Inventory on Being 22

Kaitlyn Kennedy
Every Friday night my Dad and I watched Dateline. We stared mindlessly unaffected
at the screen admiring the intricate blood spatter, analyzing the position of the
frozen corpse. Sometimes on Saturdays we would watch re-runs of cops and laugh
at the heroin attics antics, mock the gasping officers desperation to pull out his gun
and shoot.
It was one week before Christmas when I found myself sitting in between two
sobbing parents.
My mom had to teach in a classroom for eight hours after she heard 20 children who
laughed like hers,
played like hers, engaged like hers were shot dead. My dad stared at the yellow mat
on the TV screen and knew what it meant. It meant 72 hours of processing evil. For
a week I watched the faces of angels shake the souls of my compatriots. By the end
of the week those faces were replaced with sneering images of politicians flailing
arms and pointed fingers.
When I was in London my friends and I found a lost credit card on the street.
We handed it to three police officers who upon hearing our accent playfully beat
each other with imaginary night sticks. Americas great, one boasted, you can
get a haircut and by a gun at Walmart.
When I was in London I met Ali Baba who told me, If you continue to put your
happiness in other people you will never find happiness within yourself. He once
made the mistake of putting his happiness in his country, Egypt. She exiled him to
Saudi Arabia were he read books while feeling the caress of an AK47 on his
vertebrate. Hes been running ever since.
When I was in London I stared into the eyes of an unidentified woman from Libya,
her worn hands appeared from underneath her black burqa- clutched the hand of
her daughter- four years old, cancer ridden, blind and dying. She arrived promptly
on registration day so that she could learn English, to communicate with the doctors
who were the last hope for saving her daughters life. I called my mom and wept,
separated by an ocean, I just wanted to feel the warmth of her hand.
When it was time to return to America I found myself knees buckled clutching the
sides of a treadmill. Seperated by an ocean I watched bombs blow limbs, kill
children, wreak havoc on my soil. Crazy Americans they muttered as the outline of
Connecticut flashed on the screen. Fugitives in Pursuit.
Have you ever been torn between two things in your life? Have you ever been torn
between places- the one where you are and the one where you want to be?
Sometimes I think about how I dont want to be where I am but I dont necessarily
know if where I want to be is in any better. I guess what I really want is a
harmonious blend of the two. I want children from where I am to be just as safe as
they are in the place I want to be. I want children from where I am to laugh as loud

as they do in the place I want to be. I simply want to live in a world where you dont
have to pay a price to be free.