Does it Matter?

Does it Matter? I am from the city streets, where the will to survive was coupled with the desire… the need… the desperation… to escape. I am from the “Housing” buildings. Decrepit. Dark. Dangerous. Where the smell of pot lingers, forever, in the halls. Where the screams are something best ignored. I am from the places where no one goes alone. I am from the places where, to venture outside at night is courting death. I am from the place where some families try and most fail. Where coming home might be more dangerous than staying on the streets. Where going hungry is the norm. I am from the place where textbooks still claim Nixon as President. Where there are never enough chairs. Never enough teachers. Never enough hope. I am from the place where schools and gangs and learning and drugs and books and crime compete for the souls for the future of the children. Or maybe I am not from the city streets after all. I am from the suburban streets, where the houses are all the same. The lawns, perfect. The cars, immaculate. The clothes, Italian. I am from the manor-houses. Old. New. Big. Rich. Where the smell of money permeates the air. I am from the places where cocktail parties and book-clubs are normal. Where chess clubs and after school enrichment activities are for granted. I am from the place where textbooks are online Where planetariums aren’t unthinkable school possessions and arts programs aren’t extinct. Where everyone learns and everyone goes to a prep-school, just for the Ivy diploma. I am from a place where gangs are poor peoples’ problems. Where drugs are unheard of. Where crime rates, murder rates, don’t exist. Or maybe I am not from the manor house after all. Does where I am rom define me? If I told you I played lacrosse in my childhood, would you make assumptions about my intelligence? If I told you I ran with my crew, would you think you knew my dreams, goals, aspirations? Or is the past not relevant to the future? Is it, instead, more important that I define myself? Will I one day teach the lessons and intricacies of the Meiji Restoration to a class of bright eyed, uncaring students? Or will I, instead, choose to go for a JD? Will I choose to spend my life among the whereases, therefores, and therebys? Or, perhaps I will be the first woman President of the United States of America, playing the dangerous game of politics with the leaders of the free and un-free world. Or maybe something altogether different. I do not know. But I do know – where I am from does not matter, just as the past of those I serve does not define them. So, this is where I am from: the present. Where my choices my actions are the only definitions that should matter.