Tonight, I’m feeling hopeful.
Tonight I’m conscious, aware of the good.
Since my last post, I’ve found a bit of a wave. A group of us here at Loyola have come together, named ourselves SAGE (Student Advocates for Gender Equality), and jumped right on in. We’ve held meetings that have brought in new people each time, we’ve already got some cool projects on the horizon, and I’m pretty darn proud of this group of ladies. Lucky to get to call myself one of them.
Last week, Loyola teamed up with two other universities in the area to “Take Back the Night” and SAGE helped out. This is a program that schools all over the place take part in. It is intended to raise awareness about and eventually put an end to sexual and gender based violence. Here, we start out the evening with some pretty moving speakers, followed by a candlelit march down St. Charles Avenue, and finally an open mic event where people share their feelings and stories.
There’s nothing quite like the chills you get when you’re marching for a cause so dear to your heart and you turn around to see hundreds of lit candles bobbing beautifully behind you. A profoundly metaphorical sea of bright lights amidst darkness.
We had a SAGE meeting tonight. At these full meetings, we choose a gender-equality-related topic and talk. A key thing to awareness and change, talking. Ask the coffeehouse-goers of the Enlightenment. Today, however, I had homework to do. I was dragging my feet on the way into that meeting, despite the ultra-rewarding discussion I knew we’d have. It’s course selection time again and I’m in the throes of what appears to be an ENDLESS what-should-my-major-be crisis. My "gotta" list was long tonight: gotta finish that homework, gotta pick my classes, gotta go to the SAGE meeting, gotta figure out my life. Of course the meeting was great. People were great. No surprises there.
But when I left that meeting, my "gotta" list had evolved, shape-shifted into something much less grumpy and foul. It was more of a THANK GOODNESS list. I was suddenly aware of myself: a nineteen-year-old woman leaving her university’s Gender Equality Organization meeting, trying to decide what she wants her career path to be.
WOAH.
I flashed on a memory from my tween-hood. My grandmother on my dad’s side was up at our house for a visit, and I asked her this question:
“When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
She had absolutely no clue how to answer me. She listed a few of the jobs she’d worked before she married my grandpa, but that was all she could do. Growing up in the 30’s and 40’s she had no career goals! She probably knew some girls who went to college, but she certainly didn’t.
And there I was, walking back to my dorm with my backpack tugging on my shoulders, reminding myself to do my ancient Greek homework and worrying about which of many possible career paths I should pursue.
Gosh.
So tonight, I’m a happy lady. I’m happy to be working on a scale larger than just my blog. I’m happy that SAGE exists. I’m happy to have possibilities in front of me my grandma couldn’t comprehend. I’m even happy that there’s still work to be done because I’ve turned around and seen the candlelight trailing on, endless behind me, and I know it’s going to get done. I know it.
