I’m really bad at being bad at things. I realize that this statement holds true to about everyone in the world, but it needs to be said regardless. I get so frustrated with failure and imperfection that I tend to do quite well at all the things I set my mind to. I’m a good, dependable work-horse of an employee; I was an honor student in every academic hall I ever walked through; people even make fun of me for reading fast — as if going through books at the rate of a normal person just doesn’t meet my standard.

I used to be good at everything I attempted because I refused to attempt anything there was a chance I could fail. While this lead to an impressive résumé, it also resulted in a life-lacking depth, true challenge and, in short, courage. That’s not a life I want to live.

In the past few years, my attempts at allowing myself to fail have come in many shapes and sizes. Walking into a classroom full of 30 hard teenagers from a neighborhood so far out of my comfort zone that I’d seen more of them in the movies than in person was probably the biggest. Painting my nails a dark brown and not worrying about a chip here or there was probably the smallest (or shallowest).

Either way, I stepped out and refused to let my fears stop the life that was starting to shine its way through the wall I had safely built around myself.

When the chance to go to Central America for an entire summer was offered, I was almost surprised to find that I no longer had to talk myself into taking chances on experiences that could lead me to fall flat on my face.

Central America? The answer was unequivocally yes.

Never mind the fact that I had three years of Spanish classes I had neither dedicated myself to nor practiced since my last final in college — and the glorious day I sold my Spanish textbook back to the bookstore for a measly $25.

Spending the summer in Guatemala and Nicaragua was exactly what I needed to refresh the Spanish I so desperately needed to be able to communicate with the majority of my students’ parents without an interpreter. I was in, no matter the cost to my need for perfection.

As failing goes, my first week in Central America easily ranks in the top five of my life. I remembered embarrassingly little from my high school and college Spanish classes, couldn’t keep up with the speed of sentences or conjugation of words and worse yet, I truly didn’t want to try. I was cold, and I missed warm showers and my kitchen. I hadn’t even thought to bring a Spanish-English dictionary.

Instead, I deferred to my travel companions when people asked me questions, spoke in English whenever I had a chance and retreated to the books I had brought with me on the trip.

I hadn’t intended to hinder my own language immersion, but I quickly got a taste of failure and allowed my quest for perfection to throw up verbal roadblocks. I simply couldn’t speak. I would develop entire sentences and thoughts in my mind with the proper verb and conjugation. Then I would let the moment pass me by, too afraid that maybe I was wrong. Maybe that wasn’t the usted form of comer. Perhaps I needed to use the imperfect tense of ir to make that thought intelligible? What was the imperfect form of ir? And why on earth could I only describe things as bien or mal? Surely I had learned more adjectives than that in Mrs. Tarbutton’s class.

Before I knew it, the conversation had passed on to a new subject. I would build up another three or four sentences in my head only to watch the moment pass by as I second-guessed myself again. Again and again people would talk around me and I would sit — silent. I felt utterly helpless and, for the first time in a long time, I felt like an unbelievable failure. I had chosen this. This was all personal betterment — no grade, no job promotion or child’s future education on the line — and I was being my own worst enemy.

It is perhaps the first time in my life I could have ever been considered “the quiet one.”

By the time we reached the longest leg of our journey and settled in with a pastor’s family outside the large city of Managua, Nicaragua, I had developed a bit of survival Spanish.

“Hola, me llamo es Sam…”

“Si, si, Sam. SAM. S-A-M…. o Samantha.”

“Yo intiendo Espanol, pero no hablo mucho.”

Usually the conversation ended after whoever I was talking to made a joke about me surely being able to speak Spanish if I could understand it and me falling over the words in my head — once again — and staring at them silently with my mouth open.

Everyone I met would stumble over my name, ask me if I understood Spanish and then give up when I could confidently go no further.

Everyone except Rafael. The home we were staying in was next door to the church. Because the neighborhood was poor and life was pretty basic, the routine was simple enough to catch on to. Work. Church. Talk.

After church each night, most of the 18-25 set and a good portion of the older adults who no longer had babies to tend to would gather on the outside porch for hours and socialize. I quickly earned my reputation as the quiet one, buried my nose in a book and reemerged when someone mistakenly thought I would be able to answer a question.

Everyone who made that mistake quickly got bored with me and went to talk to my travel companions who were much better at Spanish than I was. Everyone except Rafael.

He sought me out on the second night of our stay, finding me nose deep in a book, and asked me the typical line of questioning. When he got to the part after what I already had scripted answers for, I faltered. He repeated himself. Three times. I smiled, finally getting his question.

“This is hard for you, isn’t it?” he asked in deliberate, spaced out Spanish.

