Before & After

The Time I Was Going to Save the World

I have always had potential. Everyone throughout my schooling career has told me so.

Like the model student I was, I read those textbooks closer and I made those worksheets neater and I was always so easily the apple of my teacher’s eye.

Then, like any young student with potential, I started to rack up my leadership experiences. I was paving my pathway to success through my carefully calculated volunteer hours at the homeless shelter. Thank god those kids are on free and reduced lunch- I now have the perfect unpaid internship opportunity for the summer.

This volunteer work will look great on my college application.

Conveniently, there was always so much pain in the world to fill my resume with. I got my straight A’s and they told me I was going to be something great so I dreamt myself onto podiums. God, the crowd was cheering and I was waving and I was making people cry in inspiration and I was holding all of the organizations and people I have ‘helped’ on my impressive resume, showing the world that I am not only a model student but a good person.

Don't mind those people’s souls or their dreams or what makes them weep or what makes them come alive, dear Alyssa! All those people in need have already been reduced to your dimensions of 8 by 11.

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They told me I was gifted and talented as they wrung bodies in the streets. Please don’t spill anything on our high-achieving classes. They are the future.

But they told me I was the future and that I was gifted and that I was most likely to succeed because I never questioned anything.

I read textbooks cover-to-cover, copious notes and a wicked fast memory, yet I never stopped to fill myself with poetry. I always raised my hand to give them answers- but where were my questions? I always had potential because I looked like them, walked like them, talked like them,

Thought like them.

They told me I had potential and that I was going to save the world.
I never questioned anything.

~

An open letter to myself from that little piece of Universe inside me:

Let's begin with forgiveness. I know that you have made some mistakes along the way. You were so artfully seduced by fictitious notions of success, and you spent many years chasing dreams that were not yours. However, you cannot allow yourself to be paralyzed by this indignant perfectionism- hallowing yourself out only leaves emptiness. Yes, you tried too hard to be Superman and failed to see that what Lois Lane really needed was a systematic shift of the culture of violence that targeted her as a woman instead of those strong arms and red cape. Yes, you should never be Superman. You should be a listener with every figment of your arched soul- let’s bare ourselves open to listen.

You chose to study in Bolivia for a few reasons. The first reason dates back to the sixth grade. It was your very first Spanish class and you didn’t understand a word of it. Mr. Hinkle was talking so incredibly fast that all those unfamiliar sounds blended into something between knock-kneed poetry and a quiet challenge to learn that stream of words. Mr. Hinkle would later share his stories of traveling down the coast of South America and right there under the atypical inspiration of florescent light, you knew you had to get to that place somehow. And then after many more years in classrooms under florescent light, you came to realize that you wanted to hear a different story about the world. I am not quite sure how you knew, but I will forever be thankful to that persistent roar inside you. You wanted a paradigm shift- to understand the world differently. You wanted to shed light on dusty corners that have been violently abandoned and so, you came to Bolivia to listen to a new knowledge (I think this really is the first time you acted to listen rather than to create).

This pursuit of a careful collision between adventure and new knowledge has brought you to the indigenous university. The intercultural context fuels all your pursuits of new knowledge because it reveals all the gaps you were never taught to see. You talk and share and try to connect- of course with flaws and incompleteness. But this time, you are not working to reduce anyone to the little slip of your resume. You are here to learn vulnerably and to value those small personal moments as vital slivers of knowledge. This knowledge- not available in textbooks- is working to revalue humanity. I know that the journey to revalue humanity is not just poetic prose from your rosy-shaded mouth: it is the lethal weapon against the many interlocking systems that function from the destruction of humanity. This destruction was every history class that pioneered American expansion as heroic. This destruction was and is colonialism. This destruction was assigning a market value to a tree.

The systems feed you things to memorize but they never stop to teach you humanity. So here, through small memories and talks about dreams you are trying to transform personal knowledge into power. In the future, you want to work in education reform. It is both infuriating and emboldening that are so many different ways in which the secondary education system needs reform. The two main issues that plague the system today are inequality and an unwillingness to welcome new styles of teaching into the classroom. These two issues intersect intimately- many students have been left behind by the school system because the pedagogic techniques were designed to only value one dominant form of knowledge. So the solution is intersectional. You might not know in what capacity you are going to work to reform education because you are not going to be Superman. I know you will figure out your role some day. Right now, I say that you continue to be a learner. Recognize the deep paradox that the classroom that tried to strip you of your humanity was also the very first place you ever felt alive.

As the little bit of Universe inside you, I want you to know that I will always love you. I will love you more than you could ever possibly know because my love is infinite. I will love all these fragmented pieces of memories and friendship that cement as a mosaic within you- these will become your most powerful allies of knowledge. And I am writing as that little piece of Universe inside you because I am a part of you, I am made of you, and I will be here as you fight for something bigger than you.

Xoxo,

U.