Life Planning

I don’t always drive on the freeways. Sometimes, during rush hour traffic, it’s quicker to shoot through neighborhoods. You know, surface streets. Every so often, I will end up at a light and just look around. Take in the sights. I’ll go ahead and say that for the most part, my quick route goes through some of the more dodgy areas. And it’s there that I get to see things that, if we subtract the blatant dispair or hilarity, would make artful photographs.

Once I saw a man getting frisked by cops. And in the space between his feet and the wall, off about five feet away there were two kids. A boy and girl. I presume sister and brother. Walking to school. I remember it was fall and that they had on their new stuff. His hands were on the wall above them and they were the focal point of the arch his body made. The leaves were mid turn and really, it was a pretty scene coupled with social commentary.

Another sight for sore eyes was the pimp in the wheel chair. It took me a few weeks to come to the harsh realization that he was pimping in a wheel chair. (Rhode Island Avenue in Washington, DC) And able bodied people talk about finding work is hard.

But anyway, I often find myself stopped at read lights looking at the people. Did they think their lives were going to turn out this way. The woman with the three stair-step kids, struggling in the rain to carry the youngest as her oldest shields the middle child from the rain. The men on the corner on any given afternoon, weather be damned, in Anyghetto, USA. When they were 13, 21, 25 did they think this is what their lives would be at 35, 40, 55?

Then I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror or a shiney storefront window. Is this what I thought I’d be doing when I was 10, 15, 25? While I pretend to be corporate during work hours, is that really who I am? Is that really what I’d thought I’d be at 30. Humh. I don’t know. Because for the life of me, it never dawned on me that I could be one of those women struggling with those three kids. That one of those men on the corner could be my man. It never even entered my mind. I wasn’t one of those kids who had life completely laid out. But the possibility of me being anything other than successful by African American and American standards was not even a blip on my possibilites radar.

And I bet, to some degree, the men on the corner, the women struggling, somewhere in their lives, they saw themselves right where they ended up. The problem is, too many of them gave up. Gave in to being what they were yesterday or what others expected them to be today and tommarrow. It’s OK to yield to expectations…When those expectations are beneficial to you and your community. Right?

I look at friends I have who were good students. Were members of honor societies. Went to law school or medical school. Based the bar or boards the first go around. And they don’t want to be lawyers or doctors. After all that. Student loans and all, they don’t want to be the thing that they worked so hard to become. Or was it that they were busying themselves being what they were expected to be? Was it easier to take that route than to decide for themselves how they saw their lives at 30, 35, 55? But I say, if you wake up today and realize you aren’t doing what you want, what you thought you would be doing, living up to your potential, do something about it today. Not next week. Not next month. Not after you get your tax refund. Nope. TODAY.

Kind readers, when you were young, did you see yourself doing what you do now? Being who you are now? Are you pleased with what you’ve grown up to be? What do you want to be next?

Oh and did y’all hear the latest about Brit, Kev,and Char?? Well apparently, she’s set up to be their nanny!!! So to whomever said this was all a plot by Char and Kev, you were right. They are about to milk dumb Brit for all she’s worth!