Yes, I screamed in my head, you have no idea how much I want to be able to share, to connect with everyone here. You have no idea how stupid I feel. And how much I hate that feeling. You have no idea how alone I feel in a room full of people.

“Si,” I responded quietly, fighting back tears.

He smiled again, nodding his head toward me with a sly little grin I would grow used to in the coming weeks.

“Poco a poco.”

I bit my lip and thought back. Poco a poco? And then smiled as the words came to me. Little by little. I hope you’re right, I thought.

We continued our conversation for the rest of the night, laboriously fighting through sentence structure and cultural differences. Each repeating ourselves and rephrasing time and time again until the meaning of our words came across.

The next night Rafi found me, nose deep in a book, and began again laboriously sounding out his sentences until I caught on. Never giving up. Never laughing.

Little by little I started trying a bit more. First only with Rafi, then with his friends, then with my companions and even with strangers. Connecting again felt better than screwing up here and there on a conjugation or using bien and mal over and over again.

Little by little I found that people are a lot more forgiving of my mistakes and poor Spanish grammar than I am. People are a lot more helpful when you let them help. When you let them see the not so shiny parts, the less than perfect test score, the moment when you simply don’t have the correct answer or the sentence that doesn’t quite get past a second grade vocabulary.

Little by little I found that perhaps being bad at something was exactly what I needed to break that wall of perfection down a little bit more. Humbleness comes right alongside failure in a way I had never quite understood. Humbleness, like failure, was something I’ve not always done so well with.

But I’m getting there, poco a poco.

Oddly enough, the food that makes me think of summer is baked ham. My family is a strictly turkey-for-the-holidays brood, so I don’t have the memories of my uncle proudly displaying the Christmas (or Easter) ham in front of the family.

The memory I do have begins in a mom-and-pop gas station in the middle of Virginia in the heat of late July. My extended family (all 25 or so of us) were on our annual caravan from upstate New York to Myrtle Beach, S.C. — a trip of about 17 hours, spread over two days. As we filled our tanks in a station that looked like it was taken out of the set of Deliverance, my dad noticed some “Virginia Country Hams” hanging on the wall. He thought it would be a great idea to buy one to cook for a nice family dinner at our rented condos. I, even at the tender age of 11, was concerned about eating a ham that had spent God knew how long soaking up petroleum fumes into its meaty pores.

But Dad won the day and the ham continued with us on our journey to the beach. Finally, on his day to cook, Dad proudly brined the ham in the kitchen sink, made a cherry glaze to drizzle over the ham and stuck the ham in the oven in an aluminum roasting pan picked up from the local Food Lion.

Both the ham and my family baked that fateful day, but only the former nearly caught on fire. As we sat in the condo in the late afternoon, the kitchen started getting smoky and there was a distinct smell of burnt cherries. Then the smoke alarm went off.

My parents immediately went to check on the ham and discovered that they had somehow poked a hole in the aluminum pan through which the cherry glaze had leaked into the oven and begun to burn. Luckily, or so we thought, the ham hadn’t burned, so we let it finish baking and sat down to eat it together — my aunt, uncle, cousins, brother, parents and myself.

Never in our lives had we eaten a saltier ham. It was like it had been swimming with us earlier that day and never rinsed off. Soon the entire family was getting on my dad’s case about “gas station ham,” and he defended himself with something along the lines of “it isn’t THAT bad.” To this day, my father is forbidden  (or at least strongly discouraged) from cooking hams at family functions.

The ham has taken its place in family folklore. And forever, for me, summer vacation will bring to mind lazing in the sun, body surfing with my nose plugged, games of miniature golf, and salty, salty gas station ham.

Have you ever seen a caterpillar at the moment it struggles to emerge from its chrysalis, to break free and discover what it has become during the winter months?

My little cousin Brian and I witnessed the magic in my mother’s garden. She had been anticipating the event for several days, as she kept watch on the milkweed she had planted in her backyard to feed and offer shelter to the monarchs as they stopped by during their migration across North America. Knowing the approximate number of days that each of the four chrysalises had been suspended from the milkweed bushes, Brian and I headed outside, hopeful for an encounter.

The first two chrysalises hung still, a bright green color revealing none of the activity occurring within. The third chrysalis, however, hung quivering and transparent. The movement was transfixing; Brian and I planted our feet, hushed, waiting.

There was no breeze that day. All of the chrysalis’ movement came from the fragile creature inside, mustering its strength to pry free. I don’t know how long the process took, but it was slow and seemed painful. Once the butterfly had extricated itself, we could see that its wings were closed, folded, seemingly shrunken and stuck together, and that there was more effort for the butterfly to expend before its ordeal would be over.

