Laura is a filmmaker and photographer based in Washington, DC. She holds a master of fine arts degree from American University’s film and electronic media program. As We Forgive began as Laura’s masters thesis and has now taken on a life of its own. Laura is currently screening the film across the country and has plans to take it back to Rwanda to help aid in further reconciliation work. Most recently, Laura served on the crew of 14 Women, an acclaimed documentary on the lives of the female U.S. Senators, directed by Mary Lambert. In the past, Laura worked as Director of Creative Arts and Outreach at Church of the Resurrection, as a development coordinator for the Discovery Health Channel, and as a research assistant for MSNBC host Chris Matthews. She is a 2001 graduate of Furman University and lives on Capitol Hill with her husband, Tommy.

Gisele Nelson:  When you began in the film industry, what were your first ambitions as to what you wanted to tackle?  Was this the type of project you imagined yourself working on?

Laura Waters Hinson: My foray into film-making began when I entered a masters program in documentary film at American University in Washington, DC.  Up until that point, the idea of being a filmmaker seemed fantastically remote and honestly, like a pipe dream. I was so cautious, I hardly allowed myself to dream about the kinds of projects I might one day produce.  But I knew inside that I wanted to do something in life that would impact or transform the way people thought about their own lives and the world.  Documentary film seemed like a great vehicle for this.  I was only about half way through my film program when I was struck (like a lightning bolt) with the idea to make a film in Rwanda about forgiveness after genocide.  Truly, I wasn’t even looking for a thesis idea at the time – I was still just learning the ropes of film-making.  But after a providential trip to Rwanda in 2005, I knew that the story of Rwandans forgiving the killers of their families was one that had the power to change people’s hearts and lives.  At the time, I guess you could say that I was keeping my eyes open to stories around me, but not exactly plotting out a course of action or calculating my dream film project.  This one literally happened to me in an organic, miraculous kind of way.

Gisele:   Laura, when you began imagining how you could capture this story of reconciliation, what fears did you have going in regarding what you might see?

Laura: When I first heard stories of survivors confronting and deciding to forgive the killers of their families, I was incredulous.  I could hardly believe that forgiveness on this level was even possible.  I think my primary fear going into this film was wondering if these stories were authentic.  I was also concerned about bringing an American film crew into such an intense post-conflict situation and assuming that Rwandans survivors and perpetrators would be willing to talk to us.  How would we gain the trust of these people who had been so traumatized?  How would we explain what a documentary film is, since none of our subjects had ever seen a documentary before?  And how would we be able to compassionately enter into the pain of their stories in such a short period of time during our shoot? 

I also feared that people would simply tell us a story they thought we wanted to hear rather than giving us their raw, uninhibited responses. The issue of gaining access to and trust from your characters is always the biggest hurdle for any filmmaker, and so I was relieved in the end to find that so many Rwandans were willing to share their stories with us.  Not only that, the Rwandans we met bore their very souls to us and to our cameras.  Their honesty and openness was one of the greatest gifts I have ever received from another person.

Gisele:   In filming, I’m sure a lot of what you saw and experienced was life-changing for you as you watched the struggle of reconciliation.  Would you share a story with us of a moment or interaction that was especially impactful for you?

Laura: There were innumerable moments that impacted me during the film’s shoot, but one that stands out was the first day I visited a place called the Umuvumu Tree Village.  This village, organized by Prison Fellowship Rwanda, was a place where repentant ex-genocide prisoners had built 30 new homes – most of them as gifts to the surviving families of those they killed during the genocide.  These ex-killers had also built homes for themselves and their own families, creating a new community where former enemies were now living next door to one another.

I was invited into the living room of one of these homes and immediately joined by 12 or 13 villagers.  Each person took turns describing how their family members had been killed, or how they themselves had been a participant in the genocide.  Many of these individuals could point across the room at their neighbor and name him as the killer of their family.  And yet here they all were, sitting calmly in the same room, each telling me their story of unimaginable tragedy and brutality.  There was a palpable, communal spirit of reconciliation, one that was not feigned nor was it fully comprehensible.  The eyes of each survivor were mixed with endless sadness as well as a resolve to heal and forgive. For them, forgiveness was a daily, excruciating choice rather than a one-time commitment.  But the killers they had forgiven surprised me most – instead of feeling hate for these individuals, I was moved with compassion by their contrition, by the shame they bore for slaughtering women and children. I wondered if I, myself, might have perpetrated similar crimes if I was put in their place – impoverished, uneducated and subjected to propaganda and pressure by their government.  I was humbled in very different ways by this unlikely collection of genocide survivors and killers.

