Adversity begets change, but it doesn't change who we are

So, I'm sure I've discussed how adversity changes you, close to ad nauseum. Nevertheless, the subject continues to deliver.

I'm still in the midst of re-watching the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," soon with the series of "Angel" intermingled with it. I just started watching season three.

In the last episode of season two, Angel gets his soul back, just in time to be banished into oblivion. It's all more than Buffy can take, and she runs away from Sunnydale. Upon her return, in the first episode of season three, she's greeted with a lot of mixed emotions from her friends and family. They all felt pretty slighted by Buffy leaving without a word, and without any contact.

The thing Buffy forgot is that while she was going through her own personal hell, her friends and family were going through their own things too. It doesn't lessen what she was going through, but she was so overwhelmed by her inability to cope with her own problems, that she couldn't be the friend or daughter that her friends and family needed.

Things changed while she was on her own, and they changed while she put being there for people on hold.

Life's like that. I've been going through something very, very similar lately. I've spent a lot of time trying to find a way out of what has felt like a bottomless pit of despair. (Clearly, I am dedicated to my fantasy genre.) I have had difficulty being kind when I should have been. I have been quiet when I shouldn't have been. I have been absent when I should have been present. I've apologized for it where I can. Adversity changed me. It's not an excuse, and it's not something I'm proud of.

I know other people who have been trying to battle through their own personal wars, and finding themselves changing along the way as well. It's tough. When you find yourself losing the fight, you also seem to find yourself scrambling for any ray of sunshine you can find, even if it isn't real. That's a tough place to be too, because when you realize the little shred of hope you had was false, you get to feel like you failed all over again.

Two of my best friends are looking for jobs. One here at home, one across the pond. Both have been dealt difficult blows in their careers. Neither were happy before they felt those blows come crashing upon them. The hard part is facing the constant string of rejections that naturally goes hand in hand with job hunting. It's a little like dating--you don't marry everyone you go out with. You don't get every job for which you interview.

One of my friends had a really tough interview yesterday, but it was going well. One question dropped an emotional bomb on the entire scene, forcing my friend to relive the rejection and loss of the last job unraveling without warning. It makes you spiral. It's hard to focus on the likelihood that maybe the firing squad style interview session said a little more about the culture of this company than emotional implosion said about my friend. After all, if they really wanted to get to know my friend, asking the person who in a matter of three sentences pulled the rug out from under them probably wouldn't tell them anything about my friend at all.

The little shard of light--extinguished. My friend has gone on to fight another day, both with himself and with the hunt. But it doesn't feel any less bad.

When people see you at your worst, and understand why, you mistakenly assume that they will extend understanding and kindness. But life goes on whether you're a part of it or not. And for other people, what they are going through outweighs what you are going through. It's only natural. But it doesn't make you stop wishing for understanding and forgiveness. It doesn't make you stop looking at yourself cross-eyed.

But just because you bear your own responsibility for some of the wounds you have sustained, it doesn't mean that you should accept that people want to kick you when you're down. And sometimes the kicking just makes you angry. You want to look at people and just say: "I get it. You got what you want. Stop sabotaging any tiny bit of happiness I am trying to find for myself." But you can't. You can't say anything, because adversity changed you, and you were in the wrong. It's almost as if you no longer have a right to ask to be treated decently.

Sometimes we can't talk to anyone about how we feel. Sometimes everyone close to us is going through something and they can't bear one more bit of darkness. Sometimes they can't even bear a tiny sliver of your light. It leaves you in a hazy, grey static world that is probably moving forward, but you can't feel it.

It doesn't matter how much you want to defend yourself, or the things in your life that have meaning. Nothing feels worse than people having the power to chip away at your dreams, even if they do it from a distance. Having tiny pieces of your hopes belittled or torn at sucks. It just does.

Adversity changes us, but it doesn't change our core.

