. Struggling to find any form of human connection in the local area, I became drawn to the structures that were left to decay. It was easier to relate more to these vacant memories that had slowly accumulated, like bodies in a morgue. Like many people in this area, it became easy to fall into a cycle of survival. I found that I wasn’t doing anything other than struggling to hope for better. I had an empty jar and no way to fill it.

As the days began to blur, I recognized that this area had become a product of years of broken promises that isolated local communities. As the broader state of our country languishes, I began to reflect on how much of that decline stems from similar circumstances. The government has been failing its people, and that failure has become a weapon to sow division. Both division and distrust have turned inward, draining the fabric of our society, our vitality, and emptying our jars. However, the potential to grow persists and refuses to die. Like plants, our societal fabric can recover, and we can choose to fill our jars. It is time to restart.