school days

school is one of those things that's wasted on the young, or at least it was on me. when i went away to college at 17, i was ready to GET OUT THERE on my own (or as "on my own" as one could be as a minor, in a dorm, without a car, and funded by academic scholarships and, oh, right, my parents). the authoritarian model my parents followed had made me wildly squirrelly - but it hadn't equipped me to make my own decisions. boy, did i have a good time. boy, did i squander my educational opportunities. at the time, i didn't care.

now, of course, sadly, i do care. i wish my initial college experience had been different - to an extent. of course, for it to have been different, i needed to be raised differently, which means my parents needed to be raised differently - you'd have to go back generations on both sides of my family and institute change, which undoubtedly would have been better for all of us, but it's a little late now. and i do have some great memories of college. :)

now, no one cares that i scored a 30 on the act 20 years ago, nor will they hand out scholarships for it, dammit. it's a shame - i could really take advantage of full tuition now. wouldn't it be great if i could defer all that free money until i could appreciate it? i would be the most enthusiastic, annoying full time adult student now if i could afford to be. but that's not my life, and i wouldn't trade my life, anyway. so i'm going to school part-time (i'm that enthusiastic, annoying part time adult student messing with the curves) and getting as much out of it as i can.

the unexpected thing i'm getting out of it is an opportunity to think about...z! justin and i decided a long time ago that we wanted to live in the city, to raise our family here, to make sure our children did not grow up in white enclaves (like we did) so that a person of any degree of color was exotic (and therefore, inhuman) to them. this class i'm taking is making me see how much room i still had (and have) to grow as a person and as a member of my neighborhood, how much prejudice was still lurking around in my brain and how unfounded it was, how segregated our lives still are despite rubbing elbows with people of all colors on the street. z deserves better than a mother whose hand unconsciously tightens on his (or hers) when a person of another race passes us on the sidewalk - even if she does smile and say hi. lovely message for z of fear and hypocrisy, no?