feeling

there are some moments when i wish i could stop everything and reflect over something in particular-- an event that happened, something somebody said, something i did or didn't say, an interaction with someone else, a feeling or thought i had for some reason or another, an occurrence out of the ordinary, or maybe better yet, within the ordinary, but still special. i can't stop everything, though, and i can't always share exactly how i felt about those moments after-the-fact in a blog like this, but i know the best that i can do is just try. i sometimes blog to let others know what's going on in my life, but other times, i blog for me-- just for me. to get out those thoughts, make (or try to make) clearer whatever it is that i'm feeling or going through at the moment. i think this is one of those times.

so, if i could capture today perfectly in words, that'd be nice, but i know i can't, so i'll let that notion escape me. i do know that nothing about the day was super-duper-out-of-the-ordinary. i was around the same people, from 10am until just now (9:30pm), doing the same things that i'm relatively used to, and comfortable with. i didn't win the lottery, nobody confessed their undying love and devotion to me, there was no shopping spree involved, nobody awarded me an all-expense-paid trip to the other side of the world. that's ok. i probably don't need or want any of that stuff, anyway (although a few sound tempting). what was so great about the day was that every single moment felt real, like everything was happening as it should, like i was exactly where i needed to be, like although nothing particularly special was happening, i couldn't have been any happier. call it a revelation of sorts, it all coming down to the fact that i've got (pretty much) everything i could ever want or need, i'm healthy, i'm loved by family, i've got some good friends, i've been given the ability to communicate with and relate with people, i'm now a senior at a place that's more than just a college-- it's a family and a support system, the so-called "real world" is right ahead of me and i feel like i could handle just about anything that comes to me at the moment. of course i'll have weaker moments-- i expect them-- but today... i don't think there's such a thing. just not today.

so, today. training, lots of it. more particularly diversity training, and an opportunity to be treated as a person from a different background to more thoroughly see what it's like to walk in another's shoes. it was a simulation that involved sexual orientation (either straight or gay), gender (male or female), ethnicity (caucasian, african american, or asian), and different socioeconomic backgrounds (basically, we were handed play money at the beginning of the simulation-- some, a bunch of money, and others, not so much). there were tables around the room that we were supposed to visit: tables for a car salesperson, a wedding planner, an educational institution, a career place, and a real estate agent. we were supposed to see how far we could get with the demographics we'd each been given (which were a mystery to us at first, although the table people knew what/who we were and treated us all accordingly, and we caught on pretty quickly). i ended up being a straight black woman who was told she was lucky she graduated high school, that she'd have no place in college, who was told she probably wouldn't even be good handling fries at mcdonald's as a job, who was told that nobody would probably take her as a spouse, that she couldn't buy a car without the help of a white man who miiiight co-sign a loan for her, who could afford a little studio apartment in the ghetto living next to a weird starving artist and close enough to the bus line so she can get to and from the job that she doesn't have. i felt it. i was that person; i was treated as that person. after the simulation and after the debriefing, i still felt it. that sort of stuff sticks with me, and always has and always will-- and that's why conservative people like my cousin (will) will always consider me to be a flaming liberal, b/c of experiences like this one, and like the hunger banquet which i always inevitably end up being one of the people sitting on the floor with nothing to eat; part of the bottom, hardly-acknowledged, starving crowd that falls through the cracks of society all too often. how can a person not open their eyes, hearts, and minds to such people? are people really so into their jobs and their money that they forget that life isn't always peaches and cream like it is for them? i just can't gauge that mindset. i really can't. so anyway. most people seemed to think the exercise was a bit of a downer. of course it was a downer; it showed several pieces of reality that so many of us don't have to feel exposure to on a day-to-day basis, or for many of us, ever. to me, i think it was perfect. if we could just stay in the mindset on a daily basis, that this is the way it really is for so much of the american population (and i won't even go into the population outside this american bubble; it's enough and sometimes even too much for some people to just think about this stuff in terms of what's happening in our very own backyard!)




EDIT: so, it WAS the great day i was referring to earlier. then came some not-so-hot news that i sort of foresaw. basically, i might be getting screwed over by the system of a small school, in my last semester of classes, w/ the most important class before student teaching. but then again, i might not be. no, i probably won't be. i need to remain positive about this. there's no way they'd get away with letting me slip through the cracks... all will be ok... *sigh*