notageek

Despite being somewhat pleased about the results of the presidential election, he has grave concerns that President Bush will refuse to step down, and that the Constitution will be suspended.

This guy is homeless and depressed, was just fired as a patient from the low-income community clinic nearby, and…well, I don’t know what else, but I know he’s got more litany of woe in his backpack. But he’s not creepy and he always has a smile for me, and that goes a very, very long way.

“Hey Ma, you want anything knitted?”

“Nah, I have enough scarves.”

“I will make Daddy more hats, then.”

My life of late has been genuinely happy, which is historically unusual for me. For the first time in–six, eight, maybe ten–years I am in the position of, within reason, being able to do whatever I want. I have bills to pay and a job to go to, but the doctorate of Damocles dangles no longer. Rather suddenly, I find that I have Bad Memories of High School

When I was a teenager, high school was the worst period of my life. Now, having seen what lies beyond, I can say that high school has, so far, been the worst period of my life. Seven years have given me the time to compare the events of adolescence to those of adult life, the knowledge to place those pains in context, and the reassurance that I have at least some happy endings.  My teenage self had no such knowledge; my world as I knew it was ending. Waiting in my own warm house for my husband to come home, I can realize that knowing no one in my middle school was tragic and terrifying then but of little consequence now, that from the time I started dating I wanted someone to live with, not to have a fling with, that my body’s betrayals would result in what appears to be a fully-functional adult organism, that mental illness is not a personal failing and is manageable with medication, that my manipulative asshole boyfriend was not my responsibility alone.

Last month my mom and I stopped by her old high school to donate some of her yearbooks. I leaned against the chipped lockers outside the alumni association’s office and watched a hall full of half-grown children. I read in them defensiveness, desperation, the fear and anxiety of change and the burden of expectations; I saw in them my own old wounds, bleeding new under completely different flickering fluorescents. Nine years out I am a successful professional in a happy marriage with what looks like a promising future, and walking through a strange school for 15 minutes still reduced me to tears.

With my family still in the planning stages, this weighs heavy on my mind. How will I be able to help a child with those pains I have not yet mastered?