Run Away with Jamie

Deeper Thoughts

I ran 4 miles this morning REAL slow. Felt great. I had my day of glory yesterday and got to pretend I was fast and today I am back to feeling slow and loving it. But I wouldn't dare tell those girls how many people passed me on the trails today ;) I needed a little elliptical work to loosen up and hopefully I will get in a swim (probably not of the lap type) at some point.

My brother requested deeper thoughts so I have decided to share with Tennessee some thoughts on my first six months living here:

I will start with my top 5 lists of things I DISLIKE:
5. Lack of internet usage: come on people, it is 2006, time to get email, check it, connect with the world, and yes, shop online (it will save you money, I promise, why else would my mom have learned to use the computer?).
4. Bad aggressive drivers: you people do ridiculous things on the road here. I am honestly surprised there aren’t more accidents.
3. Smoking in bars and restaurants: totally unnecessary and after spending the past 9 years in MA and CA I have come to think of indoor spaces as free of smoke. Do you realize you are killing yourself?
2. Babies: you know what it is perfectly okay that I am 27 years old, married and don’t have one. Sure I like to play with yours but no it isn’t okay for you to ask me when I am going to have one and why I don’t already have one. No we are not trying but it wasn’t your business anyways and wouldn’t you feel bad asking such questions if we were? Honestly, in California it would have been abnormal among our peer group to have children or even think about having children at our age so this whole being looked at as an oddity for not having them is getting old.
1. Homophobics and racists: I understand we moved to the bible belt and I understand people have certain beliefs. Personally, I don’t understand how church, god, or the bible teaches people to hate others or think they are better than others but it seems to some here it does and you know what if you have to feel that way keep it to yourself. The words are so ugly and I feel much better not knowing you feel that way and not thinking I live in a place where such thoughts and words are acceptable.

I have also learned a lot from being in Tennessee. I feel like I have grown a lot more open-minded and accepting. I may have spent 3 years of high school in what I consider the deep south but I spent the entire time thinking I was better than them and that their way was just wrong. In my defense I didn’t find the south exactly friendly or accepting of me and I did go to a prep school chock full of a bunch of spoiled brats, but yes I could have been a lot more open-minded. Then I went to college and sure I responded to the question of where do you go to school with the unresponsive “in Boston” but I knew where I went to school and the response indicated a recognition of what other people thought of where I went to school. Once I moved to California, my husband and I hung out with a crowd where what you did and where you went to school could mean the difference between acceptance and scorn. In my defense, I never really agreed with this mentality, liked it, or fully participated as much as some others, but I didn’t do a whole lot to stop it. Pretty much we were nothing we just thought we were cool and we needed to keep that notion going. I remember when one of my husband’s friends married a girl from the Midwest who had gone to a school none of us had ever heard of. We were nice to her and accepted her as she had married into the crew but then she kept saying things like “I always knew I was destined for better… I always knew I would marry money…I always knew I was too good for the Midwest.” Our liberal campuses had taught us these were ugly words and we should scorn her but looking back it was the mentality of our group of friends that had led to such statements I am sure.

So onto Tennessee and what I have learned: I have learned not to judge people based upon where they went to school, I have learned not to judge people based upon whether they went to school, I have learned not to judge people based upon whether they work or don’t work or what their work may be. I have found plenty of ugly and stupid people who went to college and have great jobs and plenty of smart and incredible people who haven’t gone to college and choose not to work. I don’t like when people ask where I went to school because look it makes me no different from you that I went to a certain school and really I don’t appreciate other people judging me based upon where I went to school. Where I went to school means that I had an incredible four years full of opportunity and friends and that I have had an additional opportunities since then. What it doesn’t mean is that I feel that I am better than you, that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth (because in my family whatever spoon I had would have to have been a hand-me-down), and it certainly doesn’t mean that I am better than you. And please please do not ask me where I went to high school because I am not proud that I went to a Snot School of the South (SSS) and I hate the fact that where I went to high school leads to immediate acceptance in another Southern city. But I am getting better about making judgments about those people as well (the ones who want to be my friend because I went to the equivalent SSS to the one they went to)… I do sometimes make lots of judgments based upon first impressions but I also pride myself on the fact that I generally am very open to changing my mind.

Yesterday, I did three things I would never have done with three groups of people I would never have hung out with in my previous life and even more than my fast run I am proud of that.

posted by JamieW @ 1:11 PM