“Hi, I’m Moeryae!”

“Oh, I thought your name was Sunny.”

“Well, sometimes. My full name is Moeryae Sunshine Star Smith.”

Aaaaaaand…. then I wait, for the tilted heads, the questioning looks. This is how I usually introduce myself to other humans. Well, usually with only one of the names. Whether I say Sunny or Moeryae, the questions still roll. So, I thought I’d keep it real for you all and give you a really authentic introduction.

SO my first name, although some guess French roots, was actually “created” by my hippie mother, based on the name “Moraye” which means fate. However, it also has ties to the Moraye eel – a slimey eel, thus my mother just threw in some syllables and made a new word up based on “fate.” Oh – and names are free, which explains the two middle names. Sunshine – because the day I got home from the hospital, my older brother, Sky (yes, his name is Sky- I know, I know) sang to me the song “My Sunshine” by Johnny Cash and then promptly thumped me in the head seconds after. Star? Honestly, the explanation on this name is the fuzziest, but I know it has something to do with a midwife.
To make it even more complicated, most people know me as “Sunny” – the nickname of my FIRST middle name.

I have always been different – strange, creative, weird, unique, crazy – whatever adjective you want to use here – I’m different. 

CHILDHOOD IN TIE-DYE

When I was a kid, I grew up in a hippie-like household that was a 20-minute drive outside of town in the middle of the woods – our closest neighbor about a mile away. We were pretty much dirt-poor. Lots of different struggles that probably could have been avoided with better adulting. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my story now – the uniqueness, my hippie mom, bearded dad – every single struggle I went through molded me into who I am today. I am stronger and better equipped simply because I had to live through life like that.

But as a kid, I didn’t want to be different. Although MY family was different, we were still smack-dab in the middle of rural Midwest America – so everyone I went to school with lived the suburban, white, upper-middle-class life. I envied my friends with the seemingly perfect lives – the perfect, PTO mom that picked them up perfectly on time in their new soccer-mom car, to take them to whatever little-league practice or dance class they were signed up for that week, the big, clean suburban house that had neighbors close-by to play with..

As for me? Well, I’m still good friends with my elementary janitor (SHOUT OUT TO YOU, MR. LARRY). We spent a lot of time waiting for my parents to pick me up after school – regularly 30 minutes late – usually my dad rolling up in his giant flat-bed truck or my mother gliding in wearing some flowy skirt with a slightly apologetic and inebriated smile on her face. I hate to say it, but I resented them for being different. I wanted the perfect PTO mom, the normal car, the name-brand clothes.

It took time – and years of me faking suburban perfection in clear rebellion of my family’s life – for me to settle into myself and love my differences. In high school, I did everything RIGHT, trying to be the perfect student – I was in Student Council, National Honor Society, Section Leader in Band and Choir, Percussion Ensemble, etc. etc.. I ran track and cross country and made decent money serving pizza on night shifts. I was that annoying overachiever, always seemingly perfect and in control. I hid all of the dark parts of my family – the alcoholism that wrecked us, the  struggle to pay bills, every night I spent hiding in my room crying. I tried desperately to FIT IN – to be normal. And apparently I did a pretty good job – my best friends recently told me they had no idea of any of the darkness outside of school. But, even then, I couldn’t hide it fully – because I was only three years younger than my brother, going through the same school system. If our names weren’t Sunny and Sky and our faces didn’t look nearly identical without his beard, people honestly wouldn’t have even known we were related then. As it is, names tend to come up anyways – and I constantly got the reaction of “you’re SKY’s sister? No way, really?” Because he had fully embraced our unique life, our differences. He wasn’t trying to be anything he wasn’t. He was him and unique and yes, a bit of a skater – pothead, but smart as hell and didn’t care what anyone thought. I was trying to be everything I wasn’t, on an impossible quest of perfection.

Summers with family were fun though and instilled the travel bug in me from the earliest age. We’d take road trips in pop-up camper vans to different national parks and visit our family in Florida every summer, driving speedboats and playing on beaches. So don’t get me twisted- my childhood wasn’t all bad – in fact, there was so, SO much good. My mother especially, she instilled this love for travel and adventure and spontaneity. My father set the example of selflessness literally all the time – I can’t even tell you how many homeless people or hitchhikers I’ve ridden with – some who ended up staying rent-free for months on our property. But no matter that, they were still different, and I hadn’t come to terms with it yet.

COLLEGE AND THE ENTIRE WORLD

So, when high school ended, I went away to college, to University of Central Missouri, thinking a seven hour drive would be far enough away from family and not break the bank. AND UCM was one of the few technical photography programs (not art-based) left in the nation. (Now, the program has also shut down and moved to art).

This is where my traveling adventures all really started. The summer after my Freshman year, I went on a fully-funded Honors summer program to the Netherlands. 

It was my first time abroad, though I’d traveled a lot with my family in the States. I studied International Communications at Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, The Netherlands – about an hour train – ride from Amsterdam. In classes, we had to explain who we were and why we were the way we were. This may seem simple, but this was my first time explaining myself to non-Americans. These people didn’t know me – and they were from all over the world. As I talked, I started to understand my prejudices, my oh-so-American perspective from the outside-in. Coincidentally, it was also the first time I explained my hippie childhood difference and was fully and undeniably PROUD of it.

And now – we’re here – four years, seven trips abroad, and twenty countries later. That travel bug, hinted at as a kid, flared into a crazy being after that first trip. I spent the rest of my college career traveling any chance I got, and everywhere I could – 2 full semesters abroad, 2 full summers abroad, 1 winter break, and 1 very spontaneous week in the middle of a semester in which I skipped some classes to hop on a plane to Ireland. I lived to breathe another air, to see another perspective, to understand another culture. 

And throughout it, I found myself, as absolutely cliche that sounds. In every country, I discovered another part of me, settling into the unique human that writes to you today. 

COVID-19 AND NOW

SO – here we are. I have recently found myself at an unexpected standstill back home in Midwest Missouri. COVID-19 slammed an abrupt end to my final college semester studying in Spain. My future plans, which previously completely centered around travel are now uncertain, improbable, and impossible for the current moment.

I went back and forth for a while of loving my current moment and wanting to just enjoy the present and dive further into my spiritual self, and then putting a ton of pressure on myself with the thought of “I should be doing something, I should be using this time to be productive…”

So I sat still and quiet – and just thought. And by this, I started to wonder what I could give others, in this truly difficult time. I realized… that it’s me – I am giving you me, and all of what comes with it. In the past years, I have traveled the world, searching for something – that something was this – this blessed understanding of others and life and the knowledge that we really know nothing at all unless we know ourselves. I’ve flown very high and very low on this self-betterment journey, finding the best and worst in others and myself. I’m so incredibly grateful for every experience – bad or good. Every human I’ve met, every experience I’ve made – has shaped me to be here today.

I’ve come so far from that little girl in khaki pants at the Student Council meeting, or that wallflower child hiding from her life in her room. I’m a creative, I’m unique, I’m different – and I’m proud of it.

I’m creating this blog to share with you what I’ve learned from every experience. Whether you’re still figuring it out who you are, or you’re now focused on how to become the best you – which is where I’m at – we will do it together. 

I want you all to comment and tell me the things you overcame to be yourself today. How have you changed? Are you ready to become the best you – mentally, physically, and spiritually?

Connect with me on my instagram to see a glimpse of these adventures, and the tales to come (trust me, you don’t want to miss those dancing stories!).

#letyoursunshine