Gisele:  Seeing a film like this can’t help but to evoke a need to respond for those who watch. For those who watch As We Forgive what kind of action were you hoping to inspire in them?

Laura: When I first made the film, my hope was that audiences would be challenged to consider the power of forgiveness in their own lives. I view As We Forgive as much more of a meditation on the topic of forgiveness and reconciliation than a complete history of Rwanda.  It is a story of forgiveness that happens to be set in the unlikely country of Rwanda.  In this, my hope was to universalize the narrative and let it hit home in viewers’ hearts.  Today, people email us from all over the world explaining how they are using the DVD to promote forgiveness in their families and communities. It seems to speak to many situations, from broken family systems to decades-long political conflicts, which is more than I ever hoped for.

The film also seemed to prompt people to want to get involved in Rwanda’s reconciliation movement.  Because of this, we launched the Living Bricks Campaign, an initiative to build a village of reconciliation in Rwanda like the Umuvumu Village that’s featured in the movie. A partnership with Prison Fellowship International, Living Bricks is a new village where repentant ex-genocide prisoners build homes for their victims’ families as a form of practical reconciliation.  The result is an incredible community of ex-prisoners and survivors of genocide living side-by-side as neighbors once again through radical reconciliation.

Gisele:  Tell us about 40 days of 4-Giveness.

Laura: The 40 Days of 4-Giveness is a campaign we’ve just launched to engage communities everywhere in the topic of radical forgiveness by hosting film screening events to build the Living Bricks village in Rwanda.  The 40 Days of 4-Giveness invites universities, churches and other organizations to dedicate the Easter season to focusing on the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.  By hosting local screenings of As We Forgive, we also hope to raise funding to build new homes in the Living Bricks Village.  The cost of each home is $5,000, with 100 percent of proceeds going directly to the village.

Participating groups will receive a full movie event kit, complete with the As We Forgive DVD, a bag of Rwandan coffee from Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee, as well as a public exhibition license, exclusive footage of the AWF epilogue and promotional materials to make their screening a success.  Groups can also utilize the enclosed discussion materials on the 4 gives:

give truth + give mercy + give hope + give back

Joining the campaign are musician Sara Groves, author Gabe Lyons, journalist Mark Moring, author and pastor Mark Batterson, journalist Amy Sullivan, and filmmaker and author Craig Detweiler.  Each week, we’ll release a blog post from these contributors with their reflections on forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption. Blogs will be posted at AsWeForgiveMovie.org.  To join the 40 Days campaign by hosting a film screening, contact Genevieve Ebel, the AWF Outreach Director at: genevieve@asweforgivemovie.com.

The big idea for Plywood is to mobilize an innovative community to address social needs. A couple weeks ago, some friends and I had the opportunity to address a need with the response that all of you have given. If you have bought a wallet, satchel, or messenger, then you contributed to this story. If you tweeted about us, shared us on facebook, told a friend or have commented on a blog, please join us in a celebration. We traveled to Guatemala and built a home for a widow and her family. This woman lives in the hills outside Chi Chi and is developmentally delayed, which limits her ability to get work in her area. For the first time in her life, she has a home to keep her dry, a cement floor instead of a mud bank, and a bunk bed with two mattresses. We were also able to contribute clothes, food, and toys for the extended family. In the weeks ahead, she will receive training for a water filtration system in addition to having access to training for many other support initiatives. She would like to personally thank all of you. This home is such a simple gift from all of us, but her thankfulness is extremely genuine. This new home has literally changed her family’s life forever and you have played a great role.

For the past few months, I have been taking different students from my university to visit a local homeless shelter on most Thursday mornings. It’s a shelter that a friend of mine, Tyler, runs and is always looking for ways to connect those who are less fortunate with those who are “blessed” in order to build relationships across socio-economic lines. The effects are always powerful: the homeless feel heard, cared-for, prayed-for, and befriended when no one else on the street would even acknowledge them; and the college students feel humbled and seem to always leave with excited conversation about visions as big as changing the world.

