Different But Never Alone

There are some moments that you are able to relive instantly, almost as vividly as you did the first time.  I don’t care how old you are or how many wild experiences you’ve had, some moments just stand out.  They normally do because, whether we realize it or not, they change us.  They change us for better or for worse.  One could even argue that there is no “better” or “worse” there is simply change, and it is.  There are moments that change us.

I was at a workshop a few years ago, and we were asked to tell a story about a time in our lives when we first realized that we were different.  My moment sprang to mind without hesitations.  I was 8 or 9, about my oldest son’s age.  I had to walk home from school from the bus stop.  The problem was that I got off at the wrong stop.  Why?  Not relevant.  I just did.  

Boy, was I screwed.

See, I wasn’t exactly fluent in Spanish back then.  This is a problem when you live in a Spanish-speaking country.  I couldn’t ask for directions, so I didn’t.  I just walked.  And walked and walked and walked.  I have no idea how long I walked.  It must have been a long time because when I finally got home, my mother did one of those “I’m going to kick you ass/THANK GOD YOU ARE ALIVE!!!” numbers on me.  My poor mother…  

As I roamed the streets, I became more and more frightened.  I could see a dog wandering here or two wandering there.  I saw brown people, older and very much unlike me.  I was in Mexico, remember?  I may look like I have “olive” skin to the locals here in Illinois, but I was pretty much as pale as they came back then.  I was a kid.  What can I say?  I noticed these things.  I recall being so frightened that I would do everything in my power to walk by any place where there were any living beings regardless of size, shape, color, or species.  Dog barking behind a fence up ahead?  Dart across the street.  Two women walking towards me?  Dart across the street.  The sound of kids playing?  Some men walking home from work?  Zombies?  Dart, dart, and more dart.  I can’t recall how long this went on for.

I don’t know when it started, but I think I cried most of the time.  Heavily.

Then, a man walked up to me.  I was weeping, and he looked at me.  He spoke: “BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH?”  I don’t know what the heck he said.  He was short.  His hair was black.  And his skin was brown.  I recoiled in terror.  It must have shaken the poor guy because he took a step back.  He’d been walking towards me, but my reaction stopped him dead in his tracks…slid him back a few steps.  Then he spoke again.

“Donde vives?”  he asked.  “Where do you live?”  He was stern this time.  There was an edge to his voice that snapped me back to reality.  I still couldn’t speak, but the hysterically crying abated just a tad.  I looked around.  Consciously or subconsciously, I’d been lingering around a street sign that rung a bell.  Then I realized: that’s MY street name.  

“Aqui,” I managed to blurt out.  “Here.”  I pointed to the sign.  The problem was that I could tell which direction the sign was telling me to go.  I was at a “T” intersection, and I felt like I’d already gone in circle in both directions.  In fact, I had.  The streets around my house could be tricky.  

“Bien.  Camina.  ALLI!” he yelled.  “Good.  Walk.  THERE!”  

I looked at him.  I was still crying, but I felt the panic leaving me.  “OK.”  I responded.  He nodded.  That’s when he smiled.  I started walking.  Eventually, I found my way home.  Happy ending.

Yet…20-something years later, that was the story that popped into my head.  So, I talked about it.  I shared my story with about four other people in my small group.  I told my wife about it that night.  I contemplated why that story came to mind when I was asked about a moment when I knew that I was different.  The reason was clear.

As a child, I felt foreign that day.  I felt alien.  I was in a strange land where I barely spoke the language and could not really read the street signs.  I felt completely isolated because every person I met was different from me…or, rather, I was different from every one of them.  THAT is what did it for me.  Before, in the car or on the school bus, I was surrounded by people like me.  I was like a fish in a bowl with other fish just like me.  Then, I was scooped out of the bowl and dropped into the ocean.  You sort of realize that there are a lot of other fish out there that are NOT like you.  More of them, in fact, than there are of you.  That became startlingly clear.

But I never forgot the man who helped me.  He set me back on my way, the right way.  He could have walked right by, ignoring the balling child, but he chose not to.  Instead, despite my hysterical state, he talked to me just long enough to snap me back to reality and guide me home.  He probably never gave it a second thought, but to me that was the other lesson in that moment.  I may have been frightened and lost, but I wasn’t alone.  

Different but not alone.

We are all different, aren’t we?  That’s what makes meeting new people and experiencing life with them so wonderful.  And just the fact that there are so damn many of us on the planet should tell us that we’re not alone.  Too bad we tend to forget that.  It really makes managing the rough spots a little easier.

We’re different, but we’re never alone.