Small Injustices

It never ceases to amaze me how much I am a product of my own worldview. Today, I got a phone call from my undergraduate university saying that some administrative tasks fell through so that even though I completed all the work for my TESOL certificate, I was never registered for the last class and therefore never paid, never got credit and was never officially awarded the certificate. What this appears to amount to is an extra bill left over from my undergraduate education. And, thinking about it, it just made me so upset. It was frustrating just to think that I don't even have the money in my bank account to pay an extra thousand dollars for some left over credit mix up. Sometimes, what I perceive as being unjust costs just send me over the edge. Whether it's a cell phone bill, a misprocessed health insurance claim, a parking ticket in DC, or credits I never officially registered for, it just overwhelms me. It's almost like if these small things in life can't go smoothly, what can?

I'm not a fighter. I've never considered myself a fighter. I have always kind of imagined that faced with a significant survival task where only a few people live, I would not be one of those left when it's all said and done. I don't know why. It's just a feeling I have about myself. I have more of a martyr in me. I like to treat others fairly and I like to be treated fairly and, when it comes to this nation of laws and rules and subtext that I don't happen to get the memo on, I just feel like I get screwed over more often than not.

At the same time, I have to realize what a privilege it is to be fretting about school loans, rather than what I'm going to eat tomorrow. How blessed I am to be able to go out for an ice cream sundae with a girlfriend, go shopping whenever I want, wherever I want, worship according to my faith every Sunday... Yes, we all experience what feel like small "injustices" in our lives. Even when we look around and think no one else has to deal with this crap, everyone has their battles.... As overwhelming as life is to me sometimes with all its subtext that I don't read for one reason or another, my battles don't even begin to test the resilience of the human spirit and what we, as human beings, are really capable of...

I asked Juan Carlos tonight if we could just escape to Mexico and get away from it all and he said, "oh Janelle, I know this beautiful country is frustrating with all its rules and laws and paperwork, but well, that's just how it is. We're young. We have to be strong and just keep going through life." I feel so emotional right now anyway and hearing him say that just made me want to cry. All that he's been through, all the reasons he could hate this country and, through it all, he can recognize our privilege in being here and say "this beautiful country." I haven't heard that about the United States in such a long time. It was so needed- to be satisfied for even just a moment with where I am.

Then I talked to my mom and she reminded me everything would be ok. "We'll do what we have to do." And she shared the new saying she has hanging on her mirror, "Those who anger you control you." As an exercise in gratitude, I am thankful for the phone calls about unpaid undergraduate credits because they remind me how lucky I have been to go to college, to learn all the things I did, to study in other countries and experience all I have. I am thankful for the phone calls that lead me to rely on support from those who love me because it is only in these vulnerable moments, when I don't feel strong, when I need, that I can understand how critical other people are to me in my life and why God gave us one another.