This past week, right before our group left the shelter, Tyler asked me if I had met a man there that day named Robert. I told him that I had, as Robert stood out easily from all of the others: his clothes were newer, and he seemed well-kept; he looked down at his cup of coffee and spoke softly and only when someone asked him a direct question. He seemed friendly, but distant. Tyler told me that Robert was a new employee of the shelter. He was not homeless, but he did have severe mental disabilities. Tyler said that Robert’s family had called the shelter earlier that week and asked if they needed any work done that Robert could do around the facility. Tyler asked them if there was anything Robert enjoyed doing, and they replied, “Oh, well he is just absolutely thrilled with doing laundry.”

So Robert works at the shelter now, coming in a couple of days every week to wash the clothes of the men and women who live on the streets in our community. It’s not a grand or spectacular job, but it’s a job that he is passionate about, and so it’s a job that my friends at the facility gave Robert the opportunity to do. And it’s a job that is now blessing Robert’s life and the lives of the homeless at the shelter; and it’s a story that blessed all of the students who met Robert, and now may bless many of you who read this. And it all started with someone providing him an opportunity to do what he loves to do.

What would the world look like if we would just provide more opportunities to those who want to contribute in whatever ways they are passionate about?

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I was looking over my credit card statement a couple months ago and I noticed these two little pie charts on the side.  The little heading says, “How Does Your Spending Compare.”  One of graphs shows how I spend my money and the other shows how other cardholders spend their money.  They break it up into two categories:  “everyday” which consists of gas, groceries, and pharmaceuticals (basically the necessities), and “everything else,” which for me generally is restaurants, movies, music, books etc.

I’ve been thinking about those little pie charts an awful lot.  The average cardholder spends 18% on “everyday” purchases, and 82% on “everything else.”  My little pie chart shows that I spend 20% on “everyday” purchases and 80% on “everything else.”  My percentage is a measly 2% different than the other cardholders.

Before I saw this graph I’d been priding myself on getting out of debt, not spending more money than I have, and trying to save a little.  After I saw this little pie chart I’ve wanted to switch credit card companies so I wouldn’t have to be reminded every time I look at my statement at how I spend my money.  I’ve been told that you can tell a person’s priorities by the way they spend their money.  As much as I’ve thought that my priorities differ from most of the general population, where my money goes somehow reflects that my priorities might not be as different as I thought.

Now, I’m not saying that I can never buy myself something that I want or make the occasional impulse buy, but I have been taking a second look at what I view as important versus what is really essential. I really can see what I value by what I purchase. How different is your pie chart from everyone else?



Ideas are a dime-a-dozen. What really brings positive change to an individual, organization, or business is the actual implementation of these ideas. But in order to get there, ideas need intentional strategy, development of skill-sets, sustainable infrastructure, and a viable network.

The !deation Conference is a unique conference experience that gathers some of the most innovative thinkers and practitioners in humanitarian care in order to help fellow practitioners develop thoughts and tangible next steps for greater impact in their respective work. Speakers will include Scott Harrison (Charity Water), Ben Keesey (Invisible Children), Eugene Cho (One Days Wages), Hannah Song (Liberty in North Korea), Beth Kanter (Beth’s Blog), and many more.

Charles Lee founded the !deation Conference in hopes that those who care about humanity would be encouraged to continue in the hard work of creating something good out of their ideas.  Sometimes the best way to know how good your idea actually is, or what needs work, there needs to be opportunities to share the idea and be able to understand in what ways the idea can be improved.  The conference is a unique experience where ideas are cultivated and those who attend will feel refreshed and inspired to continue to explore ways to improve the world we share.

The conference is April 5-6 2010.  Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to be inspired and encouraged to explore ideas and make changes in the communities where you are.

Topics for the conference include:

Creative Branding and Marketing for Non-Profits
Creating Viable Grassroots Movements of Care
Best Practices in Social Media & Humanitarian Work
Non-Profit Governance for Greater Impact
Partnering the For-Profit World with the Non-Profit World
Advocacy and Policy
Developing Holistic and Sustainable Projects
Keys to Presence and Longevity
Best Practices of Collaboration and Networking
and many more…

Shannon is the president of Atlanta Rollergirls.  She tells Plywood People a little bit about what makes her sport unique and why she loves it.