I snuck a sideways glance at Brian, expecting to catch an expression of childlike-wonder. Instead, his eyes were welled-up with tears.

“It looks so alone, “ he whispered.

There we were watching, helpless to lessen the butterfly’s struggle, knowing that any intervention would violate nature’s process, leaving the butterfly no chance of survival.

At times that feeling of aloneness has overcome me, too. As humans we are both alone and surrounded by goodwill-wishers, who sometimes audibly or silently or even in a misguided way cheer us on through a solitary struggle. Of course we know that, like the butterfly, we emerge out of struggle stronger for it, but in the process, we quiver and fight, too.

The monarch that Brain and I watched spread its wings a few hours later and left behind the metaphor of folded wings for me to ponder. Several years later, I again headed outside to watch the mystery of the monarchs. The second time my companion was my mother, and the location was the Rosario Butterfly Reserve in Michoacan, Mexico.

The sanctuary is one of three a few hours drive from Morelia, Mexico, where the monarch butterflies of North America migrate to spend the winter months and rotate through their species’ life cycle. These three locations, favored by the butterflies and kept secretive by the campesinos and Indians who inhabit the surrounding mountains, were opened to the public a few decades ago. When my mother first planted the milkweed in her garden in Florida to offer support to the monarchs in their migratory journey, it was with the wish that someday she could observe the gathering of the multitudes of survivors basking in the sun, in their protected winter home.

Last year my mother and I made the trip in February. Because Rosario lies deep in the countryside we joined a tour to take us there. The day started sunny, mild and promising. After a long hike up the mountain on a path unexpectedly commercialized complete with concrete stairs and touristy signs, we arrived at a quieter unpaved path covered overhead by trees and dotted by more inconspicuous signs requesting quiet to honor the butterflies’ habitat. We began to see lone butterflies darting among the sunbeams filtering through the canopy of foliage. As we ascended up the mountainside, many of the sightseers in our group donned sweaters and jackets, as the temperature got colder, typical of higher altitudes. Along the way young men from the village kept watch so that no one strayed from the paths.

Had it not been for the red rope partitioning an area of forest we would not have known that we had arrived at the anticipated spot. The scene we were expecting had been likened to a snow globe that one shakes upside down to watch a flurry of glitter descend inside the globe like a scene from a White Christmas, only the Rosario scene was supposed to be a flurry of orange and black wings.

We, and our fellow onlookers, scanned the partitioned area and exchanged much-ado-about nothing glances, but we kept on looking around us. And then gradually the sense of awareness spread: the tall Montezuma pine, oyamel fir and cedar trees in the roped off areas did not have unusually dark leaves; the branches were bowed down by millions upon millions of butterflies huddled together because of the cold.

Once again I had happened upon butterflies with folded wings, engaged in struggle. This time, though, theirs was not a solitary fight for survival, instead they contributed their individual warmth to the collective. Together they generated the life-saving heat that one butterfly on its own could not produce.

As soon as the sunlight broke through the clouds, the butterfly assembly dismantled producing much-awaited-for flashes of color as the butterflies soaked up the warming sunrays, until the cloud cover set in again.

In observing their interplay, I too was warmed at the consolation that the solitary folded wings experiences in my life have been far fewer than those I experienced with people who loved me alongside, sharing the same branch, beating their wings just as hard or — more often — much harder than I have beat mine.

I snuck a glance at my mother whose eyes were moistened with appreciation that her dream of observing the butterflies had come true, and there we were, warming each other, sharing the same branch.

I live in the gayest part of the gayest neighborhood in the gayest city in the homophobic American south. It’s been phrased to me like that so many times I stop trying to attribute the blame. As of today, it is simply fact.

I had no clue about my neighborhood’s queer-friendly status until I began venturing around town and taking notice of the little details: Same-sex couples holding hands. Rainbow flags adorning various shops. An abundance of middle-aged men walking small, fluffy dogs. The revelation was welcome because it took away one more misconception I had about our country’s intolerance below the Mason-Dixon line. Here was an example of a historically conservative city that had integrated not only racially, but sexually as well. Gays and straights: living together, embracing perpendicular cultures. Even the staunch Baptist churches seemed indifferent, if not welcoming of the gay community. Somewhere in a Virginia grave, Jerry Falwell’s corpse was witnessing front-row sexual integration and spewing adjectives he wouldn’t have imagined when he still drew breath.

