Light a Candle

(Uppermost: Pretty in Pink; below: my favorite scene from The Breakfast Club)

Images from Google Images

High school in the United States (lesser-known, here) is a tough, survival-of-the-fittest-type society. There are the maneaters, the slaves, the rookies, and the royalty. Their little cliques are more like little armies, doing whatever they can to come out alive after hard days of social bantering and extreme peer pressure. But among the sea of tight cliques lie the loners, the outsiders, the junkies, and the nobodys.

Nobody wants to be associated with them because they are different, they do drugs, they play with weird little Play Doh-type figures, and they don't talk to you. But it is only because people are afraid to be associated with people they claim to be "different"--more like, people who aren't exactly like them and who don't do what they want you to.

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It is extremely difficult to have to read about your dad trying to defend himself for defending the accused over the tragic events that occurred exactly a year from today, on the front page of the main, local newspapers. It is a scary thought, yes, that he is risking a great deal, but it is also inspiring for me to watch somebody who raised me doing exactly what he's taught me to do for pretty much my entire life, and that is to move.

When people question his motives--is he in it for the money? the fame (or rather, the infamy)?--he merely shrugs it off and says, "Well, if it weren't for me, who would do it?" Because, really-- where would the case be going, where would the actual truth come from, if somebody did not initiate it?

We all make decisions that risk the lives of a lot of people we love, but if it is what we believe in and what we think will make the situation a little better, then why not? It takes just a little bit of courage to become successful and a survivor of this dog-eat-dog world. And sometimes, it's just a bit like high school--there always somebody different.