Jeff Shinabarger:  Can you break down the rules of how Roller Derby works?

Shannon Nowlan: For each team there are 3 Blockers, 1 Pivot, and 1 Jammer.  The game starts with the Blockers in a pack and the Jammers behind them.  The whistle blows once and the pack of Blockers takes off. When the last Blocker passes the pivot live, the whistle blows twice, and the Jammers take off.  The Jammers work to get through the pack of Blockers!  The first time through, the Jammers try to beat each other through the pack to become the “Lead Jammer.” Jammers don’t score on the first pass.  On subsequent passes, both of the Jammers can score points.  The Blockers block the opposing Jammer while simultaneously trying to get their Jammer through!

Point-scoring opportunity for both teams: Each game is divided into two 30-minute periods. Each period is divided into 2 minute “Jams.” Unlike other popular team sports, each individual Jam is an opportunity for both teams to score as many points as they can.

Clock-stops: In other popular team sports, the clock stops when one team scores. In roller derby, the clock only stops when a team or the officials call for a time out. There is a mandatory thirty seconds between each jam where the clock runs. If a team is missing players on the track after the thirty seconds expires, the refs start the jam and that team has to skate short!

Offense and Defense all at once:  In most Jams (with a few exceptions) both Jammers will attempt to move through the pack at the same time. Unlike other popular team sports, this requires that both teams simultaneously play offensively and defensively. Each team’s Blockers must work to help their own Jammer score points, while also trying to stop the other team’s Jammer from scoring.

Jeff:  Every player has a unique name. What is your unique name or character?

Shannon: My skate name is Deathskull. I was given this name about 15 years ago by the giver of names, grotte sausages. (It is a long story).  When I got involved in roller derby, it just fit so I took my nickname as my skate name.  One of my favorite parts of skating is hearing the announcers say my name when I am playing in a bout.  They have taken to saying my name in a similar manner to a lead singer of a death metal band.  I have had to tune them out in the past. If I don’t it makes me laugh too much.

Jeff:  Roller Derby is bringing great life to the women that are involved. Do you feel like this is addressing a social need in the lives of these women? How are they influenced?

Shannon: The Atlanta Roller Girls are a kind of sisterhood in which we all mostly, love each other. Our skaters vary greatly in personalities and occupations.  Some of our skaters are stay at home mothers, doctors, teachers, accountants, pastors, physical therapists, artists, and nurses, to list just a few.  We practice anywhere form 4 to 5 times a week, so we spend a lot of time together developing really strong relationships on and off the floor.

Personally, as a mother and a wife, I felt like I was always taking care of someone else and that I never did anything that was just for me. When I joined ARG, I realized that it filled that void of doing something for myself.  It satisfied that desire for the individual freedom I craved but didn’t interfere with or separate me from my family.  I have made some amazing and lasting friendships though ARG and look forward to continuing skating until my body won’t let me anymore.  ARG is a great outlet for any woman who wants an instant outlet for socializing.  We are a very welcoming and embracing group of women that love what we do on and off the track.

Jeff:  Tell us about the Roller Derby atmosphere. I hear that the games are one of the greatest experiences I will ever attend – tell us about it.

Shannon: Experiencing a roller derby bout as a spectator is similar to being a spectator at a hockey game, save the booing.  The crowd is usually really energetic and into the game and they are very vocal about it. The announcers get the crowd going and they never really stop.  When a jammer jukes around a blocker or a blocker takes down a jammer the crowd goes wild.  When a blocker makes a huge or an illegal hit and goes to the box, again the crowd goes wild. Our fans are really dedicated and love to cheer for their favorite players and teams.

As a new comer to the game, once you understand the rules, you will find yourself choosing a team to root for and join the rest of the crowd yelling and encouraging your chosen team. Honestly, the only way to truly understand how amazing attending a bout is to be there.  It really is a unique experience.

Jeff:  Why do you love this game? What would you want to share with others about Roller Derby?

Shannon: I love this game for so many reasons but the main reason is that it is amazingly fun.  When I am skating around the track and I can hear the announcers, the music, the crowd, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.   I want every one who attends an ARG bout to have an amazing experience that they want to repeat and share with others.  Most of all however, I want every woman to know that they can be strong and also beautiful at the same time.  I want them to know that through ARG they can make really great friends that they can knock down and then go have a beer with.  What else could a girl want?

