Ten years ago I said goodbye to my hometown, drove my car from Kansas City to Memphis and launched the IRL Project. I freely shared my trepidation at the time, but reading it now feels like opening a time capsule. I wasn’t just scared, I was paralyzed – by indecision, by a desire for invisibility, by an absolute assurance that I would gak this up and let down the people who so generously supported and believed in me. There wasn’t really a plan, except to keep going from one person to the next, writing about them with admiration and some envy. To describe the infrastructure of a life – home, work, community –when you don’t have it yourself is a particular kind of longing, but each person and their story made me want to tell it to the world, or at least the 400 followers I had at the time.

How much I wanted people to read! How much they didn’t!

Replaying interviews sent me over the edge – why did I talk so much? Why was my voice so annoying? How was I possibly going to get to everyone?

And then I drove to California where I meant to catch my breath and get a job and save some money and figure out my own life, but what happened instead was like when your tank is low and you are panic driving, checking your mileage every 30 seconds and shifting to neutral, praying that the fumes will get you to the gas station up ahead, but all of a sudden the car stops and it’s over. You’re not going anywhere until you turn the flashers on and call for help.

This essay is about what was happening at the time. I feel so tender about that version of myself now, doing the best she could and trying to find a way to keep going when the only sign in every direction said STOP. I finally got the message. Parked myself and my car in the Bay area for almost four years and inch by inch shifted from a ghost into a person again.

I had more than a dozen jobs, from warehouse worker to retail (omg never again), project manager to production assistant. I moved back and forth between family members’ homes, attended meetings and sought out every energy healer, spiritual director and career counselor I could find who’d barter or give advice for free. I wrote an essay (about Beyoncé of all things!) that went viral in a way I’d prayed the IRL Project would, booked my first television show when I didn’t have a penny to my name, and got back on my feet with the one-two punch of waitressing at a country club and substitute teaching in Oakland. Nothing made sense and everything was a contradiction. I had totally lost the plot. And worse, in my mind, I’d lost this project.

The essays about Derecka Purnell and David Roth were posted 9 months and 18 months after their meetups, and only with the kind of effort one typically reserves for things like lifting a car off a toddler. But there were still two left – Scott Woods and Colin McGowan – people whose time I’d taken without writing so much as a paragraph, too ashamed even, to communicate with them about how and why I’d failed to finish. I wasn’t sure myself.

I knew that I bit off way more than I could chew, but it’s only now that I understand why – in asking for a close-up view of the lives of others, I was desperately searching for my own. Today, the joy of reflecting on those lives and the countless Twitter friends I’ve met since, is no longer tinged with the sorrow of wishing for a different path, but the delight of having found mine.

Still, this project won’t end as I imagined. I will finish with essays about Scott, Colin, and Jade Magnus Ogunnaike, and then, only ten years late, I can say The End.

My failure to meet all the amazing folks who said yes, was not one of imagination, because my goodness they are all still extraordinary, but if we get a chance to meet in the future, it won’t be for this project.  

Below are a few whose voices are either still part of my life or continue to resonate–

• I’ve never met Ann Friedman and she’s not even on Twitter any more, but I am so inspired by the way she moves through the world. She’s also from the Midwest and went to the same college I did, but somehow managed to get her shit together much earlier in a way that enabled me to look up to her even though I could be her mom. Her weekly newsletter is a delight and you can pretty much set your clock by it (even when she had a baby!). An unapologetic feminist, she’s been a resource for so much of the learning that comprised my own evolution. I once described her in this way, “She’s a woman who appears to call her soul her own,” and hot damn if that isn’t something to prize.
• Pastor Deb Avery invited me to a protest march almost as soon as I arrived in California and later invited me to a cookout at her home, her kindness such a gift in hard days. She is also an activist who, for all the years I followed her, was the polar opposite of the Biblical warning that faith without works is dead. It was easy to know what she believed because you saw how she lived.
• Favianna Rodriguez became a friend while I was in California. An artist and activist, her profile has risen over the past ten years as larger platforms have welcomed her brilliant work. Two of her pieces hang in my bedroom and bring me joy on a daily basis. She’s also been pretty public about her internal journey, speaking openly about her own growth and evolution. Her heart for the Beloved Community is a thing of beauty and I am grateful to know her.
• Hamza Abdullah and his brother were devout Muslims who also played in the NFL when I reached out to him. I’m not sure where he is now, but he and his wife sent me a lovely copy of the Koran when we first corresponded and my own faith was expanded by seeing the ways they practiced theirs.
• Mary Choi is such a cool girl, like in all the ways. She writes the most BRACING essays, often about excruciating and sometimes super personal subjects, but somehow by the end you feel so tenderly toward her and her subjects that you forget she is a cool girl with great hair and badass red lipstick and you want to put your arm around her shoulders and give her a squeeze. She has written three novels in the past ten years! I loved them all.
• Michael Tubbs was a classmate of my daughter’s at Stanford and became the youngest mayor of a major American city when he was 26 years old. Today he is an activist in California, married and a father of three, working with government leaders to educate them on the benefits of Universal Basic Income. His story is incredible. Buy his book if you haven’t read it!
• Rev. Daniel Brereton is one of many gay Christians on Twitter these days, but in 2014, he was the only one I knew of, much beloved by his many followers, and also the target of countless trolls whose faith was too small to include their queer brothers and sisters. Wielding perfect humor in one hand and a deep faith in the other, he fended them off, while also giving us great stories about church ladies. It’s hard to overstate what an OG he is and the myriad ways his presence gave so many people new ways of thinking about God. In the midst of Twitter’s chaotic universe, he’s still a delight to follow.
• Yusef Salaam is one of the Exonerated Five and from his first appearance on Twitter, I wanted to lean in and listen closely. Today he is a member of the New York City Council and his presence gives me hope for this adopted city of mine.