snug

I'm deciding that something is not cliche if it is the first time you yourself have experienced it. Then, it is only a new sensation, perhaps one that many others have known, have written about and adopted certain language for, but it is still new in my body. That said, a few words about taking things for granted.

Inherent to this phenomenon is a lack of awareness of said things. If we took something for granted, we almost paid no notice to it or to the lack of it. Recognizing the object or person or feeling has never been a conscious effort just as we don't pay much attention to the mechanics of driving once we've got a couple hundred miles under our belt. So, it is a startling realization when something goes missing that has always been there.

There have been many wake-up calls in the past six weeks. Perhaps, a thorough documentation will follow in a later post. For now, as I came with the intent to write about my classes, it seems dishonest to ignore the creeping sensation of the week; the absence of security, something less than an absolute certainty in my safety.

I can remember only three distinct times in my life when I've felt anything less than bullet-proof:

There was the summer of the rape in the cemetery. The story that made breaking news in our little town for weeks on end. That  
kept me and Jo inside for the best months of the year. Me, rationalizing the chances of being found at 336. Jo, poised with pots and 
pans to protect herself.

Watching planes crash into towers when I got home from school one day. Just days into sixth grade and I tried to wrap my bubble 
of a mind around the idea that someone somewhere didn't like our country. And that our borders weren't impermeable like I
somehow imagined them to be.

The day we played that inner-city team and I had to guard the big girl.


Of course, there have been flashes of scary Carmen San Diego dreams, getting stuck at the top of roller coasters, and someone walking a little too close behind me in between. But for the most part, my birth into a town facing big issues like traffic at rush hour and people breaking architectural standards, and my matriculation into a school with these mystical blue buttons on every corner which can supposedly morph into policemen, have cemented a permanent sense of safety when it comes to my physical well-being.
So, it was with great trepidation that I walked around my room, trying to fathom what kind of a world I have entered that someone could break into my living space and take something that wasn't theirs. What kind of a place is this where last year's keys to my current room are still floating around? Where they don't have video cameras to show us what happened? Where the law enforcers themselves can be won over with a bribe? Not so puzzling for my program coordinator, the detective, the security guard, or even my Ghanaian friend across the hall. But it blew my little ironclad mind.

Probably an important thing to come to terms with by the age of 20.
The truth that the world is not, in fact, a place in which the very trees were put to protect me. That not everyone is my friend. That not every lock is  impenetrable. A simple fact, yes, but how tightly I cling to my rose-colored spectacles. How frequently I continue inventing alternative narratives that would explain why my laptop is not where I left it. How strongly I refuse to believe I sleep in a room that someone could and would enter without knocking.

And even now, of course, my understanding of what it is to be truly unsafe barely cracks the surface. I have insurance, a brand new lock on the way,  the knowledge that this is only temporary- that I have a beautifully paved and perfect Wysteria Lane to return to.

But still, what a thing to take for granted! The absence of danger. To spend twenty years being safe and thinking that's normal. What a gift it is to grow up in a place where a segment of your mind does not have to be constantly on the defense. It is a privilege that neither Barrington or Evanston reminded me to be thankful for.

On a scale of "one" to "not the end of the world", my computer being gone is at like a 97. In many ways, it is a hidden blessing of sorts. But, I move with a slightly higher level of cautiousness, with delicately hardened brows and perhaps a jumpy quality to my stride that wasn't there before. And perhaps, in some ways I am more a citizen of the real world than I was before. By next week I'm sure I'll have lightened up and before I know it I'll be back in my foam-cornered and bubble-wrapped, safe and secure town where I can skip home alone after midnight. But I will carry with me the knowledge that such skipping is a privilege. And the hope that more and more people can experience this kind of security in all corners of the world. See, I've already got those green glasses back on.