I’ve been wrestling with the concept of failure this week and what exactly it means to fail. Seth Godin wrote about being in a dip. He noted that many successful ideas often faced a dip before being significantly successful. Of course, he also noted that a dip can sometimes be a cliff, and it’s extremely helpful to be able to distinguish between the two! (Note: to state the obvious, you should keep going in a dip, and run away from a cliff….)

Attitudes to failure vary by country. In Europe, financial failure, failure in business, or in career is frowned upon.  It is seen as a stigma. Bankruptcy is close to the last possible thing that anyone would choose. And so this fear of failure, this concern that our communities and our peers will look down upon us because we failed, leads to a failure to be willing to step out in pursuit of something greater. It’s one of the greatest parts of the “American Dream”, this willingness to accept that failure is not the end, but merely a stumble along the journey.

Social enterprise can be the same as regular angel investing. (An angel investor is an individual, or collection of individuals in a fund that generally provides the next stage of funding for a start-up after you’ve tapped up your own bank manager on a personal overdraft and borrowed what you can from your kind, ever-believing parents…) Interestingly, the average angel investor in the US invests in just 1 in 7 of the proposals that he or she looks at. And of the ones that are invested in, 1 in 10 makes 90% of the returns. So basically they get it right 1 time in 70!

I’d argue that there is very little reason as to why our ability to determine which social enterprise will work, is any better. Some will be effective, some will flop and some will change the world (see Grameen Bank & the large scale launch of microfinance for example). So here’s where I’m going with this – if we, as a community of people who desire to bring change to the world so that it is a better place, we who want to see “social justice”, we who want to throw ourselves into something meaningful and create something that impacts, we need to speculate. We need to be willing to start 70 ventures, and expect that 69 of them will not work. We need to be willing to financially back a wide range of these people and ventures, and get as many things going as possible.

And we, as the social entrepreneurs, need to be willing to fail. There’s a lot of peer pressure in this field too – who wants to be the entrepreneur who set out to change the world and got nowhere? But if we can’t face up to the likely reality that we will fail more times than we succeed, then we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. There are too many mediocre projects and ideas that drain funding (this is true in my own context anyway) that actually should be stopped, freeing up the funding and time to propel other initiatives forward.

I met someone back in October who needs funding for her social enterprise.  She has this amazing product that will really tackle head-on the water crisis in the developing world and has massive potential. And yet the funding just never seems to appear for her, despite positive reviews, awards, and all of the right connections and numbers. It seems wrong that we persist with things that fail, when projects that could be doing good are stuck.

What are you working on right now that you need to quit? Anything you need to take a long hard look at and say that it’s not the best thing to keep going with? Good luck with that decision, I’m finding it’s not that easy!

I know a girl named Jennifer who walks for most of her day. Not by choice but by absolute need. One step in front of the other brings Jennifer closer to a source of water, water that is needed to survive. She carries a bright yellow bucket in one arm and the hand of her younger sister in the other. Her calloused feet meet the dirt path with ease and levity. She passes neighbors, livestock, mud huts with thatched roofs, and the primary school down the road.

After thirty minutes of walking, Jennifer and her sister dip their buckets in the filth of a muddy river. They do their best to swirl the water before dipping their buckets deep into the water so as to push away the clumps and bugs that sit along the surface of the brown water. With remarkable grace, each girl places her 20 pound bucket on her head and walks back. Their bare feet hit against the dirt of the path, passing yet again the primary school down the road, the mud huts with thatched roofs, the livestock and the neighbors. When they arrive home, they empty their buckets into a large tub. Invisible bacteria swim in the water, causing serious stomach aches, skin infections and life-threatening diseases to the members of the family. They will use it for drinking, cleaning and cooking. It is what they have, and so it is what they use.  Jennifer around to walk back along the dirt path with her bright yellow bucket in one arm and the hand of her younger sister in the other, to return to the river once more.

