The Help

I finally jumped on The Help bandwagon last week and finished the book the other night. I'm going through Skeeter, Minnie and Aibileen withdrawals!

I really love stories told from different perspectives that overlap and that have interesting people telling their side of the same events. The last book I finished this year was Dracula by Bram Stoker, which is also told like this. Side note: Dracula only shows up for about five chapters in the whole book-- the story is told from about five different people's journals describing strange events that keep happening invovling wolves and bats and other such things.

Ok, so, The Help

I identified with this:

 "Every day you're not dead in the ground, when you wake up in the morning, you're gonna have to make some decisions. Got to ask yourself this question: "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?" You hear me today? "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today? You hear me today?" All right? As for your mama, she didn't pick her life. It picked her. But you, you're gonna do something big with yours. You wait and see."

I thought of my students, some of whom tell me everyday that I'm a horrible teacher, call me everyday bad name in the book, and make fun of me. Everyday I have to choose how I'm going to react to them and if  I'm going to believe what "those fools" say about me! Tuesday one of my honors girls asked me, "Can I ask you a personal question, Miss?"
"Um, sure."
"Well, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm just wondering why everyone hates you so much. Everyone is always talking about how much they hate you but I don't get it because you seem like a nice person."
Nice. I told her that normally my students like me but this year I just can't really relate to them and haven't really recovered from what happened right before school started. Someone recently told me they think that my students felt a weakness in me, and mistakenly related it to them, and being like animals, they keep attacking it. Makes sense. I got back to my room yesterday after an assembly and found male genitalia drawn all over my white board-- done while I was standing in the doorway and they were lined up single file waiting for our turn to go to the auditorium. When I saw that, I started crying. I've taught for 9 years now and have never been so disrespected and felt so inadequate... even my first year as a 22 year old. Hence, my desire to quit WLJH and work at the college level or at least move schools next year.

With this quote, I also thought about my mom, who obviously didn't choose her life the last year. Sometimes I wonder if my life will matter to as many people as hers did to the people around her. My career, by its nature should provide for opportunities to affect people's lives, but this year I feel like I'm just wasting my time and getting mentally beat up everyday. I am the "big sister" in my family and I do matter to the other six. I have amazing friends that I feel like I am important to. I have a good guy friend (formally known as the boyfriend... we broke up three weeks ago and are now in relationship limbo) and his kids that I matter to but they could leave my life at any moment.

Hmm... that became more depressing than I wanted it to... I love The Help and the relationships that the women develop together and the friendship they foster, even while keeping within certain boundaries and social norms. It reminded me that friends can come from anywhere and just have to have something to bind them together to make it work.