YOA Update #2: Home Is Where Awesome Is!

BLOGGER'S NOTE:  Changing emotional state visually expressed by interpretive emoticon.

I'll admit, it's a bit challenging to find awesome at 40+ below zero.  Housebound last weekend for several days, I certainly could've written a post on all that's not so awesome.  Where a non-weather apocalypse weekend brings the possibility of unstructured adventure, last weekend quickly turned into an exercise in institutionalization:  eat, internet, read, eat, watch TV, eat, watch more TV, sleep and REPEAT.  By insanity's definition, to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result, I momentarily was certifiable.

During my allotted TV time, I flipped back and forth between the Weather Channel and a local news station to see who was reporting a warmer next day's forecast.  Not only was I discouraged by the meteorologists' shared prediction, but annoyed by their excessive use of the term polar vortex. Of course their intent was to education not irritate, but out of caged rebellion I yelled at the TV, "It's just freaking cold!"

As day two of the "Polar Vortex Crisis" (if they're going to over dramatize, so am I) progressed, it unsurprising got colder and colder, oh and COLDER.  My mental frostbite, however, started to thaw when late in the afternoon, I discovered the documentary section on Netflix.  

Since childhood, I've had an ambitious curiosity about other people's lives.  I remember a grade school geography teacher encouragingly calling it "social anthropology," my dad, "nosy."  Perhaps my small town upbringing, where difference was defined by the side of town you attended junior high on, north or south, had sheltered me from a broader world viewpoint.  So on that deceptively sunny afternoon, I was hoping to gain some perspective and reset my internal thermostat to awesome.

Now when I say documentary, I probably should clarify.  I don't mean an E! True Hollywood Special or reality TV show conveniently packaged and advertised as a "docuseries" (sorry Lindsay Lohan).  I'm talking about an unglamorized look into the lives of real people with real and often heartbreaking circumstances.  Circumstances I may not share, but fear with one misstep or twist of fate, I could.  Though I watched several documentaries that profoundly humbled me, I found Tent City the most poignant.

Over the holidays, my sister mentioned that  her high school psych class had watch a sobering documentary called Tent City.  So when it showed up in my queue, I knew I should watch it.  For those who haven't heard of Tent City, it was one of our nation's largest homeless encampments in Nashville, Tennessee.  The documentary follows the lives of its original residents as they desperately seek alternative shelter after record setting floods in 2010 that destroy their self-governed and policed community.

So how could such a story not resonate on this beyond bleak day?  I know opinions on homelessness in our country significantly differ; and though it's tempting, I'm not looking to turn this post into a political statement or PSA.  I simply want to acknowledge the sudden and overwhelming gratitude I felt that afternoon for my own home.  It might have been "freaking cold," but it was even more "freaking awesome" to have the luxury of being confined to my own home; safe and warm while crazily yelling at the TV.

I also was reminded that awesomeness doesn't always manifest as a sunny beach vacation in Bermuda.  Sometimes it does take a polar vortex and poignant documentary to remember that awesome already exists in life, and that I can share it, even if in a small way, with others.

A few days later when the weather, and my sanity, was back in double digits, my opportunity to share awesome presented itself.  While texting a friend, she randomly mentioned that she was taking her kids to volunteer at a soup kitchen later this month.  Had she also been reminded of the awesomeness of home?  I smiled to myself and responded, "Count me in!"