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Dear Team Awesome,

Thank you. With utmost love and humility, I want to write you a message that not only formally welcomes you to TEAM AWESOME, but also conveys my amount of gratitude knowing that I have your support. I am also overjoyed that I get to write such a thing in the first place as it presents itself as a sign of how far we’ve come.

You’re now signing up to support me during a very important time in my life. And yet I want you to know that this book is ultimately and wholeheartedly yours as well. The stories within also belong to you; our book’s very existence testifies to what the support of friends — no matter how near or far they are — can sustain.

It was while I was looking at our volunteer list that I realized what lies at the heart of most friendships that we should all identify and become better at: Vulnerability. As grateful as I am about being published, I also want to share with you the anxiety I still harbor about baring my innermost thoughts, regrets, and fears to you and the rest of the world in this memoir. I want to express how I still feel the tremendous sense of imposter syndrome in becoming a debut author, let alone living up to the memory of those whom I write about in this book and are no longer with us. And finally, as much as we will pitch our book to be about resilience, and the unexpected influence of grief, displacement and travel to re-examine our lives with greater clarity — with the pandemic playing a universally relatable background vehicle to deliver such a message — the challenge will be getting those who don’t know our story to also understand this and pick up a copy of our book.

I know these will be our challenges, but then again, having navigated through a pandemic together was on another level of “challenge.” And therefore I am so so grateful that I have you at my side for this, just as you had been during the pandemic. So no matter what, let us remind ourselves how we can grant ourselves to live forth with clearer eyes and purpose. We’re here. We’ve already arrived; you’ve got my back and I’ve always got yours. The rest is all gravy.

So let’s have some fun and let’s go sell some books!

with love,

Calvin

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