"Howdy, Partner" (Meeting #6)

Like a comet pulled from orbit,

As it passes a sun.

Like a stream that meets a boulder,

Halfway through the wood.

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

But because I knew you,

I have been changed for good.

-From the Broadway musical, Wicked

It is a peculiar feeling, to say goodbye. Even after almost 20 years of bidding farewell to those whose paths have crossed mine, it never seems to become easier for me, especially when I realize that, more than likely, I will never encounter the person again. Coming to accept that this is reality, that this is the inevitable course of life, is rather difficult; it is natural, yet unnerving. Perhaps I am too sentimental; I will admit that. Although I have only known Yi-Ray for about two and a half months, it seems like we have known one another for an extended amount of time, being able to discuss personal interests, trials and tribulations, and topics pertaining to race and culture. Even if saying goodbye was simple, it was not any easier; the farewell still tugged upon the strings of my heart, playing a lamenting tune. Optimists say we will meet again. I wish I could believe that, but I have learned better. This was it. This was goodbye.

            Even in our last meeting, however, silence refused to echo the room; she always had much to share. We discussed the future--plans before us, uncertainties surrounding us. Excitedly, Yi-Ray talked about how she would be leaving the country soon, returning with her family to Korea for several months. Consequently, I asked when she would be returning to the Fort, but her smile instantly disappeared; her face grew grim. Her chatter stilled as she explained that they would be moving to another state once they returned from Korea; however, when I asked which state would become her new home in America, she could not reply. All she knew in certainty was that it could be anywhere but here--they were never to return to the Fort. As I absorbed this shocking news, I glanced at her impassive face. For a moment, I sensed apprehension in her eyes. I was rendered powerless; there was nothing I could do to reassure her, for I did not know what the future would hold either, though, I like to believe it will be good.

            Enlightenment struck; I realized my worries were trivial in comparison to hers. As I stress over exams, papers, and class projects, she is left to wonder where her next American home will be, what remains in the future between her and her husband, and what type of life her daughter will have. How can I possibly complain about my life when Yi-Ray marches forward with a quiet confidence and inner strength that leaves me in awe? There is no comparison.

            When we bid farewell for the final time, she gave me a hug, her motherly instincts encompassing me. It reminded me of my own mother; it made me sad. Yi-Ray continued to thank me for all that I have done, but I could not fathom what I did to deserve such gratitude; I helped her with English as much as I could, and simply had conversations with her. It was not work for me; truthfully, I actually enjoyed the opportunity. I told her she needn't thank me, but she shook her head reverently; she said she must. Quizzically, I asked why. A smile slowly spread across her face, as she told me that she was thankful for having me as a friend.

            I will remember Yi-Ray, my conversation partner, my new friend. In truth, however, it is I who should be thankful--grateful for how she has helped me, influenced me, and changed me. It is I who am left to admire her, thank her, and remember her always.

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

But because I knew you,

I have been changed for good.

"No Girls: Library Research 1950s/'60s"

            Since I was a little girl, I would wonder what life was like for my mother while she was growing up, why she could not always understand the latest fads, or why her attitudes upon certain issues were so unshakeable. I had thought that she must have grown up in a completely different world than mine, and to some extent, she had. The 1950's and the 1960's were a time of change, of advancement, of redefining social expectations and standards. Often, we forget that the times we live in now are severely different from the time that many of our parents were born. After looking at various editions of Newsweek Magazine from the 1950's and 1960's, however, I have a new understanding of my mother.

            The feature article that quickly caught my attention in the April 7, 1958 publication of Newsweek was titled "Yale's 'Devils'". The caption for the photo next to the article read, "Boy meets girl at Harvard, but not at Princeton." This was odd, I thought, as I began to read into the article further. The article discussed how Yale University invited Smith and Vassar undergraduate students to study with the male students at Yale. I am under the assumption that Smith and Vassar were all-women universities, while Yale at the time was not yet co-ed, but perhaps on the long journey to becoming one. Shockingly, however, the Princeton media was not pleased with this new form of integration. It was quoted that the Daily Princetonian stated, "'The President of Yale University was in league with Devil Woman...the presidents of Smith and Vassar promptly snuck across the borders...had tea with President Griswold, and then announced the odious decision,'".

