There has been a lot going on lately that has made me look at the world a bit differently. Here is the combination of events that have led to this post:
-Tick tock, this girl wants a baby
-6 neighbor kids, home schooled and learning Italian
-The second Malaysian airliner
-A young girl speaking in sign language
-a young girl asking me why people rob other people
For a long time, read: my entire life, I've always said I didn't want kids. It went from a selfish, internal need to have my own life to a more prominent wish to never bring a new life into this unpredictable world. Today is drastically different than when I was a kid. I used to play on a horse named Penny... Penny was made from rubber, used to be part of a car, and now hung from a rope in a tree in my backyard. Penny was a tire. And Penny was a BLAST. For a few years now I've felt that this world is not a place to raise a child. It is out of control. There are very few "Pennys" to play with and in all reality, it seems as though kids aren't interested in Penny anyways.
Enter my six neighbor friends, from the age of six up to the age of 17. All six are homeschooled and every single one of them is learning Italian. They are brilliant beyond comprehension. I admire them. Their personalities, what their parents have taught them, the respect they have for others... it is all so incredibly astonishing. And then I'm sad for them. Maybe I'm scared for them? No matter how intelligent you are, and believe me, these kids have that intelligence that only a child can have- that intelligence that, as we grow, we slowly lose and never get back-- no matter how intelligent you are, you cannot control your surroundings. You can't control what you're faced with or what happens to you along the way. One of these six, a little girl of ten years old, asked me "Jess, why do people rob other people?"
<Dumbfounded>
The simple answer is because "they are bad." Some people are good, like you and me, other people were not raised that way. Maybe they are in a bad place in their lives, maybe they are desperate or maybe they just aren't good. I don't have an answer to that-- but that question, it's possible answer, it scares me.
So back and forth I am; then comes the Malaysian airliner incident. Incident #2 for this airline in one year. There were children on that plane. There were moms, dads, families, aunts, husbands, wives. All shot down from the sky... by a missile. A MISSILE. I never would have stopped and said "it's likely a plane will get shot down by a missile." What good does that serve? What point does it make? Terrorist attack, accident? Semantics. These things shouldn't happen. This world... I just don't know what to say about this world...
And then something amazing happened. I was walking to work in the beautiful downtown Cleveland (which I am growing to love more and more each day) and saw a young girl using sign language to talk to her deaf brother. They were both under ten years old. They laughed, he smiled, she punched him in his arm, he stuck his tongue out at her. They fought like little siblings should fight. And yet they had this seemingly HUGE barrier between them. How amazing is it that such a young person can overcome something so difficult.
This world shows me what it means to be accepting and it shows me what it means to live inside your own bubble. I've seen selflessness and I've seen some of the most evil, pretentious humans. I've seen emotions of joy and I've seen people not show any emotion during a tragedy. I've seen my very own brother show me that family has nothing to do with blood and I've seen my relationship with my cousin grow beyond anything I expected. I've learned that children have an unbelievable power to endure and to make great change in this world and I've learned that as we grow into adults, we lose a lot of our tacit knowledge. In the end, what I've seen these past few months is that you can't fear the future and you can't dwell on the past but you can know that the coming days are inevitable and you must live within these days to make your own life and to make it something worth living. To a future, my own little family one day, my unhusbandboyfriendloveofmylifemanofmydreams, here's to making this my future.
