Friday nights throughout sixth and seventh grade included a bona fide episode of sitting on musty benches, decked out in our Catholic school uniforms and uncontrollably giggling at the pre-teen boys at the other end of the court. Back then, for reasons still unknown to me, my mom did not let my join the school basketball team. So, when Friday night rolled around, and my friends crowded into their bright red mini vans to play their weekly games at St. John Vianney, my friend Maggie and I were swept up in the excitement.
Maybe because the coach pitied us, or because we had nothing better to do, we were allowed to sit on the coveted bench, perched like little birds, ready to glean the art of a game so unfamiliar to us.
One Friday night, we developed the story game. Swinging our legs and staring across the dimly lit slippery gymnasium floors, we each choose someone. A mom, deeply engrossed in her phone became a horror story--someone she loved was in the hospital and she was anxiously awaiting a text. The endearing boy in the corner eating the peanut M&Ms became a symbol of a love story much forgotten, slowly unraveled by our giggles and outrageous scenarios.
During my senior year of high school, I was on the train, heading off for a day in the city with two of my friends. Two men boarded the train a couple stops after ours, and it was quite obvious from the minute they walked on, that they wanted to talk. They asked our names, and I was acutely aware of how we must have looked, three teenage white girls in jeans, purses strapped across their innocent bodies.
Then they started to talk, inquiring what sports we played. In turn, I asked them what sports they participated in. The man laughed, saying he boxes, but hasn’t been able to for a while. When I asked why, he shook his head, telling me about how he was shot recently: “I was no longer black, but red all over.”
At Guest House, a homeless shelter for men throughout the Milwaukee area, I have realized that there are reasons and stories behind every sad face or tough situation. Yes, people make mistakes. They slip, get involved with the wrong things or the wrong people, and get caught up in life.
And, sometimes there is no one to point to when things do go awry. Sometimes people get injured, or life gets to be a little too overwhelming.
Last week, a man at Guest House told me that he came to Milwaukee because he was in love. It did not work out, but doesn’t plan to go back home to Chicago just yet. He wants to “give this new city a chance.” I’d say that’s what hope looks like.
Stories intrigue me, they pull me into their web, entangling me into scenarios I have never experienced, opening up naive eyes to a world that I am ready to delve into. Stories have taught me that everyone is going through something, whether that be the women at the Food Pantry who puts on a brave face as she grips her daughter’s hand, knuckles white, or the girl next to you in the lunch line, laughing as she tugs her sleeves over her wrists, concealing years of broken promises and sadness.
People are human, and we are all more alike than we think.
