the stories i didn't tell my parents...

we went out clubbing tonight for my friend's bachelorette party. it was the first time i've been dancing in awhile, and it brought me back to the early years of living in chicago. a lot has changed since the frenetic weekends of loud and drinking and dancing. i unapologetically check in for the night by 10, for example. i don't miss the numbing, i don't miss the pain of that first year, i don't miss the instability of figuring out what it means to be an adult, the feeling of the floor moving from underneath my feet. my shifting into adulthood was far less rebellious than some. i teased the boundaries, i showed more than a few people that a white girl can dance, and i got my fair share of free drinks, but my friends held me safely into place.

i miss that safety net of friends. they are still there, but our lives are much more separate since the weddings the weddings the weddings. and though i love my boyfriend, there was something to the bigger group, the collective community, that is lost in the finding of intimacy with one person.

so anyway, the dress that i wore tonight is one that always gets compliments. i waited for two months for it to be marked down to twenty dollars at anne taylor loft, the recipient of most of my paychecks my first year of teaching. (darn them and their convenient locations just off the el stop! i could purchase a pair of pants before i even got to work.) it is the number one seller on the rachel's clothing exchange for friends.

the most memorable night i wore this dress came one night after a mental breakdown. too many drinks of rum into the night i started screaming at my friends who i had earlier invited into our apartment for a party. sure, the lights were out and the music was on, but a drunk screaming girl is hard to ignore. i don't remember what i was so angry about, other than i knew that on the coldest night of the year, mid february, one of my students was being evicted from my apartment and there was nothing i could do to help or change the situation. he survived. so did i.

the next day my friend had invited me to an event at the chicago history museum. a fundraiser for one of her friends; we got to schmooze with the fancy peeps of the city. my other friends had gone to the viagra triangle to try their luck at a new club. i was planning to meet them there at the conclusion of the historical center gala.

i grabbed a cab and directed it to the place where the old meet the young. the car pulled up to p.s. chicago, an epically unclassy joint. i paid the fare, and got out of the cab. in front of the club, quite a scene was unfolding. an older gentleman, way past his prime clubbing days (we're talking 65) was being attacked by a younger african american woman. she had the hysterical look of someone who is chronically mentally ill. they were fighting their way out of the club. she was yelling at him and he was more or less grunting back. all of a sudden she pulled out a knife and started stabbing him. it wasn't a big knife, but he fell over and she straddled him while screaming. security had already been alerted to the situation and were doing their best to reason with unreasonable people.

i stepped over the man to get in to the club.

seriously.

i had forgotten about the story until tonight. nothing happened at near that dramatic a scale. but i find the whole situation a little baffling.

you always wonder what you might do in a crisis situation. will you be the hero that will save the day, that will step up to the plate and make the tough call, say the brave words, do the things others won't? or will you be the passive observer who looks the other way and implicitly allows a crime to be committed before your eyes?

i honestly don't think i could have been helpful in this situation. but the truth of the matter is, i didn't care. i was completely numb to the suffering of another person who was inches from me.

on dirty sexy money, the tv show, there was a line that really struck me. one character says, "do you think he's capable of murder?" and the response he got was, "we're all capable of everything."

i get that. i understand how simple it is to walk over someone's body to get to hang out with my friends. it's true i wasn't in a healthy mental state. it's true i was under an extraordinary amount of stress. it's true that within days of that moment i would be essentially homeless. but the fact is that you don't know how low you can go until you get there. and when you get to that low point, it is a moment of grace to realize how much lower you could have gone.

i think it is true that we are all capable of everything--in the most negative and the most positive ways. i have come a far stretch from that cold february night. i hope to have a far stretch still to come. i am not so naive as to think that that one evening was the lowest point to my life, but it was a reminder of my limitations, my humanity, and my brokenness.

tonight was fun. it was great to be out with the girls and not to think about the creepy men in the club. it was fun to meet new friends and to surprise them with my dancing. it is still a thrill to move move move on the dance floor. but i think my favorite part was getting to remember.

