“There is something wrong with you,” she said, her face twisting in genuine disbelief and horror. “You are crazy.”
I laughed, but comments like these were starting to get to me. At work, I’ve been sharing more and more about what my life in the city is like. By this I mean telling the fun and juicy stories: nearly getting jumped, waking up to gunshots, living next to pedophiles & sex offenders, finding gas leaks and mice in the kitchen. I should have known that focusing on these more dramatic & exotic elements would surprise people, but I was unprepared for the responses. At first they were polite incredulity: “Oh, that’s . . . different.” “That’s noble of you.” “Wow, I could never do that.” “That’s interesting.”
Then, when it began looking like I intended to stay, the comments became forceful and sharp. “You’re just not right in the head.” “You need to get out of there. . . . I am going to drag you out myself.” “You’re expendable.” “What’s wrong with you?”
The most hurtful of all these comments:
“The people there deserve it. Why should you live with them?”
I still struggle to answer this last question. Anyone who knows me knows that I am hypercritical when it comes to myself, and working through my motives and heart issues has been a difficult process. I have a vague sense of what I hope to gain through life in community, and I have seen my many biases and prejudices begin to change. But I still have trouble articulating exactly why I am here, even though I am more accustomed and deeply satisfied by this way of life. I used to think that simply sharing my stories would enable others to understand, so I started a blog to describe the experience. Here is one of my first entries on moving into the “inner city”: [Read more…] about Beyond Ordinary and Proper