No one can exactly express why
it’s so hard because you kind of just have to live it, but basically October is
the period month of teaching which means that your students are off the chain and
moody, you’re also emotional aaannnnddd the best part is is that Thanksgiving
is a long way off from the end of Fall Break to the end of November. Life just
sucks during this time period.
But anyway, October is over and November is still
difficult because teaching is always difficult, but now there is a light at the
end of the tunnel J. So here I am writing to ya’ll. Despite
the shittiness of October, I’m actually not going to blog about that. I spend
80+ hours working on school work so when I get a free moment in time to NOT
think about school I’m all over that lol.
I was fortunate enough to be able to spend last
weekend, Halloween weekend, in the great city of New Orleans or NOLA as many
like to call it. I went with a group of teachers that work at my school and a
couple of their individual outside friends. We left Friday afternoon and got
their around 9:00 p.m. Friday evening. We rented a 3 bedroom house for the
weekend which came in clutch on the nights we may have had a little too much to
drink and wanted to just plop onto a nice bed.
This was my first time going to New Orleans and
honestly, it was fucking amazing. I don’t mean it was amazing because of the
booze, good company and care free environment I was in (although those things definitely
contributed). It was amazing because it was so free. Free with a little bit of
grunge, but a very good grunge. We spent our day walking around the French
Quarters where there were so many people outside enjoying the scenery and perks
of the city and honestly we spent a total of 20 bucks that day (10 for food and
10 for the infamous Hurricane one must get in NOLA). You could honestly walk
around for two days straight between Bourbon and Frenchman Street because there
is just sooooo much going on. We saw a random group of men breakdance for free,
we saw a man swallow two, I repeat two, swords and we also walked into a strip
club called “Barely Legal” in broad daylight which had no strippers in there.
Roaming around the city without an organized plan was one of the most fun days
I’ve had in a while and it was simply because we were enjoying what we had and
where we were in that moment in time.
Oddly enough though, I think my absolute favorite part
of the trip was an experience was a new perspective I gained. While two of my
guy friends and I were walking to the French Market, which has a bunch of barters
and flea shops, we saw a bunch of people our age just hanging out, drinking
beer and playing their own music. They looked as if that was a lifestyle they
were accustomed to. A part of me was a little jealous of the gypsy lifestyle
they appeared to live. No bills, no stressors of work, no expectations to live
up to other than those of the land and your own. But then, as we continued to
walk toward the French Market, we saw female wearing tattered clothes and a
dreaded head of hair, reach into the garbage can and pull out a to go box with
a little leftover bit of food. I gained so much respect for her in that moment
when she fed her dog first before herself.
She then proceeded to eat what was left of the scraps
of food from the to go box. Seeing this woman literally get her meal from the
grungy trashcan of New Orleans where all of the rich tourists throw the food
they didn’t have any more room in their stomachs for just really made me feel
some type of way. I felt depressed, I felt angered, I felt confused and I felt
grateful. Grateful that that wasn’t me. I felt confused. Confused with the idea
of how that woman got to that point
in her life where she was literally living off of people’s leftovers. Angered
and depressed because there isn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
Seeing this woman and her dog sparked a whole
philosophical conversation between my two guy friends and me. We came up with
multiple scenarios and possibilities of why this woman had to dig her meal out
of the trash. We wondered if she had any education or family members to support
her. We also concluded that after being in that situation it would be very very
difficult to get out while there is an entire system sucking you in and
dragging you down just to keep you at the very bottom where you’re intended to
be. As my friends and I talked about the problems of society we cannot fix and
of all the “what ifs” to real life possibilities, it was in that moment that I
felt completely and utterly satisfied. I felt satisfied knowing that I was not
the only one that gave a shit about other people and the good of mankind, but
also satisfied in knowing that other people enjoy critically thinking and over
analyzing every situation to the very Tee.
As we continued to walk around the grungy, gypsy city
of New Orleans, it hit me that this is what life and in particular your early
20’s are about. Walking around aimlessly, trying to find your way, yet enjoying
the confusion and getting lost along the way. Simply enjoying the journey, no
matter how big or how little, because on your way to the destination (whether
you know the destination or not) you gain a whole lot of perspective and live a
whole lot of experiences. You live, simply live; trying to create your own,
unique and societally deemed successful life and along the way your life is
actually creating YOU.
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