June 04, 2002

Knock on wood

The more diaries/blogs/journals I read, the more I realize I am a lucky, lucky
girl, compared to an awful lot of people. Some fortune you make for yourself, of
course -- I don't consider a happy marriage, now nearly nine years old, to be the
pure result of fate, though meeting Rudder in the first place was. Other things,
though, are purely a result of when and where I was born, and of the family I was
born into:

I have two parents, still married to each
other, to whom I am still speaking. Until I was in college, I had four loving
grandparents. I have an uncle to whom I am close. I have one brother, now self-
sufficient and out on his own. None of these people abused me as a child, sexually
or in any other way (there was a bit more hitting and screaming than modern
standards would consider appropriate, but that's a far cry from real
abuse).

Some problems I've avoided are a combination
of luck, work, and common sense precautions. The latter two make a difference, but
there are people as careful who have yet been
unlucky:

I have never been mugged, beaten, raped, or
robbed of anything irreplaceable. I have been short of money, but never so poor
that food and shelter were major problems. I have never been ill or hurt enough
to need hospitalization or surgery, barring a couple minor outpatient
procedures.

Some luck is in the time and place I
inhabit and the opportunities it offers:

I have had
chicken pox, sinus infections, flu, UTIs, strep, and a staph infection. None of
them were more than a temporary annoyance, thanks to antibiotics. These things
used to kill people. Also, I had the chance to get a first-rate education, which
allowed me to enter into a career that is reasonably rewarding in terms of
challenge, enjoyment, and money.

One of my biggest
pieces of luck was being born to parents who loved to read and taught me to do
likewise. Not only did that help with my education, it gave me insights into
worlds far removed from blue-collar Northeast Philadelphia, and into people
different from those I knew.

I was encouraged to think
for myself, and to make up my own mind. I was encouraged to read and learn more
and still more. I never went through a period where I hated myself, or thought I
was ugly, or stupid, or worthless, as so many girls do. For the first, I had my
mirror and my own eyes. For the second -- well, there were all those books I'd
read. Other people didn't read like that, or know all the things I'd learned from
those books, so I knew I was smart. For the third, I had the example of literary
heroines from Cinderella to Elizabeth Bennet, who weren't properly appreciated
until they fell in people with the wit to appreciate them.

Because of my reading, I knew there were people out
there who would like me; how could they not, when they'd written the heroines I so
identified with? I was never beautiful or popular, and didn't have a huge social
life in high school, but I was never all that unhappy about it, largely because I
spent so much of my time riding around in other people's heads -- everyone from
Meg Murray (in A Wrinkle in Time to Tish Sterling (in Norma Johnston's
The Keeping Days) to Eddi McAndry's (in Emma Bull's War For the
Oaks
). I knew they were fictional, but I figured there had to be people out
there like that or there would be no authors able to imagine them.

Even now, I think I'm more confident in myself than many or most
women, largely because I've been so many other people in an almost literal sense.
It gives me perspective to be able to judge myself fairly instead of assuming I'm
inferior because I can see my own failings more clearly than other people's. It
doesn't mean everybody loves me, and I don't know that it makes me happier, but it
certainly makes life simpler.

So if you ever see me complaining about
my luck because I've lost a race or something, kick me, OK?

CLASS="mutter" TITLE="Don't think I haven't realized that the mere act of writing
this could cause the universe's sense of irony to kick in, causing me to be mugged
as I leave work today, resulting in injuries requiring hospitalization, leading to
the loss of my ability to type, which would get me laid off, the ensuing
depression from which could eventually drive Rudder away, leaving me alone,
jobless, and poor. I'm writing this blurb to forestall that, and incidentally to
test a cool idea I stole from Ravenblack at blog.ravenblack.net.">Knock wood
.

Posted by dichroic at June 4, 2002 04:59 PM
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