I’d stood there, ticket in hand, my sweaty palm turned inward to hide the paper rectangle from view. My bobby socks had fallen below my knees as I shifted from foot to foot, wishing the line would move quicker. I glanced straight ahead to avoid catching anyone’s eyes.
Please don’t notice.
The lunch lady grabbed tickets from each young child ahead of me and placed them into her basket. One-by-one, she gave a pleasant smile for each blue ticket that came her way.
Please don’t see me. I thought.
My stomach growled as I waited my turn, each step closer to the basket. The pretty blue tickets formed a mound in the middle, far outnumbering any of the other colored pieces of paper. The pretty blue tickets belonged to the pretty kids—the ones whose parents were known in the small town; the ones with intact families; the ones picked first to be on the teams; the ones invited to the birthday parties; the ones wearing Seattle Blues jeans and Nike brand shoes; the ones the teachers favored most often.
Please don’t look at my ticket.
As I approached the basket, I made a wish that she’d hide my bright ticket beneath the others. Instead, she tossed it on the top of the ticket mountain and it landed as if to announce its arrival on the summit with a bright orange flag. A throaty grunt escaped from her, and I glanced up at her pursed lips of judgment. You see, my bright orange “Free Lunch” ticket didn’t fit in with most of the others. It held a different value.
A boy behind me snickered, “She gets freeeeee lunch!” He and his friend laughed. “Yeah, she’s poor.”
Heat filled my cheeks as I lowered my head, gripped the sides of the hard plastic tray, and made my way through the line to fill my hungry belly.
This moment, this memory, it lives in on my brain even though it happened decades ago. By writing about it, I’ve realized it was one of the first moments in my life where I felt I was being measured against others. Where I felt shame. Where values began to be assigned to things.
For a time in our childhoods, we live without abandon. Fearless and uninhibited, we experience our surroundings with a sense of wonder and a lack of self-consciousness.
I remember creating skits on the playground with my friends, believing they’d be hits if we performed them for the rest of the school. I remember singing at the top of my lungs, never considering the quality of my voice. I remember loving my body because it could run fast and jump high. I remember feeling safe as myself, just as I was.
And then, something changed. Moments that measured and divided me from others began to change the way I thought of myself. Values became assigned to my physical and mental traits, to my actions, and to my belongings.
I began a lifelong habit of questioning my own worth. My own value. My own goodness.
In have often wondered if the adults who designed the lunch ticket system back then did so with cruel intentions. I mean, orange and blue are complementing colors on the color wheel and, by their nature, stand out against each other. Did they realize how that simple little color difference could hurt? Did they realize how it could mark a child? Could they have made it less obvious that some kids came from families with money and others did not? I really it wasn’t intentional. Thankfully, that practice has stopped in schools. We have removed this particular component of separating and measuring worth.
Still, the tools we use to measure success and value are endless in our lives. They hit us at every level. Even as adults, we ask the questions and process the knowledge by assigning value. We are exposed to measurements and comparisons every single day, without even realizing it.
Somewhere along the way, humanity placed labels on these things and started categorizing them as “good” or '“bad” and then applied those values to others and ourselves.
The crazy thing is, most of us have bought into it without really thinking about it.
“What gender is the baby?”
“Are they walking yet?”
“My daughter started talking at 2 years old.”
“Is he sleeping through the night?”
“It’s just her baby fat.”
”Who’s her boyfriend?”
“What is your class rank?”
“What are you doing after high school?”
“What is your hourly wage?”
”How many years have you been married?”
”What kind of car do you drive?”
“Do you have kids?”
”Do you work out?”
“How much is your home worth on the market?”
“What church do you go to?”
These questions may seem innocent enough. I am certain any time you or I have used them, it was done with a genuine effort to make conversation.
What if the answers to the questions were far more difficult than we knew?
… how would we know their child was diagnosed with a difficult physical disability?
… how could we know that they tried and lost every pregnancy?
… how would we know they was going through an emotional divorce?
… how could we know they preferred to love a woman?
… how would we know they were just diagnosed with cancer?
… how could we know they just lost their job?
… how could we know they struggled with addiction?
… how would we know their church of choice refused to love them as they are?
Ask yourself this, when you asked your questions, did you really listen? Or were you busy assigning values to the answers? Did it change the way you felt about them? About their situation?
I am not saying we should never ask these things. People need to be loved and supported, and conversation is part of that equation. I am saying that we should all be aware of the ways we assign value, and if the questions are what really matters.
We seem to have all this advanced knowledge of what has been deemed worthy in our worlds. We measure who we love, where we go to school, our job, our size and weight, the car we drive, the house we live in, our politics and church beliefs, our IQ, and so many other things.
If we are so advanced, why haven’t we mastered measuring personal greatness by the love we share? By the safety others feel in our presence? Why haven’t we figured out how to love where we are and as we are?
You know what? I am ready to put that into practice. Will you join me? We won’t be perfect right away - we’ve been conditioned to judge for a long time. But we can keep trying.
With that, my friend, I want to ask you, “How are you today? Really, how are you?”
No matter what your answer, I want to know the truth. I’ll hold the same value for you, whether your day is shitty, or perfect. Whether you screwed up, or you met a goal.
I love you as you are.
PS: I am working on loving me that way, too.
I started reading this as I do with everything else, with an open mind and heart. This really resonated with me: "...When you asked your questions, did you really listen? Or were you busy assigning values to the answers?" I'm trying to to be better and really listen. It's a process and takes practice, but I'm prepared to put in that work.
Then, the end of your post. "How are you today? Really, how are you?”. You know the answer to that from separate conversations we've had, but for the rest of the class I say, not good, folks. Not good. I've been carrying a lot for months and recently found closure on one thing, but making peace with it seems to have allowed everything else I'd boxed up to escape. Thankfully, I have friends like Michele and a bunch of others I can lean on, and an appointment with my therapist tomorrow, but holy heck am I having a hard time seeing the sun.