It wasn’t a long walk, maybe a half mile at best, but the journey took about two hours.

Beginning around the age of 8, I can remember walking around my neighborhood’s horseshoe shape, stopping at randomly chosen houses and ringing the doorbell. No, this wasn’t Halloween with the thirst of mystery and desire of Skittles candy hanging in the air. No, this wasn’t Christmas-time when my family held their annual Christmas light walk. This was my own march and my adventure.

I simply liked to talk to the residents of my particular neighborhood. My little pointer finger would reach up and press the doorbell with the air of expectation floating all around me. I longed to have someone answer the door, so I could talk to them. So I could ask question after question with my legs swinging on their porch swing, finding out more about their life and what made them tick. This wasn’t for any reason other than to hear other people share their stories with me. It wasn’t so I could run home and spread the gossip to my stuffed with fluff friends. With the innocence as a child, it was so I could hear about my neighbor’s new dog, about their family members, listen to their latest vacation adventures, and even sometimes listen to them go on and on about the latest sports champion of that particular season.

The walk was about them.

During the journey that I made monthly for years, I gained the confidence of several of our neighbors. I also gained something that life would try its hardest to take away; perspective. I learned through my walks that this life really wasn’t about me. That there was something more than my problems and worries. I gained the understanding that love is not only kind and patient, it’s empathetic, it’s vulnerable, it’s trustworthy, and it’s listening with your mouth shut.

I learned that in order to see a person, to really see them, you had to be willing to walk. The autumn rain is delicate and gentle, nourishing the earth.

In my eighth-grade year English class we read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and it soon, with every page turned, became one of my favorites. To stay up on my homework, I asked my mom to read it with me before bed. During one of those nights, we read a certain phrase and it has since stuck with me all these years:

“You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

I remember getting grossed out. Climb into his skin? Ew. But my mom and 8th grade English teacher challenged me to see the deeper meaning.

That’s what this blog is about. It’s about walking first in someone’s shoes before you act. Before you judge. Before you live. This blog will be a collection of stories, of personal meanderings, and of conversations had with others in hopes of inspiring maybe even just one person to remember that everyone has a story. Everyone has a perspective. Everyone has a voice.

And those stories are worth listening to with open eyes and open ears.

And so with that… Walk first. Live second.