Sexual orientation can deeply affect the social scene. One thing I’ve enjoyed is that our many summer festivals tend to reach across our self-imposed barriers. Child-friendly and enriched with deep-fried foods and Granny-inspired knick-knacks, these Americana picnics are aimed at getting the populace outdoors and embracing the city’s culture. In addition to those wholesome outings, Atlanta also celebrates Pride at this time. I could indulge definitions, but that’s not necessary.

Education and acceptance have turned Pride from a back alley murmur to a household term. That evolution came with grudging tolerance. It wasn’t until my second year at Pride; that I heard that word. I had been invited to a bear bar, that is, a bar that caters to large, hairy, gay men. I sat around and witnessed hundreds dance and drink and talk and otherwise enjoy themselves. Occasionally I’d have to turn away a prospective suitor by informing him I was simply a guest and not a member of the choir. For fleeting moments, I thought I had a notion of what a single woman goes through on mixer night.

In the early morning hours, the club was still pulsating, and, outside, the old brick walls hummed and rattled flecks of paint from its decayed walls while its patrons rubbed against one another in non-committal satisfaction. I found myself at the entry, talking casually with the doorman when a car carrying several passengers rolled down its window in passing and a man’s voice boomed in our direction. “Fucking faggots!”

The men around me faltered. They said nothing, but they seemed deeply saddened. I leaned forward to the doorman, who was adorned in a leather chest piece that met four straps in the center and complimented spikes and tight fitting jeans. His erect shoulders had slumped, and he was still regaining his composure. I asked him if that was common. He told me no. He looked around and said he hadn’t heard anyone yell that in quite sometime. This was the other side of cultural acceptance. After untold years of discrimination and hatred and persecution and brutality, homosexuality has become a staple of American pop culture. All the thick skin fortified to withstand insults has given way to aghast when confronted with bigotry.

Faggot has evolved like no word in recent memory. Designed for insult and humiliation, it speaks directly to masculinity with an underhanded bravado. For the men of my generation, it was a staple of our fathers’ dialogue. It was common speak around the locker rooms of our adolescent sporting lives. We played Smear the Queer and counted gay put-downs as the highest quality in our repertoire. Fag. Faggot. Fag lover. It’s a word that intimidates with absolute malice.

Gays have used it among themselves. It can be friendly or accusatory, but from the lips of another it suddenly becomes empowering. Some have speculated that the closest comparison is the way blacks use the word nigger, but that draws the struggle of homosexuals in comparison to the struggle of blacks, and I don’t want to delve into that sinkhole. No, the word stands alone in its growth. Like us, it will witness its own history as it unfolds.

The politics of language are fascinating to me. The English dialect is riddled with hidden meanings, double-entendres. But pure hate, formed into letters, has never evolved. It’s the same in a hundred tongues. Only a select few words carry that distinction and everyone saves them for when they think they need them most.

I walked around the Pride festival last week and heard the conversations of a hundred voices. There was chatter and gossip, small talk and politics. There was enough cursing to make a sailor blush. I listened intently and heard everything in the book. Patrons tossed “fuck” around like it was going out of fashion, and yet I never heard the other f-word. It didn’t dawn on me until well after I departed: In one of few the places the word would be used appropriately, people found a reason not to.

It’s almost my favorite time of the year: college football season. Athletes are reporting back to campus, pre-season polls and predictions are being discussed, and Heisman hype is in high gear. This is the most exciting time of the year no matter which team you root for, because regardless of last season’s record or outcome, there is always the hope that this year will be better. Even a team that didn’t win a single game last year has hope during the weeks leading up to the first kick-off; it’s a chance to start building a new identity.

Yet that’s where I find myself thrust into a new and confusing realm as a fan this season: my college football identity. My whole entire life I have been a fan of Texas Tech football. My dad is a graduate, and I spent my childhood going to Red Raider football, basketball, and baseball games. I remember watching James Gray rush for 280 yards and 4 touchdowns in the 1989 All America bowl, leading Tech to a monstrous 49-21 defeat of the Steve Spurrier-coached Duke Blue Devils. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing (eating a bowl of Froot Loops at the dinner table in my house in Floydada, TX) when All American linebacker Zach Thomas intercepted a pass and rumbled into the end-zone to beat Texas A&M in 1995. I was in the student section in 2001 when Kliff Kingsbury threw for 473 yards to oust the mighty Texas Longhorns, and dash their last hopes of playing for a national title that year.

