One of the things in this journey of sexual assault and the recovery of it all that I’ve struggled with on and off, is that sometimes it has just felt like, “This isn’t FAIR! It’s not fair that my dream was on hold. It’s not fair that not only does he face no consequences (while I seemingly face many), but also he has no remorse.”
And on and on and on. Y’all already know all about it, and the parts that didn’t seem so fair.
And I think a little bit of the struggle was because, as I grew up, like most of us, I learned, “life’s not fair” – but, I think I kind of always just thought of it on a very small scale. Like, “oh, well, sometimes someone will get more ice cream than you” or something simple and small like that.
I don’t think I ever really totally put it together that when people say “life isn’t fair,” it means life can reeeeeeeeally not be fair – like, for real.
I’ve experienced things that were “unfair.”
(For instance, I never got paid for my last 3 1/2 weeks of this one television show I worked on. And it wasn’t fair. And ultimately, the company went bankrupt (and also I moved to New York), and I never got the money.)
And before all this sexual assault stuff, I always just kind of thought, “Well, life always evens out” (like that Seinfeld episode where everything always evens out exactly for Jerry).
“You know, I didn’t get that money from that one job. But then, I got a raise on my next job. So, well, it’ll all come out in the wash, I guess.”
And I think this wreaks of privilege – for me to say I didn’t totally understand that the world is really unfair.
Think of people being murdered – think of the black people being murdered by the very people who are supposed to protect them. Think about oppression of all different kinds of people (everywhere).
I can’t even begin to list all the problems of the world here.
…And I never really realized when people said, “Life is unfair,” they mean it can be more than just “unfair” – it can really be downright evil. Not everything will “just even itself out.”
Donald Trump is President. Possibly one of the worst men to ever live is the President of the United States. Think of aaaaaaaaaall the people he’s deeply wronged throughout his life. And now they’re seeing him getting to live in the White House, ride in Air Force one, and just be the President (which usually, I’d say at least comes with a lot of work, but I doubt so in his case.)
Now, hopefully those people’s lives got better. And maybe wonderful things ended up happening to them (one can (probably unrealistically) hope).
And I think to some extent, we can try to be in charge (iiiiish) of our own happiness.
But I guess my point is (and maybe this is stupid to just be realizing), is “life is unfair” is a life lesson that goes far deeper than I ever really stopped to think about… I feel like there should be stronger words in that phrase, or a bigger/deeper/more nuanced lesson you get as a kid or something, or I dunno…
[This is from the series on sexual assault.]