            As the article continued, my disbelief only grew. The article discussed how coeducation was implemented in all of the Ivy League schools, except for Dartmouth and Princeton. Princeton's official reasoning for their anti-coeducation stance was, "'We just don't have the money for such things as a women's dormitory,'". The most beautiful aspect of this article, though, was the following final statement, "At Yale, a women's dormitory was going up."

            This article was an excellent depiction of what the coming-of-age experience was like in the 1950's and 60's, and the need for equal educational opportunities. For us today, leaving home and going to college is a major coming-of-age experience; for women during those times, however, getting into college was the ultimate challenge, the test of determination, maturity, and the desire to learn. Being "banned" from attending some of the top universities based upon gender is not a relevant concern of ours today, but in the 1950's, it meant everything to a woman pursuing a higher education. Their coming-of-age experience was undoubtedly different from mine. It is amazing to see how far our nation has come, but also humbling to realize how hard people worked for us to be here now-- having the ability to make our dreams a reality.

            Additionally, this period placed emphasis on women's rights and the development of technology. In terms of women's rights, there were articles discussing how women should begin to wait until they are older for marriage, due to increased rates of abortions, divorces, and pregnancies. To see the magazine advocating for women's rights (especially their rights for their body) was surreal, as two years after this magazine edition was published, the Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills. Lastly, there were ads upon ads discussing technology, such as the newest versions of automobiles, moon and space travel, and planes. One article even discussed that by the year 2000 we would have flying automobiles! Reading the magazines from this time is inspirational, eye opening, and comical. It is amazing to realize all that all we have today is thanks to what has been dreamed of and accomplished then. I must say, I have a new understanding of my mother, and a new respect for the people of her time.

"Three Minutes" (Life Sketch)

Three minutes. One-hundred and eighty seconds. One-twentieth of an hour.

            Three minutes. That’s all you have—to deliver a decisive blow, to bring your opponent to their knees, to make them beg for mercy, to declare ultimate victory. Three minutes.

            He glares into my eyes, searching my soul for one thing, and one thing only. He is searching for the demons to clench at my heart, shadow my eyes, and shake my body into tremors. He is searching for fear. From the darkness in his eyes, and the smirk upon his face, I know what he wants. He wants to prove that I am weaker, that I am afraid, that I am inadequate to him. Beyond it all, he wants blood to be splattered upon the floor of the arena. My blood.

            In this arena, there are no amicable feelings between us; those feelings died long ago the moment he placed a knife in my back. He is a wolf in sheep’s skin. Those eyes tell me so.

            The time is set on the clock, and we begin. Three minutes. That is how long we will fight. We will fight one another until the time is up, unless one of us is rendered unable to move first. Today, he plans for that to be me. How do I know? It is because his girlfriend told him so. She told him to make me cry, to make me hurt, because maybe then, her insecurities would go away.

            She is on the sidelines, shouting at him to destroy the fat, ugly girl. Then, she laughs. I can hear that laugh echo in my mind, as my eyes never break concentration on him. I feel heat creeping up my neck, burning away at my cheeks. They call me names at school, and I ignore them. Now should be no different, I tell myself. Now is the time to do what I cannot do at school.

            He lunges towards me, aiming at my face. My hands quickly go up to block, and then in a split-second, I feel his foot plummeting into my ribs. Instinct takes over, and my knee makes contact with his chest, my fist soon to follow. His breath escapes upon the back of my neck as I withdraw to fire a kick at his head. He quickly dodges, the side of his head missing my foot by a near inch. The monster then emerges. Throttling himself at me, he begins thrashing away at my face and body with his firsts and merciless kicks. In the midst of his attack, one clear kick nails me in my temple, clouding the vision in my right eye. The smirk returns to his face; he believes he is about to win because I have always been submissive, weak, unaggressive.

            However, he has severely misjudged me.

Today, I have something to fight for, something I am not willing to lose.

            As he attempts to fire another kick deep into my jaw, I block and catch his foot, causing him to stumble. The smirk instantly disappears as my foot meets his cheekbone, no longer holding back. We begin to throw blows at one another simultaneously. The room has grown utterly silent, but I barely notice for all I hear is his panting, his gasps for breath, my heartbeat.

            We are lost in motion, in chaos. My fists collide with flesh and bone, my feet dance upon the ground, readily flying at his head. He attempts to do the same, but I feel his knees going weak. The glare from his eyes has returned, as he squints from the sweat pouring down the sides of his face. Staring straight back at him, I am only reminded of what he has done to me, the offenses and crimes he has committed against me, how he has looked down upon me. Today he had hoped to destroy me, to prove to all who were watching that I am nothing.

