One of my middle school teachers, long after middle school became nothing more than a distant memory, told me I should write a book about my life. Of course, I replied with a laugh. What was there to write about? I haven't done anything worth writing about. I'm just a young adult, trying to figure out how to navigate through life. I'm not a celebrity. I'm not a genius. I haven't won anything, unless you count the one time I, by default of too few participants, "won" Denver Nuggets tickets in a college pumpkin carving contest. Who would want to read anything about me? I'm haven't done anything that isn't rather ordinary.
Yes. I have achieved what I would consider rather ordinary. I graduated from high school. I graduated with a college degree. And now I work in the "real world." That seems like a pretty "standard" life, at least in terms of what we expect a journey through life to be in our society. Why is it that my middle school teacher told me to write a book about my life when I've merely achieved what we're societally supposed to achieve? Then it hit me. I have indeed achieved the ordinary.
But the journey to get there was anything but ordinary. For folks that have even a small bit of my life story, they will tell you there are a handful of pieces that are anything but normal. If that's the case, why haven't I achieved anything but the ordinary? Something extraordinary? Because the myth of meritocracy is in fact a myth. Despite the many experiences I've faced on my way to achieve the extraordinary, the systems that operate made it fact that I would be poised to achieve just the ordinary. And for many folks, the systems operate in such a way that it doesn't even allow them that. That's what we call systemic injustice, friends.
I decided to start this blog, not because I think my story is worthy of becoming a book. I start this blog because maybe my middle school teacher was onto something. There is something about stories that allows us to better understand the reality of the world we live in (assuming people actually believe people's truths, which is another issue I will not discuss here... yet...). In my desire to fight for an equitable system in which the adage that we can become what we want to be reigns true, the least I can do is be vulnerable, and maybe give a face to some of the ways in which our systems operate, using my own story as a backdrop. I am not an expert on systemic injustice; I am nothing more than the expert of my own experience, and so that is the only expertise I can share, though I know I'm not alone. There are many extraordinary people out there achieving the "ordinary" everyday. And I'm so lucky to have crossed their paths. Hearing their stories inspired me to be vulnerable and share my own. And so I thank them, for paving the way for people like me to be heard, and to also achieve the "ordinary."
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