A Purple Light at the End of the Tunnel
When I stepped off the bus October 14 I fully admit to really, truly hoping and praying I’d be greeted by a sea of purple.
I was met by disappointment.
Sure there was purple here and there, but for the most part the world was robbed of that royal splendor and instead left muddle through the grays of Hollister, and the blues of Walpole’s Rebels. I don’t know what I had been hoping for, the spirit day in honor of the four boys that committed suicide had only been announced to our school yesterday. But still, some of these girls could surely cough up so lilac. The guys clad in purple were virtually not existent, and as I shuffled my way to first period I mourned the seeming loss of some great confidence within me.
For a while I managed to convince myself to stop being such a judgmental jerk to these purple-less people, and it worked. That is until I started hearing about several reactions to the purple. My personal favorite of course stemmed from an inquiry of someone lacking some purple…
“Do I look gay to you?”
It makes me sick just to type it. People ignorance has no ends. Later I would hear a boy explaining to another boy that he hadn’t joined drama club because everyone would think he was “gay”.
I took personal offense to that one, not only was it untrue, it again showed a general ignorance—as he was trying to make a joke.
What could be funnier?
My faith in the human race checked out at lunch I think, and with my empty pudding cup and the remainder of a dinosaur shaped sandwich (Yup), I ditched a younger part of me. At least that’s what I thought then.
Upon my entrance to History, I settled into a discussion on women suffrage. The teacher was preaching and a small part of me winced at being lectured to, I admit. But I tuned in when he discussed how long it took to gain women’s suffrage from the original birth of the concept.
100 years.
100 years to get to where we are now. 100 years to not even consider the absence of female suffrage.
In front of me the teacher spoke smoothly about tenacity—he really was a great educator—and how the concept had been passed passionately from generation to generation until finally after years of failure, it passed.
Next period I muddle through all this in my brain while I examining the plaid purple square on the back of the girl in front of me. In front of her, just to the left, my Latin teacher wrote on the board in bright purple as her deep purple sleeves danced beneath her.
I think maybe that’s when I noticed.
Outside it was beautiful, and here in this seat, from my perspective was the only thing that could really rival the weather’s beauty.
Here was my sea.
Here was my purple.
I could have cried right there at that little slice of hope I soaked in. I had been a class A dumbass all day, and I could see that now. I looked back, not just through my day but through the centuries. Every progressive thing had taken real, true, honest chunks of time…
Something as important as ending ignorance and hate towards homosexuals, -like those four beautiful boys that ended their life from the effects of the previously mentioned—will take time.
But, oh, how I believe it’s worth it.
My history teacher pointed out that a lot of times, people who stand up for what’s right–even when it’s not popular—usually end up in the history books somehow. And if their cause is true—the beautiful thing about our nation is—it’ll happen.
Maybe not today…
Maybe not tomorrow…
But soon.
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be sitting in front of a classroom someday, and listen to kids talk about how weird it is that homosexuals weren’t legally permitted marriage in some states when I was a kid…
Our job as a people—if today has taught me anything—is to progress against ignorance by rising, up and away from that which brings us down.
And History shows us: These things? They have a way of working out.
