The West: Tragedy, Glue, and Shania Twain

Change: to become different or undergo alteration. The road never turns around the same corner twice; we are constantly moving, constantly on a different path, constantly changing. There’s been some changes on our team, but when are things not always changing? It is how we adapt and how we deal with changes that make us all who we are. Every day when I get on that bus, I know only one thing won’t change: the Bondless boys will always get in a tickle war and someone will always sing Shania Twain.We have been welcomed with such hospitality and kindness on the west coast, but it is the willingness of some students to open up about their dark pasts after the shows that has been the most touching. Bondless performed at a memorial for a girl who was murdered in Duncan, BC last month. Seeing how a tragedy brought a community together made me ask why we need a tragedy to connect? I believe, based on the students we’ve met thus far, it is because pain is the emotion each one of us can relate to the most and when we have the opportunity to heal others it also allows us to heal our own pain. Simply sharing a story that breaks a heart allows so many others to mend, including our own. With every show it’s like a piece of my heart seems to be glued back in place and I wouldn’t change sleeping on a different floor every night for anything.I am inspired by the strength of each and every student that stands up to us after the show and says “me too” and those who may not have the courage to say something but somewhere in them something has changed. We are all changing, whether we like to believe it or not. I mean, how else would we grow? A seed starts somewhere in us that inspires us to change, so why not try to plant that seed as many places as we can?Love, trust and hope.xo Em, a School of Leadership student on the road