The first thing people say to me when we meet is how I look like someone they know or have met before. This is a good quality to have when you are a journalist, simply because people will tell you things they might not tell any other stranger.
Lately though, I see myself that way. Like someone I used to know. Things have changed and it is hard to keep up with my thoughts anymore.
I listened to this guy talking loudly in my direction about his account on Tinder, directly to me about having all kinds of fruity alcohol for girls to come over and spend time at his house and only having responsibility every other weekend. All I could think about was the safety of my kid. She'd been invited to a pool party, a surprise birthday party for her friend. When I arrived to drop her off, the mom offered me a beer.
I made the choice to stay because I don't know their drinking habits well enough to know how responsible they would be with my daughter. I knew the guy who was talking to me was the birthday girl's dad and that he had recently divorced from her mom, who was there with her new boyfriend. This is drama in the making. So I stayed.
I stayed because people who drink at a child's birthday party at a pool is a safety issue. I know that guy was trying to use his charm and drop all kinds of hints but . . . everything felt wrong. These people were not my crowd. It feels weird to say that because I have always felt that all people are my crowd but they are not.
It feels elitist to say I do things differently and I don't know why I felt they weren't putting the kids first.
It isn't only things like that, though. Not long after I finished my degree, one of my friends accused me of looking down on her because she wasn't as educated as I am. I was trying to offer her resources trying to steer the dysfunction of her family that exploded in my kitchen on a sunny Sunday after church, back to a healthier situation for all of them. I thought about it later and I realized that she would never understand where I came from, that I had to work hard and sacrifice relationships and sleep and sanity to achieve what I achieved. That I spent so many bleary nights wondering if my coffee intake was going to cause me a heart attack even if the stress from worrying about it didn't.
I schlucked through two of the most damaging lessons about love I could have gone through. But I still try to keep my heart open though my hope occasionally wanes. Then I suffered professionally what many people take as a politically left leaning bent about women in leadership in the federal government.
And I have come to know that others may never truly understand how truly tired I am of forging a path through life. But I have to keep moving forward, even though I desperately want to find a place to rest. I have to keep moving forward because there is a small person who needs to learn that though she will suffer heartache, there is a way to overcome it. Needs someone to help her navigate the slough of emotions that she will have to sort as she meets life's challenges. Someone to teach her how to assess consequences for her life choices and balance whether the possible outcomes are worth what you have to give up to acheive them. Someone to fill in the rest of the phrase when she asks out loud, "What if I fail?" By adding, "What if you succeed?"
It isn't enough to buy her art lessons when she says she wants to be an artist, I have to expose her to the many things in the world that inspire the greatness she sees in herself that will get worn by time and torn by circumstances. Then turn all of that into something that connects with the soul of others who will identify with her vision of life. The will recognize something in her art that teaches her that on the outside, some of us may stand out, but on the inside we are all connected somehow. That the thing that people recognize in her is that little thing that makes them the same. That she will never look in the mirror and not recognize herself.
There is a lot of work to do, there is no time to rest.
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