When Buffy came back to Sunnydale, her friends felt so awkward around her that when her mother invited them for a quiet dinner, they threw an impromptu party so they wouldn't have to really deal with her. Buffy found herself surrounded by people who didn't really know or care about her. She felt isolated and alone, and it made her want to run away, all over again.

Sometimes you gotta die to live.

Luckily, zombies attacked, and being the slayer that she is, she managed to rally her friends to defeat them. No matter how much adversity had changed her, and no matter how much she had hurt the people she loved with her absence and melancholy, she was still the same Buffy.

Sometimes, we just need to to have a brush with death to come back to life.

Changing--The Airborne Toxic Event

A miscarriage of justice: We are all guilty

So, a little over a year ago, I wrote a blog referencing the actions of George Zimmerman that led to the slaying of Trayvon Martin.

I've never made it any secret that I'm not a fan of guns, but at the same time, I've always maintained that responsible gun ownership is okay by me. I understand that the gun--an inanimate object--does not cause harm alone. My blog at that time specifically addressed the sad trend that some of us seem to feel that any affront justifies taking armed action.

I think many people I find myself friends with think that there has been a great miscarriage of justice in the acquittal of George Zimmerman. While I tend to agree, I also have to remember that only a small number of people actually had the opportunity to be present for the trial itself, and the presentation of all of the available and allowable evidence.

As Americans, we should all value the stipulation that our prosecutors must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

It is true that there are many instances in which our justice system fails, and innocent individuals are tried and wrongly convicted. The scales still tip heavily toward a black man going to prison largely based on color. It is still true, and will probably continue to be so a for a long time, that young, African American men are disproportionally underemployed, undereducated and overly persecuted in our nation. It's undeniable that as a nation we have made strides, but if you consider the most basic thing that all humans share--our common DNA regardless of color--we started at a grossly negative base.

This widely acknowledged lack of proportion serves to make the perceived unfairness of the Zimmerman verdict all the more outrageous to those of us who long for a day when the scales of justice balance, and the equal opportunity for every man (regardless of color), and every woman, to pursue the American dream and achieve equal rights is no longer something we have to belabor.

My husband and I live in what I like to call an "eclectic" neighborhood. Many people I know think of the area in which we live, and they think of crime and racial imbalance. It's true, as a white couple, we are a minority on our block. There are many young families with children and teenagers in our neighborhood. Many of those young people hang out in the streets at all hours of the day and night, doing whatever young people do these days. I don't worry about it very much. By the same token, we happen to have a young man in our neighborhood that in the most kind language we could use, we would classify as a total thug creeper. He happens to be white. What bothers me is knowing that if something happened in my neighborhood and a police patrol car trolled through, the thug creeper probably wouldn't garner as much attention as all of the young, black men who might happen to be outside.

And that's one of the biggest issues. A young black man in a hoodie raised suspicion in George Zimmerman's eyes. It's said that a series of burglaries in his neighborhood led Zimmerman to start his neighborhood watch. Unfortunately, many of those crimes had been perpetrated by men of color.

None of us will probably ever know exactly what happened the day that George Zimmerman took Trayvon Martin's life. None of us were there. Because of our perceptions, even witness accounts differ.

I think George Zimmerman's motivation skewed. It may be that in the beginning, his desire to lead a neighborhood watch probably was out of genuine concern for the safety of those around him and for the protection of personal property. But that motivation twisted. Like all of us, I think Zimmerman saw in this watch an opportunity to be important and to be special. Many of us think about what it would feel like to be the person "saving the day." Many of us wish for opportunities to be recognized for good works and good deeds.

And that's where Zimmerman's actions spun out of control and led to the death of a young, unarmed man. Whether Trayvon really beat the tar out of Zimmerman or not is a moot point. In the context of the moment, the prevailing perception among white Americans that a young black man is a threat won out, and Zimmerman acted out a dream of being hero. Those of us who believe that justice failed can now only hope that when he closes his eyes at night, that action has become a lifelong nightmare. Living with the guilt of taking an unarmed man's life will be the only possible punishment Zimmerman faces.

