My rehearsals Wednesday night went terrible. As I tried to lift myself up on my hands, my wrists felt like they were cracking beneath me and I kept toppling to the floor. My instructor (who I pay $10 an hour! and who I can barely afford) got frustrated and belligerent. It was awful. I finished half an hour early and ate three double cheeseburgers at the Burger King next to the studio.
Yesterday morning I was walking through the rain to my bus stop and when I got there I saw a girl in a wheelchair with a tissue scrunched up under her nose. Tears poured from her eyes. I asked her what was wrong and she replied she had lost faith in everything. I was going to be a little early for work at Arby’s so I asked if I could buy her a hot chocolate at a Starbucks only one block away. She took me up on my offer. My fans, have you ever had the hazelnut hot chocolate from Starbucks? It is a glorious thing.
I had a vente size (that means 20 in Italian) and the wheelchair girl had a tall. I also got us three marshmallow kebabs to chew on. We talked about American Idol and laughed and the wheelchair girl was very cheery afterwards. I went to work at Arby’s feeling cheered, but I had lost track of time and was 20 minutes late. My mentally ill boss shouted and ordered me to change all the soda syrup cartons in back. This is a messy job and when I was finished my hands and the front of my Arby’s shirt were covered in grimy sugary liquid. I spent my break in the bathroom crying.
Despite it all, I still have faith. This is because I've made the choice to be free from absolute sorrow. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said "Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free. "
Yours and forever,
Iris Myandowski (The hand walking queer)
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