When I lived in China, I had to sign a contract stating that I would not talk about God, religion, or any sort of politics with any locals, specifically the students I was teaching English to.
I was 21. Dumb. Young. Not ready to finish the “pretend adulting” of college, definitely not ready to enter the “real world adulting” either.
So I did what I did best and ran way to a country where my golden waves was the only one in sight amongst a sea of black threads. No one smelled like me. Looked like me. Sounded like me.
I was thrown into teaching 3rd graders, 7th graders, and 10th graders.
The third graders were adorable, yet terrifying. Have you ever been chased by a heard of third graders?
They are nothing to fear individually, but a pack of them running towards you, wanting to touch your hair and poke your skin and point out your eyes, had me jumping up on a chair just to breathe for a moment.
When I taught them, they were loud, obnoxious, giggly, and exhausting. But I let them be the kids they were meant to be. In my room it was the only 45 minute space where they could just be what they were - kids. Outside of my class, I would walk the halls, peeking into their classrooms - all students heads’ down. Silence. “Yes teacher” stated in unison anytime the teacher shouted out a command.
I saw their tiny hands red from the lick of ruler marks of “discipline.”
I saw them thrown against the wall, the only shred of gratitude I could hold onto was the fact they wore puffy coats, protecting them more than from the bitter cold.
My high school kids, English more fluent for them, asked me questions of my homeland, desperate to know more about Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.
Eyes wild with curiosity one moment and fear the next. Fear if they do not excel the very best academically, they would bring dishonor to their families.
That country had some of the kindest people I’ve ever met. There also were so many whose spark, whose fight, whose flame in their eyes died a long time ago. A number, a pawn, another cog in the Communist machine.
It was in that time that I became proud to be an American. I became humbled and honored to be born in the country I was born in. That even though I was a woman, I had rights. That even though I was queer, I had choices. It was the first time I really experienced the “proud” in “proud to be an American.”
Now here we are, more than a decade later, on a day where we are supposed to celebrate a day of our “independence.”
Yet here I am, the gift to hold my partner’s hand in public is now a potential target aimed at our fingertips.
I have the IUD that was removed from my body framed in a shadow box on my wall - a shrine, or maybe a memorial, for the moment in time I had rights to my reproductive health, now no longer the case.
Sometimes I feel like a celebration and a wake are more similar than they are different.
Today I wear black. I pay my respects to the open casket of a country that no longer exists. An honoring to what could have been. Taken away before they really could have lived.
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