I guess you could say I’ve always lived in the past; or in the magical version of the past fantasy books bring; or even in the classic artistic periods of France and Germany that art books about Van Gogh and Monet describe. In other words, I have lived my life everywhere but the present. I am what you call a dreamer—or as my Mom would put it, “lazy.”
I’ve woken up every once and awhile in the past 18 years. To scramble to finish that last minute essay, to focus on that really freakin’ hard World History test; to get those last few credits needed to graduate. But in between those rare lucid moments I spend my life in books and stories, in worlds where good always triumphs and there’s no such thing as homework.
I have observed the world, wrote about it, read about it, photographed and drawn it. But I have never been of it. Even my mother knew from the time I was a baby that I seemed to be looking at the world from a distance. She would try and sing me or rock me to sleep and I would cry and scream. All she’d have to do was leave me in my crib—alone, no music, no back rub, nothing, and I would fall fast asleep. But then there were nights when she couldn’t sleep—when she was just too stressed or frustrated, too sad or angry to sleep, and I wouldn’t sleep either. She tells me this story often, because even now, I can tell when she’s stressed or feeling pressured (not when it comes to me of course—that would be too useful, only when it was outside my sphere of influence.) And in return, if I start lying too much to her, she gets this ‘sense’ that something’s wrong. Very annoying in the teenage years, especially when my mom has what I call a ‘super sniffer.’ I came home one day after going bowling with my boyfriend and two best friends and my mom looked at me suspiciously and sniffed at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Did you just have sex?” My mother asked. I caught off guard and my jaw dropped. I guess you could say I was shocked, embarrassed and slightly amused all at the same time.
“What?! No! Why on earth would you think that?” I had said. My mom gave me another suspicious sniff.
“I smell menstrual blood or something—did you just loose your virginity?”
“Oh my god! Mom! No! I’m on my period!” I am positive my face was bright red. My amusement was gone and I was completely horrified. My mother was trying to smell sex on me—virgin sex.
My mom narrowed her eyes at me, “Are you sure?”
“Yes I’m sure! Jeeze!”
“Well then you need to go change your pad or something.”
Oh my god. I slapped my hand to my forehead in shame.
I don’t think my face returned to its normal shade for two days after that. That had been one of those situations where I was suddenly and shockingly pulled into the present. My mother seems to have the ability to do that to me a lot—especially when it comes to awkward situations.
But my point is, that I’m not one to really pay attention to the world around me. Sure I was interested in the news and politics because of my aspirations to become a journalist, but nothing I ever saw or heard ever really affected me.
It seems a little self-absorbed to say that, especially during the eight years of hell Bush rained down on liberal and middle-eastern countries alike, but then again, I was only in the fourth grade on September 11th, 2001. The first tower fell as I walked to school. I didn’t hear the news until I got there and the other students were all talking about it. Half the kids didn’t show up, and the teacher turned on the news on our classroom television—she was too concerned and engrossed in the major even to consider how it would affect a bunch of nine year olds. It didn’t really much, because before the second tower was attacked, we assumed, as all of America assumed that it was an accident. And then we saw, live from New York, a second airplane crashing into the South Tower. I sat in my tiny elementary school desk as the first tower collapsed and then the second. Eventually the teacher came to her senses and turned the television off. I think watching her try and act normal for the rest of the day was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Of course, there were no adverse psychological effects from watching the news that morning in the aftermath of 9/11; it was just heartbreaking—for everyone else that is. I actually had a good day because my mom came and picked me up early from school. Everyone had been evacuated from her work because it was a potential target for terrorists. My mom worked for the Department of Energy at Rocky Flats Nuclear Plant.
Nine years later and we’re still dealing with the aftermath of 9/11. As Matt Gallagher put it in his book, Kaboom, we were “a nation at peace, [with] a military at war.” My mom, a veteran of Desert Storm didn’t like talking about the war very much. In fact, she’s never really been able to read stories about soldiers or even watch movies about wars. I’m sure Operation Iraqi Freedom, was a nightmare come true for her, the US was sending troops into the Middle East—again. But as I said, she never really talked about it. Her lack of words: that’s what convinces me that she still has nightmares about that place. The only story from her time in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 90’s is mind-bending. She almost shot a man in front of his daughter, a girl my sister’s age because she could not tell if he was the enemy or a civilian.
That’s truly what this “War on Terror” is. It’s not a war it’s a cat and mouse game of luck. Sometimes you guess right, but there are times you know you’ve guessed wrong, and the only way not to go crazy is to not think about it at all.
I’m eighteen years old and this is the first time my thoughts about the war have really pulled me into the present. Because I’ve read about WWI and WWII, I’ve seen documentaries about the Vietnam War and I watched old reruns of M*A*S*H. But if anything it only helped to make my image of war akin to the way I pictured of events from the books I read. None of it seemed real to me. Seeing the towers fall didn’t seem real—I was too young and it was too horrible to comprehend. Hearing President George W. Bush declare a “War on Terror” didn’t make it real. For at least five years nothing about the people who died and fought for our country—and not even for that, but for our country’s pride—affected me.
In a way I am lucky for that, because being a dreamer as I am, does not mean I am apathetic to the evils or the pain of human kind. If anything, reading about heroic deeds, tragic quests, and tales of magic, have made me more sensitive to the hurts of this world than many others.
But my luck seems to have run out. Because I can no longer ignore this war, these politics or the soldiers coming home with more than broken bones or broken hearts, but also with broken minds. I am the daughter of two soldiers. I am a citizen of the United States. I am a human being and I cannot, will not, ignore the suffering of my fellows. But it hurts, it hurts to think about the soldiers dying, the civilians bleeding and pleading. It hurts to see politicians arguing and man turning on man. It hurts to see the angry faces and hear the violent voices baying for our president’s blood—some of them even meaning it literally. The day I saw our first African American President elected I felt so much hope. I felt certain that things would change. Since then I have learned a very valuable lesson, no force on earth can stop change and no wise man can predict when it will come or how it will make its mark. Some things changed, most things didn’t. The economy is crap—still. Our education system is crap—still. Most of our troops are home but many are still there. Many more are transferred to Afghanistan, because there’s still a threat out there.
There are so many thoughts whirring in my mind and so much compassion and pain and disbelief in my heart, that I long for the days when I was too young to notice or understand. I have a sense of purpose and duty that will not let me sit by and watch prejudice and racism tear my country apart. I have a sense of love and hope that will not let me sit by and watch my country do nothing to help the world.
I am willingly walking into a maelstrom in hopes of calming the wind itself, but I walk because chains of love, fear, and hope pull me towards it. To stand by now and let the world do as it may would be the same as ripping apart my soul.
I want to sleep, I want to write, I want to sit under a shady tree on a hot day and read a good book. But some sense of purpose pulls me towards more. For now it is put on hold for classes and homework, for fear of disappointing those I love and failing to accomplish the seemingly necessary task of graduating college. I long to rip away these ‘priorities’ and follow the only true sense of purpose I have felt in my life. But I don’t know how. I used to be able to ask someone for the answer if I didn’t know it, but looking around I see so many people with their own chains, their own ‘priorities’ that I don’t even know who to ask, or if there’s anyone who can answer.
I leave my question at the feet of the Universe, in the powerful hands of the divine, on the doorstep of that real of infinite possibilities and I wait.
I am so tired of waiting, but I will wait, now, just one more time, for life to show me the answer.
I only hope that it won’t come too late.