One might wonder what I find so confusing about this season, as it has the potential of being one of the best in the history of Texas Tech football. With 10 returning starters on offense, including quarterback Graham Harrell and wide receiver Michael Crabtree—both legitimate Heisman hopefuls—and 8 eight returning starters on an ever-improving defense, this season bodes well for the Red Raiders. There’s just one problem…

After living all but the first 10 months of my life in Texas, and going to at least one Tech football game for 9 of the last 10 years, I now reside in Columbia, MO. It’s not that Columbia is a bad place to be; I actually love it. The problem is that Columbia is the home of the University of Missouri, who happens to field a pretty decent football team. Well, maybe I should say a very decent football team, one that put the hurt on my Red Raiders last year 41-10. They also have a quarterback and receiver in the Heisman discussion, Chase Daniel and Jeremy Maclin, and look poised to have an even stronger season this year than last, when they finished as the #4 team in the nation(1). To make matters worse, I am actually employed by the University of Missouri, and I will also be taking some classes at the University.

After a lifetime of knowing only one stadium as my “home” field, I will now be attending Mizzou home games. I will quite possibly attend more University of Missouri home games than the total number of Texas Tech games I will be able to watch on TV. But I am no bandwagon jumper. I may get caught up in the excitement and cheer after Chase Daniel throws a touchdown pass(2), but don’t be fooled. I may even don a Mizzou football shirt, but don’t you worry. My heart and soul will forever remain in the dusty plains of West Texas, where an eccentric coach runs a pass-happy offense and gives some of the most entertaining post-game interviews known to man. Although I now physically reside in the Tigers’ den, my allegiance lies in Raider-land. I will never be able to turn my back on my team, my school, and my heritage.

So bring on the pre-season all-conference and All America picks. Fire up the grill and ice down the drinks for the tailgate parties. Warm up the marching bands and let the games begin. I know who I am cheering for…do you?

1 Even though I had no reason whatsoever for any kind of allegiance to Missouri last year, I think they got screwed out of a BCS bowl. There is no way that Kansas deserved an at-large bid over Missouri. Kansas had a magnificent year, no doubt, but Missouri proved on the field that they were the better team. Sorry KU fans.

2 I would also like to point out a fact that further legitimizes my being a quasi-fan of Mizzou. If you check the Tiger’s roster, you will see that Chase Daniel hails from the great state of Texas. In fact, I remember watching him play in the state championship game for Dallas Southlake Carroll several years ago. Additionally, 28 more players on the 115-man roster call the Lonestar state home (that’s 25%). Forgive my Texas pride, but I just couldn’t resist.

“Alright, people!” Cody shouted, waving his hands in the air to the 30 or so people scattered in Paul’s front yard. Some were playing cornhole, some were still eating their grilled burgers and others were playing volleyball. They finished their serves and their comments and moseyed over to the driveway.

“As most of you know, TJ is leaving for Nepal soon,” he said loudly. I weaseled my way through the group to stand by TJ’s and threw my arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze. “It’s going to be a pretty intense mission trip so we thought we would take this opportunity to pray for her before she leaves in a couple days.”

TJ smiled sheepishly. She is a dear friend of ours, and has been our friend since day one of attending Common Ground Christian church. I know from experience there’s actually nothing a bit sheepish about her. Her hair, damp from a swim in the pool, was pulled into pigtails, her cheeks were rosy from the sun, and her crystal blue eyes were happy. She has a fiery personality and loves deeply. She doesn’t think twice about speaking her mind, consequences aside. Yet it has served her, and her friends, well.

“Get in the middle!” our friend Erin said, lovingly nicknamed Noodle because she was so tall, thin and blonde. She nudged TJ.

TJ stepped into the middle of her friends. Of her family. Of the people who have done their best to love her up and down mountains and valleys and tears. The memory of those times only made this night sweeter. TJ has overcome a lot, and there was no doubt in our minds that God has used it all to prepare her for this trip. In Nepal, with a small group of friends, she will encounter victims of sex trafficking, leprosy, and poverty, and will spend time in orphan hospitals. While she has been anxious about the trip, those feelings evaporated as she drew strength from our love.

Granted, it’s an imperfect love; while we are good at praying for each other, hugging each other, and texting each other, we are just as good at hurting and forgetting. We don’t think twice sometimes when putting ourselves first. But moments like this draw in moments like that. And within the circle, grudges are irrelevant. We are reminded that together, we are more than the sum of our parts.

I stared down at all of our feet…painted toenails, sandals, running shoes, wet feet…they’ve all been through so much. They’ve all been stubbed in different places, some have been more broken than others, some get regular pedicures, and others get a beating every day through working out and running. But they all have the ability to both forget those staggers while also carrying them as redemptive scars. They were still present but were never hindering. If anything, they were freeing. And all of these experiences and all of these ever-deepening levels of love were there for TJ that night.

We gathered closer to her, grabbing her hand and placing our hands on her shoulders, her back, her arms. And we prayed. And for a moment, we all forgot ourselves and the broken parts were restored.