Common People

Once upon a time, there was a woman who would give anything to be common. She would meet common people and find herself filled with envy. They held down common jobs, and dutifully went to work with their common lunches packed up. They had common apartments. Within these common apartments would lie common desks with common desk lamps lit dimly. They had common kitchens, common bathrooms with common showers. They had common cars with common car payments. They had common checking accounts at common banks. They possessed common cats or dogs, who had common toys. They went to common college campuses and earned various common degrees.

Commonality was so alien to her. She yearned for it, but never obtained it. She was different. She was plagued with a self-hatred that common people seemed to be void of. Her life was anything but common. She was pretty, and that alone got her into these common places. She only had the air of commonality when she was with the commoners. She pined to fit in, and had wished on common things for herself. Yet she knew she was merely a tourist.

When she was in a common person’s space, she would pretend to be common. She would pretend that the dimly lit light was hers. That the showers with lotions that smelled of sandalwood was her own. She would pretend that the towels she dried herself off with – the ones that smelled of Downy Fabric Softener were her own towels. That the bed with duvet coverings were her own. She knew that these things were only going to be hers for a night, maybe two, before she returned to her stark room at a lonely motel. The common people would pay her uncommon money for a night or two with her. She was common in one way. A common commodity.

Most of that money went for her own groceries, rent on the hotel room, clothes to keep up appearances, and drugs. She was a common addict. She had a common past for an addict. She was molested and raped as a child. She was lucky that she didn’t have to work the streets. All too often her street friends were beat up by pimps, raped, kidnapped, and treated like dirt. Because she was pretty, she had somehow escaped that treachery.

She lived that life for what seemed like a lifetime, for what now seems like a lifetime ago. That woman, of course, is me.

I now live a life that has surpassed commonality. I live a life of wealth in many ways. A life a common person would envy. I don’t see myself that way, though. In many ways I’m still that raped child, that woman vicariously taking own the persona of the common person who I wished so much to be. I never want to lose touch with who I am, which is who I used to be, which is part of me forever. I refuse to pretend that I once wasn’t what I was, because that’s who I am now, despite all my social graces.

Why am I writing this? I just completed training for a volunteer position with an organization that hits the streets and helps trafficked women get out of the life when they are ready, and helps place them into shelters and long term drug programs. I’ve been reflecting on how badly I just wanted to be normal.

Whatever normal is.