It Doesn't Make for Great Diner Conversation

I returned to classes on Saturday to hear the lecture once again about sex offenders. Maybe I have heard enough sick, strange stories about what humans do to each other to no longer feel the "shock" of hearing the twisted actions a person can commit. I have been fortunate in that I remain one of the three in the "one in four" statistic pertaining to women and sexual offense.

I see the horrific damage it does to a person to have been sexually offended. It stays with them forever; they do survive it, but I don't know how to describe the healing that they achieve. I feel sad and powerless about their experience. I am mad that in our society, even though we have all of this "awareness" that little boys and girls are still being sexually offended by adults, and in some cases, other children/teens.

It's hard for me to understand how a person could break the barriers and sexually offended a child or another person. I think of it as trying to describe the color blue to a blind person who has never seen. Deep within me I have a sense of utmost respect and value for myself and other people. To abuse them in such a way is a foreign concept to me. I then use my perspective to shape my opinion of such people, that anyone who could commit such unthinkable acts must have checked their soul at the door, abdicated their humanity along with it.

Our guest speaker works in the state prison system providing treatment to those who want to go through it. I am skeptical that the treatment works. I struggle to remain open to a sexual offender ever acting differently—normally. I struggle to see the sexual offender as being anything other than a creepy monster.

Which made me realize that I have a growing edge. The guest speaker put out the invitation for us to put together a group to visit the prison and observe the treatment program in action. I will put my name on the list to attend.

Where having a conflict with your instructors is normal, and expected

After speaking with the systems consultant (the school's provided therapist for the students) she encouraged me to make appointments with the two faculty that I had a pinch with as it would be necessary to clean up our respective conversations.

So I left a note in their mailboxes requesting time to make appointments. Both approached me with a much more respective and friendly attitude and we set up times to converse. I feel like I have passed the first part of the "test". The remaining parts will be determined during and after my conversations with them.

Time to Say Good-Bye

Whatever I felt like saying to my former classmates I never did tell them. So much has transpired and that we're heading off in different directions that the importance of it lessened. What became more important was to offer them my joy in their accomplishment, share in their sense of achievement and to wish them luck on their future journeys.

Often we never fully know the why of something "inexplicable" happening. As much as I appreciate the awe and mysterious that comes into my life, a part of me wants to understand why, while the other part of me says that in order to retain the beauty of the unknown there is no need to understand why.

I will never know why my surgery from a year ago resulted in a complication that resulted in my taking a leave of absence from school. That very same complication resulted in my reuniting with family members that I longed to reconnect with. I can look at what happened as both a "good" and "bad" thing, but these are just labels to convey that I got what I wanted and didn't get what I wanted. I have been left with a sense that whatever happens to me I endure, and continue even when my heart and soul is weary from the journey. I feel propelled by some force greater than myself, that my life force is strong, determined. Whatever it is I need to do hasn't been done yet.