Thank you

Recently, I went to Washington DC to advocate for poor and disadvantaged youth who are attempting to earn their college degrees across the United States. I was able to talk to the representatives for my state as well as the senators. I was able to tell them about those support programs that show poor youth a different way, a better way live life and how college helps them help themselves and their families for generations to come.

But I also got to see the representatives and legislators for every state. I went by Auntie Maxine's office and I got to go by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes's office too. Hundreds of people went by her office. I scarcely know how she gets any work done with the amount of people who just stood around her door.

She has a guest book at her door and a podium. People from all over the United State had checked in with their names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. People stood by her name plate and took pictures. But AOC also had sticky notes on her podium. She allowed people to write her notes and post them all over the wall adjacent to her door and inside her office. So I decided to be a lemming and write something too. (After all, I don't want to be left out!)

I grabbed a pen and one of the sticky notes and tried to think about what I wanted to say. I had no idea what to write, but sometimes when I put the pen to paper, my thoughts tumble out. So, I put the pen to paper and immediately started to cry.

AOC is a warrior woman. At every turn people drag her thoughts and Ideas down when all she is doing is attempting to lift everyone else up. Yet she is called crazy, problematic, too young, too poor, irrational, too emotional. That fight takes so much strength to fight off. Maybe it is because Ms. Ocosio-Cortez young she still has so much fight in her. She and Auntie Maxine have a strength I have become to weary to bear. So, when I put that pen to paper, I felt the volcano of emotion. All I could write was "thank you."

Sometimes the smallest words are the ones that have so much more meaning than people can put into words. It's hard to make someone understand the depths of your gratitude when you feel so small and your gratitude is so high.