It is true that those who disagree with the verdict will not make life easy for Zimmerman, but over time, even that dog will lose interest in its hunt. Another sensational criminal trial will fill the shoes of this case, and the real injustice will continue.

The real injustice is not that George Zimmerman was found "not guilty." The real injustice is that we continue to live in a country where Trayvon Martin was seen as a threat because of his color. The real injustice is that that perception made it very difficult for witnesses to see the unvarnished truth of the events that played out. The real injustice is that as the descendants of founding fathers who perpetrated one of the greatest acts of hypocrisy--declaring that all men are created equal, while believing that only white men are created equal--the inequities of race will continue to be an issue in our nation.

Black men, women and children are no longer slaves, living in chains on plantations in America, but they are just as enslaved by the inequity of perception that is racism. We chafe at the accusation of being racist, but we seem unable to move passed the lip-service we give to racial equality, and to true racial equality--the kind where we talk about being human, not about being black, white or any other color.

As the conversation continues until interest finally wanes, it's important for all of us, regardless of how we view the verdict itself, to remember that the only way to achieve true justice for Trayvon Martin is to learn about ourselves and to recognize our own failings in the perpetuation of inequality.

Vampire moments: the agents of change

So, I am watching the final episode of the first season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

I forgot how much I love this show. It's a perfect mix of camp, teenage angst, cliques, and an occasional deeply significant truth.

In this last episode, Willow walks into her school's AV room to find her friends have all been killed by vampires. She is naturally devastated. As she recounts seeing this destruction to Buffy, she talks about how everything is different. The vampires have made her world their own.

It's a crucial moment--the realization that everything you know has changed.

Change is hard, even when we choose it.

The thing is, life is mostly a series of changes strung together by moments. They can be great moments. They can be terrible.

My husband and I are in the midst of what feels like an endless maelstrom of change, instigated by many moments that have been terrible. It is true that we have tried to sprinkle a few great ones in wherever we could, but sometimes it's hard to focus. 

We've been on a path leading to an unknown place for awhile now. But as uncertain as things have been, they are far more uncertain than ever before. As we consider what the future holds, it seems time to talk about going through things and tossing aside things we can surely live without. It seems time to wonder where "home" really will be.

Sometimes life leaves marks no one can see. 

The places that we have lived in our day-to-day became strange to us, because we became strange to them. When hard things happen, they change you. When you change so much, the people you know sometimes stop knowing you. Everything feels different. Your world sometimes no longer feels like it's your own.

When I look around, I barely recognize our life, but most people probably can't see that. They only see the strangeness in who we have become after all the moments.

Time has a way of sorting things out, and I know that whatever happens, everything will be okay. I'm also sure there are lessons to be learned from all of it, no matter how tired we are of being "taught."

It's not like we don't know that things could be worse, or that there are people in the world facing greater difficulties than our own. It's more that we would like to be find ourselves in a place where the agents of change would allow us enough of a breather to focus on something other than all the extreme life events that keep pulling us down this crazy path.

I don't think anyone ever plans to become so self-absorbed, but when the buckets of rain keep pouring down, you tend to become a little bit of a sponge.

It's true that neither of us has walked into a room to discover that people we care about have had the lives sucked out of them by vampires, but the vampires of life have certainly drained part of our spirits, and I don't know that either of us will be the same again.

These vampire moments force us to look at ourselves and our lives. They force us to gain perspective, and to learn what it is that we really want. They force us to think about our own roles in the changes that we have to face. In the midst of pain, we don't always see ourselves so clearly. But when we have no choice, we finally have no choice.

Change is hard. It's hard when we choose it. It's hard when we don't. Sometimes, the only thing to do is try again. The only thing to do is to start over with a new life. 


Hope--Rush