Home Sweet (?) Home

It is kinda scary to me to see just how much folx have… thought of me and talked about me and looked at me as a wonderful, brilliant, beautiful person.
The airplane ride home was nice, hardly any turbulence, and I slept through most of the whole thing.. my kinda ride :) Any how, after we dropped my grandmother off (praise god) at her house, I decided to run across the street to the library, the site of my first job and many many fondly remembered afternoons. When I worked there I was still wearing a headpiece and fully covered in the style of a proper Muslim woman, so when I strolled into the Library wearing a short skirt and a short sleeved shirt my supervisors had to take a double take or two to realize that it was me they were seeing. *smiles * I love growing up. It gave me a really odd feeling to listen to the reminisces of how they hoped I would turn out, and magically enough I turned out that way.

Ms. B almost started crying from…shock? joy? at seeing me all grown up and ‘successful’ rather than beaten, broken women like many of my classmates who stayed in the city have turned out to be. I realized that part of the shame/sadness/tears that I shed when I knew that I was pregnant was for these people, the ones who damn near (it felt like) look up to me and use me as a character witness for others. I always told myself that other folx judgments on me don’t matter, that I am my own woman and I can handle the punches that life may throw my way. And that is still true, for the most part. My problem is that I am tenderhearted (yeah yeah really I am) and I hate to hurt those that I like, love and/or respect. :) The rest of the world can bite me. So I stayed there for a bit, and got the first of my graduation cash. :) I collected almost 90 dollars in one day, and I know that most (if not all) of it will be gone by the time I am going to Indy.

Then we went through the city real quick, juts so I could see what had changed… It is sad when one place can depress you so thoroughly upon entering it. This city is run down, tore up, and too damn stagnant to even try to make a push for change. My town used to be a bustling hub of business in the 40’s and 50’s when the big ships and the steel mills and the gasoline companies were working up and down the river like a busy highway. Then the mills closed (isn’t that always the deadly line in a story) and then the oil companies wanted more than just experienced labor, they wanted educated labor, and a whole strata of the town fell into unemployment and despair. Now it is the children and the grandchildren and the great grandchildren of the city who are there, and the few who are still there are only there because they have no vision to see of somewhere else to go. Those of us who KNOW we can go somewhere else, have gone…and there are very very few of us who have any plans of coming back. I can’t ever see myself coming back…it would be a step in the totally wrong direction. Even my mother plans on moving soon, leaving her mother and the rest of our small family behind, because she says she wants to go to DC. Hm. As long as she doesn’t come to Indy, it is okay with me.

The rest of my first day home I spent calling folx to let them know I was in the city (I am notorious for being slow on the tip) and hanging out with JJ. We talked about the tangled webs that two of our friends had woven around themselves and each other over love denied. Or love ignored or attraction dismissed or whatever the hell you want to call it. They have managed to turn themselves into two remarkably unhappy people, and they are going to lose each other as friends. *sighs * It is sad when something that could be so beautiful ends up so twisted and almost ugly.

I watched music videos too….lots & lots & lots of videos…and Little One brought me a beautiful dozen of red red red roses. Oh these flowers are so gorgeous and perfect I could sit for hours and just stare at them. I would take a picture but it wouldn’t even be able to carry off the beauty of these flowers right. *sighs * Sometimes I really can’t stand that boy… I dismiss him as a caring thinking person, and then he manages to bring something of beauty like this into my life…. what can I say? Chaos… personified and controlled.
Stay Jazzed