Hungry
At my school when I was fifteen, we had something called Diversity Day. During the day there were activities set up by some of the students and organized by the Diversity Committee, which I was apart of. One of the activities was something that involved everyone in the whole school going to the gym and sitting on the bleachers. I sat with my friends, of course, as they announced what the activity would be. It goes like this.
They say certain things and if you identify, you stand. For example, if the person in the front were to say, “Stand if you identify as African American,” I and others who identify that way would stand. There was only one I remember in particular. As I sat on the cold bench listening for the next prompt, my teacher said to us, “Stand if you feel you have more than enough.”
I remember looking at my classmates, many of which were middle or upper class white students who didn’t have to work nearly as hard as I did to get into the private school we were in. Me, on two different scholarships to afford it, and them, with their new mac books and current iPhones. Very few people stood.
“Stand if you feel you have enough.”
This is where the majority of my classmates stood, including me in my group of friends. I thought there was a possibility I wasn’t being entirely truthful. Considering how often my mother and I moved, how often the lights went off and the phones cut, how little we had in the fridge. I didn’t know what ‘enough’ was supposed to mean and at the end of the day, I did have a bed, a mother who loved me, enough food to not starve and I went to a good school.
My eyes snapped to my right when my friend sat down suddenly. “What are you doing?”
“I changed my mind.” She said simply. I judged her. What did she think she had, or more specifically, what did she think she lacked? As the next prompt came, “Stand if you feel you have less than enough,” my friend stood, boldly. I stared at her. I just knew that she never went hungry like I did. I looked to my other friend who seemed to be thinking the same as me.
In the years that have passed, I reflected on this moment. Once I thought, well who am I to say that she never goes hungry? It’s her hunger, not my own. And that’s true. But in further reflection, I have come to a realization.
At fifteen, the fact that I was unsatisfied, yet still decided I had ‘enough’ made me feel as though I had the authority on what other people could determine was ‘enough’ for themselves. It was as though having ‘less than’ gave me the privilege of deciding what was enough for everyone. Yet, I barely knew what ‘enough’ meant for myself.