sad

today was frustrating. i was pissy. it started with a new student brought to my door. I had gotten a student the day before that I haven't been able to connect to yet, so one more was frustrating. not to say i won't love her, because i will. but more annoying was the fact that i spent most of yesterday calling the office to get them to bring a desk and chair for my first new student, which they never did, and eventually i had to scrounge one off another teacher.

so when the office secretary brought the new girl to my door, i wasn't exactly polite when i said, "i will not take her in my until you bring a desk and a chair."

i'm rarely if ever rude to people and the secretary didn't know what to do with that. but a desk and chair were brought within the half hour. honestly. to get any favors done for you in our school you have to be rude or showing cleavage to a janitor.

then the day continued with frustrating dead ends when it came to trying to get help for a student i am almost sure is being sexually abused. and honestly, i don't think he is going to get the help he needs until he physically harms another student. an eight year old. why is the system so desperate that we can't do any preventative care for our students?

and then i got frustrated thinking about Joe Wilson and his asinine remarks toward Obama. Which I am CONVINCED he felt he could do because Obama is black. Never ever has a president been under so much scrutiny simply because he had the audacity to want to be president. Obama's record is shockingly clean, and the best that the right can bring against him is inflammatory b.s. about him being a Muslim. i mean, seriously. disagree with his politics, but how dare you disrespect the office of president by yelling in a congressional meeting?

And someone posted on one of my brother's posts about health care. My brother posted a statistic that one person in America dies every fifty minutes due to not having health care. Or something to that effect. The response from one of our mutual friends? Oh, one unborn baby dies every twenty minutes in abortion.

Seriously???? SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!?! i spent most of the ride to school composing responses to that post. ok. abortion is sad. no argument. and health care reform is necessary. why are these at odds with one another? Why can you only choose to care about one? and how many of those babies that are being aborted would even be offered health care? because a lot of the aborted babies are black, and from what i've experience in the past four years or so, not too many people care too much about little black kids. other than to say that their parents are inadequate and it's a shame they can't pull themselves together. i honestly don't think people should be allowed to be pro life unless they are willing to actually care for the needs of the child from the time they are born until the time they die. personally care for those needs. i mean, abortion is hardly even the tip of the ice burg of a pro life platform.

anyway. i'm in a bad mood. i get that. fuel for the fire. but that does feel better than apathy.

13.1

I ran a half marathon. At about mile 11 it occurred to me that most people don't run 11 miles. Even as slowly as I do. Especially as slowly as I do. Anyway, it was a good race. I was excited to finally get to see the results of a lot of training. And the best part was that until mile 9, I felt really strong. The last four miles were horrendous. But I finished. And afterword, I felt powerful.

It's a weird thing to see yourself change looking through the rear view mirror. My body wakes me up at 7 every day, even when I sleep in. I have a pet dog, which means I have a commitment to another creature that lives in my house. And I have set some goals and met them. I guess I have always done that, but often times I feel like I give up before I actually accomplish my goals.

But this time, despite missing an occasional training, we trained for months. There were some really great runs, and some really terrible ones (none worse than the run I did after drinking McDonalds coffee. I am neither a coffee drinker or an advocate of McDonalds) but it was just a run when it was all said and done.

Then yesterday came around and I was amazed at how fast the mile markers would come. (Understand, I only refer to the ones before mile 10!) I remember my first four mile run and how proud I was to finish. Now I've completed a half marathon. And it won't be my last.

I am so impatient. I want instant results. I want easy answers, I want change and I want it immediately. I want my students to be able to read. Tomorrow. I want to lose 10 more pounds. Today. I want to be more organized. Tonight. But life isn't that way.

The magnet on my fridge is just an oval with 13.1 written in black block type. But for me it stands for more. It stands as a reminder that life is a long obedience in the same direction. It is doing the next thing again and again and again. Most days are not exciting. And then you get to a race day that reminds you how far you've actually come.

On the other side 13 miles doesn't seem very far. It's funny how perspective changes everything. Now I know that I can run 13 miles, and I wonder if 26.2 is my next step? Or a faster 13.1? And oddly, either way, it starts with another 3 mile run tomorrow.