As my year as a Challenge Detroit Fellow comes to a close, I am asked to make this final blog one of reflection, on the last year and on the program. So much has happened and so much has changed in the last year, that its hard to wrap my head around it.

I was accepted to this program last May, as I was completing my final weeks of my undergraduate degree in Metro Detroit. Having been so close to the city for so long, and having the deep passion that I do for cities, their buildings, and their methods of planning, you would think my connection to Detroit would have already been strong, right? Wrong. I moved into the city in July of that summer, and within the first month in my new home, my list of Detroit experiences and connections was probably 4  times as long as that of the past 4 years.

I immediately fell in love. With my new apartment. With the buildings surrounding it. With the atmosphere of the city.  With the new restaurants I discovered. Those two month of summer before starting the fellowship was filled with new highs that just kept coming, one after another. And it was so wonderful. And I was so happy with my decision to take this new opportunity I had been given.

And then the fellowship started, and it started all over again. I fell in love all over again. With my new job. With my 30 new best friends. With all of their apartments. With all of their neighborhoods in Detroit. With all the restaurants and bars they had to show me.  With the experiences I started having.  I was just overflowing with passion for my new friends and our new city. And it was amazing.

And with each challenge, it happened again. I continued to fall in love with things about this city. With our non-profit partners. With their work. With their accomplishments, their missions. With all of the members of their communities I began to connect with.

And as with any sort of love, the more you open up your heart, the more susceptible you are to being hurt by the things you love.  And that began to happen. Not in the way that weaken your love for that thing or that person, but in the way that only makes it stronger. Their pain becomes your pain, and their triumphs, your triumphs. And that’s what I began to feel for all the new loves of my life. For every upset in my fellow fellows lives, every new struggle I discovered the city was having, for any of my new favorite places that experienced vandalism, or financial instability. Especially for the non-profits, who shared so intimately with us the struggles of their organizations, and brought us there to help. I begun to feel so passionately for each and everyone of their causes.

But not only does love open you up to feeling pain,  it opens you up to an infinite number of other emotions as well.Pride. Compassion. Happiness. Joy. Trust. Wonder. Respect. Appreciation. Hope.  And for all the pain this city and  this experience has caused me to feel, the ability to feel these things for my city and my friends, well its well worth it.

So I end this fellowship with infinitely more love in my heart than when I started.