            Time is up. Our instructors are pulling us apart, offering support to our battered bodies. The instructors stare at me silently for a long moment, and then nod. That was enough for me.

            As I walk past my fellow peers, they are quiet, but nod at me as well. Someone gives my shoulder a firm squeeze, another pats my back. From this day forward, things would change.

Bruises and cuts will eventually fade, but memories of this fight will not. They are scarred upon his memory, as they are engraved in mine. For him, he wanted blood, but the blood on the arena floor that day was not mine; he will always know that. For me, I just wanted respect. 

Three minutes. One-hundred and eighty seconds. One-twentieth of an hour. Three minutes.

"Tick Tock Tick" (Life Sketch)

April 22, 2011. 11:31 P.M.

I asked a question, a question somewhere deep inside of me, I knew the answer to, but was too afraid to accept. It was a question I asked two weeks prior, and been told to wait for an answer. On this night, he told me we could meet the following day, grab a meal, and discuss it. But, this was no business deal. It was a matter of the heart. From his reply, I knew my heart was going to break. How was I sure? It was because I asked for honesty—the truth, thus so received.

April 22, 2011. 11:59 P.M.

            My hand trembled as I held my phone, reading his answer. Slowly, I scrolled through his text messages, reading each line, fully absorbing the words, the confession, the truth. A weight sunk upon my chest, and my hands grew cold and clammy. For a brief moment, life was sucked out of me, and I was a fish upon land. There never seems to be a pleasant truth; those mysterious wise folk who always said, “Ignorance is bliss”, was indeed correct.

Yet, even in the pain, I could not find regret for asking for the truth. I only regretted that I had not asked sooner, because on this night, I discovered that what I thought was real was not. I learned I had spent the last three months blinded by the boy who admitted, he was leading me on. He confessed that he realized what he was doing, yet he had continued, and now what is left is the truth in front of me. I buried my face into my hands. Faintly in the background, there was the constant tick, tock, tick. Time kept going; it never stopped. In a minute, it would be a new day.   

April 23, 2011.

A new day did come, and I worked on two term papers. It was all I could do, for now.

April 24, 2011. 10:40 A.M.

            This day was a beautiful Easter morning. My love for God urged me to attend church. However, the boy who revealed the truth that shook my reality less than 36 hours ago also attended the same church as I. We normally walked there together; today would be no different. I put on my best Easter outfit, and let my focus be on God. For that moment, I smiled, honestly.

            Once we entered the sanctuary, my smile faded as I saw her, sitting in the pews. I bit my bottom lip as I followed the boy towards the seats, towards the seats next to her. They chatted, they smiled, they laughed. She was on his left, I was on his right, but I could only wish that I were invisible, so at least there would have been an excuse for why he ignored me in front of her.

            After service, people stopped and gathered. He introduced her to everyone around, and then to me. I smiled and said hello, but I already knew who she was; she was his ex-girlfriend, and as he had revealed, I was only the rebound after her. From her forced smile and nervous shifting, she knew who I was too. Thus, I bid farewell and walked back to campus, alone, trying to remove the salt he had rubbed into the wound. It was the longest walk I had ever taken.

April 24, 2011. 3:10 P.M.

There was a knock on my door. I opened it, and he was there. He came in, and began asking if he could buy me food. I stared at him in disbelief. He kept asking, pushing. Of all people, why would I want him to buy me food, I thought. Then, he admitted he heard I had not been eating in the last day. My disbelief only grew; first, that was not true, and secondly, he had no right to be doing this. Frankly, I had lost some of my appetite from disgust at the situation, at the jerk, and at myself for being so stupid, so blind to have fallen into the trap.

Then, in the midst of my thoughts, I heard him speak again, telling me that he hoped I wouldn’t do something I would regret, because he wanted me to know, he wasn’t worth it. Wait, I thought, is he telling me to not kill myself over him? Oh my goodness, he is! He then continued to tell me that he wanted to check my mental stability, as finals were coming up, and he didn’t want me to throw it all away for him. This form of arrogance was appalling, shocking, perhaps one of the greatest insults I had ever received in my life. Normally, I would have just nodded, stayed silent, and kept my thoughts to myself. However, today was different.

I stared at him, straight in the eyes as I said, “Don’t worry, I know you’re not worth it.” In that moment, I realized what self-respect was; and, because of that, I would never be the same.