I have clean water at the turn of a tap. What takes many girls around the world hours to get, I have in seconds. It is a juxtaposition of the world that brings discomfort to so many of us, and rightly should! I have many friends who observe Lent and choose to give something up for the length of the lenten season. Some people give up sweets, others give up facebook. There is a movement of people that is choosing to give up all beverages but water for Lent. It means that we will go 40 days and make tap water our only beverage. We will save up all the money we would have spent on coffee, soda, beer, wine and juice over the 40 days and donate it to provide THE essential beverage for Africans -  clean water. Through the work of Blood:Water Mission, thousands of girls with yellow buckets are no longer walking to get filthy water because a clean water source has been brought to their villages. Jennifer is one of them, and she is now able to attend school and to be rid of stomach aches and skin infections.

In a world that feels overwhelmingly impersonal, this small sacrifice that many of us will take on for the next 40 days will give us the deepest and most beautiful connection to the provision of clean water for girls we have yet to meet. Please consider joining us in this.

www.bloodwatermission.com/40days

I am a huge fan of Etsy.  I can find the most beautiful and unique gifts on the site and I feel like I get to support an artist’s career.  Some friends of Plywood have come up with a brilliant idea, taking the idea behind Etsy to a whole new level!  We’re excited with Kent and Evie Shaffer over the creation of “A Beautiful Idea.” Artists donate a piece or pieces of work to be sold on the website and 100% of the proceeds go to a chosen charity.  There will be a wide, beautiful range of things to choose from, and purchasing them will help charities in need!  It’s another new way to help others in need.

Here are the details!

How It Works
1. Etsy sellers, independent sellers and artists create a unique product to list and sell in their store, with 100% of the sale of that item going to charity. This can be ongoing, or a one-time deal. Your choice.
2. Once a sale is made, you are responsible for donating the funds to ABI’s donation center.
3. At the end of every month, ABI will donate the funds given to the chosen charity and give a report on our blog. Every 6 months (or once our monetary goal is hit), a new charity or cause will be selected.

3 Easy Steps for Artists to Join
1. Just fill out this form to join the network
2. Get to work creating, and listing your unique product(s) for our big push by March 15th.
3. Donate 100% of your item(s) cost to ABI’s donation center

3 Benefits
1. Artists have a way to create work for a greater purpose.
2. Consumers are given the opportunity to buy a unique product that supports a cause.
3. Charities are given the proceeds to help their mission.

The Potential
This movement has terrific potential. If only 1% of Etsy.com’s current 200,000+ sellers joined ABI and contributed $20 each month, we would raise $40,000 dollars each month! Think of the unprecedented change that artists could make in the world.

Artists, contact them here and be apart of a beautiful new idea!!

This week, I’ve been designing some artwork for an urban, humanitarian aid ministry in Memphis, TN based on the idea of being “set free.” Now, inspiration is an interesting thing to me; I’m constantly researching, asking questions, taking walks, reading books or perusing the Web in attempt to be spurred into a direction when confronted with an art deadline. And, for some reason, this current project is daunting to me. For some reason, I have struggled immensely to nail down a good concept of representing freedom.

I asked a lot of friends what they think of when they hear the word “freedom.” Someone said, “Jumping out of a plane and feeling completely unattached.” One said, “An open door, after feeling trapped.” Someone else said, “Going to a garage sale of awesome stuff and it is all free.” Another said, “Something breaking open and revealing something new and better on the inside.” Every one of them, though, first and foremost said, “Birds.” Invariably. Apparently, there is just something about birds that people associate with freedom.

One of my friends, seeing my frustration, turned the question back on me and asked, “Well, what does freedom mean to you?” I couldn’t really give a definitive answer. Honestly, I still can’t. But I know it’s got to be deeper than getting something for nothing. I know it’s got to be more than just getting what you want, when you want it. I know it’s more than just a list of “rights.” The only thing that I could come up with for an answer was, “Having no more fear.” Freedom, to me, is somehow associated with being carefree – not careless or reckless, but just finally having a feeling of peace at the removal of worries and threats. Maybe that’s why we associate freedom with birds. What’s more carefree than something that even gravity can’t hold back from soaring and singing in the breeze?

There is a lot of worry left in the world. There are those who are hungry, those who are thirsty, those who are trafficked; there are the orphaned, the abandoned, the forgotten. My world must not sleep well at night because it is stuck with a lot of fears and uncertainties.

Fight for the freedom of the suffering. And let nothing hold you back.

Oh, and as cliché as it may be, I did put bird in my design. And, as much as I wrestled with it and hated it for so long, it actually came out to be something I’m really proud of.

Funny how that seems to work.