Tonight was Back-To-School night at the private school. Little did I know it meant it was an "adult" back to school night, as I felt that I had just stepped back into high school.
I was nervous because I was going in this blind. The people who were supposed to help me with the GS thing bailed. Not a biggie but as I drove to the school I wondered, should I have asked council for help? I still don't know the answer but it went well.
As soon as I walked in the school, I saw it. Tight groups of
I approached the first table and inquired about the GS table. I was immediately told the troop was fullsosorry... Without the "so sorry" part but I guess it was supposed to be implied from the singsong tone. I told her that I was the new troop leader. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe on the otherside." translation:"I'm done with you move on."
No prob, the stench of phony was too stifling for me anyway.
So across the building I go. I find out I need to get my own table. Still no problem. I park myself next to the refreshments thinking I have a prime location anyway.
Here's where I'm gonna be me and just say it. There were a lot of women with sticks lodged so far up their asses they couldn't even talk without a nasal intonation. Me, I prefer to talk, rather than sing and as far as I can tell when I speak, it doesn't look like I am in pain. (Hey, you...the one who is offended by this, look in the mirror because unless I am speaking of you it should not offend. Yep.)
Anyhow, a mother came up to me, asked me about the troop. I told her that I was the new leader. She looked down her long pointed nose at me. I told her that I was in Girl Scouts up until the leader level. (not to mention the fact that I have a few degrees and actual years of work under my belt compared to her hard existence of breathing in and out everyday.)
She asked what days, I told her the day. She said her daughter had gymnastics that day and looked at me like I should offer another day. I said "Too bad" and shrugged my shoulders and turned away to the next person. That's where my feelings of awe come in. I can't believe I did that. I mean, it's how I felt but it was probably unprofessional. But I don't want to deal with that woman. I saw the way she looked down at me.
I've seen those looks. I'm not white. I'm short, I look younger than I am. They think I can be manipulated. They think I'm not good enough, not smart enough, not enough like them. It's not imagined, it's true. I know it because I've lived this over and over again and not because of my own insecurities.
I've always been part of organizations that I shouldn't normally have been able to be part of. I push and I push to elevate myself and make myself involved to make a difference.
When I was in college, I was part of the Honors program. I distinctly remember going to a conference with three other girls. Girls from good families with money. Girls who didn't have to worry about food, tuition, nothing.
I sat in the car with them, one with her Mother Jones magazine talking about her donations and how it pissed her family off that she was so earthy and donating money to people who obviously needed to just get off their asses and do for themselves.
The girl in the backseat next to me agreed with her. They needed to donate to worthy causes because people need *their* help. They make the difference.
This could be true, I didn't care, if they had money to donate...more power to them. But then they started talking about Kosovo.
I didn't know what they were talking about and I distinctly remember being told "what rock are you living under?"
It took all of me not to tell them to fuck themselves because the rock I was living under was a full time grave yard job, multiple tutoring sessions at the college, not to mention the ones I was doing privately, and working for the IT department. Did I mention it was summertime and I was taking 18 units? I got less than two hours of sleep a day. I worried how I was going to help my mom pay the rent and utilities for my three sisters and my niece. I worried about grocery money. I worried about gas and car payments and real life. Kosovo couldn't exist in my world because I was fighting my own war for survival right in front of me.
But what did they know? They had their allowance direct deposited to their checking accounts that had been created long before they could sign their names.
I was reminded of all this tonight as I stood their amongst many phony people. Christians.
Then the sun shone through. I met this incredibly funny and down to Earth mother. She was signing up her daughter and like me she had been a girl scout up until leadership but she had been a leader for two years and she wanted to help!
I talked to her for 45 minutes before she had to go. I was so happy to meet a real person. After she left, the woman selling cards next to me, met my eyes and gave me a look and turned to watch the woman leave. She shook her head and looked back at me as if to say "trainwreck". Why?
It makes me sad. Why do people do these things? I stood there thinking about what a wonderful program GS is and how I just came from meeting so many powerful women at GS training and how, even as corny as it sounds, there is sisterhood and acceptance of everyone.
Maybe that's why the differences were so glaring. It's sad because I think of this great program to empower girls and to motivate them to excel and just open the world to them and then I see how the parents make the school their world and limit them to those walls where they can be special and important by the size of their house or how popular their parents are.
It's just sad. My goal this year is to rock their world. To break down those walls and give my girls in my troop as much of the world that I can. I am going to empower them and give them the knowledge to know the difference.
