I Really Needed That

Hi Dwayne!
I am so sorry it took me so long to email you! I’ve been super busy lately. I just really wanted to say thank you for everything! You said at our school presentation that you wanted to make us think, and you really made me think a lot. I’ve been trying to make a few thumb switches in my life, and it’s been going really well so far (for example, I’ve stopped teasing my older sister for being shorter than me. She says it never bugged her, but I just feel like I’m being a better sister than I was before, and I don’t think I ever would have realized how powerful of an impact my words might have had if I hadn’t met you.)
I’ve also been trying to give more complements! Yesterday, there was a kid in my school wearing an AWESOME Minion toque, and normally I would have been too shy to tell him and just say to my friends who were there at the time “omg, look at his Minion toque!” But I told him I loved it as I was passing by, and he grinned really big, which kind of made my day 🙂
I also just really wanted to say thank you for getting me in that small group session! I feel like I really needed that. It took a long time for me to fully process everything I said. Also, I have this thing that I feel like males deal with a lot where I find that I can’t show any weakness at all or else… (I don’t even know what the “or else” is, all my brain tells me is that it’s bad) maybe it’s that I think people will judge me, maybe it’s that I think people will have less trust in me, I really don’t know, but since I’ve said those things, nothing happened. Which is good, because it proves to me that I can express the feelings that I need to because good people won’t think negatively of me because of it.
Sorry, this is a really long email haha! I just really wanted to thank you and tell you how much you’ve positively impacted my life! You said that we could describe the sessions as a gift, but in reality, you are the gift.  Also, I don’t know if the principal emailed you or not (and I’m sorry if I get some details of the story wrong), but apparently about a week or two ago, the grade 9 girls volleyball team was at a tournament where they were staying at a hotel. They were supposed to be in bed, lights out by 11. The principal came by around 10:30, and no one was in their rooms, but he kind of shrugged it off and came back at 11:30, when he found all the girls in one room, practically begging if they could stay up for another hour. Guess what they were doing? They made their own little Dwayne Peace sharing circle together. He let them stay up as late as they needed to finish and apparently they didn’t go to bed until like 1 in the morning I think. My heart melted when the principal told us that story, and I figured you would want to hear it if you haven’t already 🙂

Anyways, sorry for the really long email, but thank you again for everything!
Thank you again!!

Grade 12 female student – unsolicited – 2023