Today I met Jamie Tworkowski! He was so nice and dreamy and he called me Beth by accident and now it's a big joke between us and we're biffles now!
- as dictated by Meg Rindfleisch
Fangirlness aside, it was a really amazing night. Jamie Tworkowski is the founder of To Write Love On Her Arms and he spoke at Cornell University on the 22nd of February. I would never have gotten such an opportunity like this back home (at least not for a long time) and I am so grateful to be alive and to be here in Ithaca to experience it.
I didn't know what to expect for tonight except honesty and conversation. Music is an important part of TWLOHA and so as usual, Jamie had a support act. He had Anthony Raneri from Bayside with him on tour this time and it was great. Jamie just shared the story of Renee and the beginning of TWLOHA and what they've been doing lately. It wasn't really anything that I didn't already know but that's not what made the night and the whole experience so wonderful and worthwhile. For me, it was being able to spend time with the other TWLOHA-ICers that I don't usually spend time with in the meetings, to talk to them and get to know them and to spend more time with the ones that I did. Community and conversation is such an integral part of TWLOHA and I was so glad to be able to just spend time with them; members old and new, and now friends.
It wasn't even just about me spending time with the other people in the group. It was about the bigger community coming together with the common goal to reach out to people struggling and to let them know that they're not alone. Apart from us and the people from Cornell, there were kids from one of the local high schools and even someone from Cortland who had driven in. Some people hadn't even heard of TWLOHA before but they understood how it feels to hurt and to be alone or how important having a community and support is.
And yes, we did get to meet Jamie after the event. We got to talk to him and take pictures and thank him for everything he's done for us through TWLOHA. And yes, he did rename me Beth after I had said I was from Perth (how he ended up at Beth from Perth is beyond me).
Tonight was unbelievable. It was honest, open, comforting and loving. So thank you to Renee, Jamie, To Write Love On Her Arms and my TWLOHA-Ithaca College family for existing. I haven't been so honestly and truly happy in almost ten years as I have been here and as cheesy as it sounds (and hey, we love our cheese!), for the first time, I feel like I have people I can actually turn to and talk to without feeling like a burden.
Photo courtesy of Karalyn Mark.
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