Health Post 4: a quick little story

Do you have crystals? Is this how they work? (haha kidding)

My friend Jenny and I were chatting and we ended up on the subject of crystals.

“You don’t have one yet?! I’d love to give you your first one! Your first crystal is powerful and its even better when someone gives it to you.”

I’m sure I gave an excited reply (I seriously still don’t get crystals) but the point of this story is that someone else beat her to the punch.

December 29 3:02pm

I look at my watch, grabbed my basket of goodies, and made my way to the register. I have to be at my next appointment at 3:15 and they had told me to rest and eat in between sessions. Instead, my favorite cafe was closed due to the snow and ice and I didn’t want to wander too far away. The sidewalks were icy, places were closed due to short staffing and unsafe road conditions, so I found myself a few doors down from my appointment, at the register, ready to pay for the gifts for the girls.

There are two women, maybe three someone was floating around, behind the register. I stood in front and waited. Nothing. Just heads down. I spin around behind me, look at a couple items and inch forwarded a little bit more with my items in hand. Nothing. Okay… I meander around, you know those places that have the little walk up (like Sephora) of cute things around the register while you’re in line waiting? So I stood there. It would make sense if there was a line… but there wasn’t.

Why wasn’t I being helped?

Then I looked up and they had started to help someone else who seemingly, came out of nowhere. Hmph.

I look down at my phone, 3:07pm, okay. I really need to get going. Time to assert myself I thought. So I step forward, next to the register, and place my items on the counter. Nothing. I say, can someone please check me out? This lady looks up, shuffles over, and motions for me to go to the right. (I was in the front and center register.)

I walk over to the right side. I place all my items on the counter, pull out my wallet, my card, and I look up. The lady that was supposed to be ringing me up was at another register, helping another clerk, ring up another customer. *deep breathes* I tell myself. My mind is racing to make excuses for this lady, but deep down I know I just didn’t want to come to the conclusion that could this lady be treating me like this, because of the color of my skin? Because I am standing in a store where everyone is fair and light skinned except me?

She walks back over from helping her coworker and stands in front of her computer, as if to ring me up. Then the phone rings. She steps to the side, answers on the first ring, and I expect her to say “please hold” but instead, she starts helping the lady on the phone.

At this point, I inserted my credit card into the reader… WHAT ELSE WAS I GOING TO DO!!! And she looks up at me and says, “I haven’t even started ringing you up yet.”

I look down at my watch. Its 3:12 and blood pressure is through the roof.

She gets off the phone and is about to start helping me and I say assert myself and say, “I need you to help me now because I have some place to be.”

She stops. Dead in her tracks and looks me in the eye and says:

“What? You late for your nail appointment or something?”

OH BOY. I had so many thoughts in my head. So many. This whole time. Meanwhile my anxiety is through the roof, I’m alone in this store, I’m obviously now, late, and so help me God this lady treated me like garbage. Absolutely like I did not exist and I did not matter. What was supposed to come out of my mouth?!

The truth.

“No. Actually, 'I’m late for my IV. I’m getting treatments next door and I’m late to see my doctor. I come here after to shop for my girls to perk myself up after treatments. I have been in the office all morning and I need to get back there, NOW. So can you please ring me up so I can go?”

Her face fell.

Her eyes softened and for the first time she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “But you’re so young.”

“I know”

I say. What else do I say? I really really really needed to go. I was so upset. I was flustered. I was in a hurry. All the things my doctors say not to do.

She rung me up. I swiped my credit card. Grabbed my stuff and turned to go. Vowing to never ever come back here, tell everyone what happened to me, and seriously thinking about opening up my own storefront where people absolutely DO NOT GET TREATED the way I was treated in any way, shape, or form.

She stopped me and said, oh wait. I have something for you. Then she opened up her hands and handed me a crystal.

Rose quartz, pink, shaped into a heart, about the size of quarter. My first ever crystal.

I walk back next door to my doctors appointment, late, flustered, and horrified. “What happened to you?!” they all ask me. I was just in there this morning calm, happy, excited and now I come back in a completely opposite mood.

“I’m sorry I was late. They wouldn’t help me at the store next door,” I managed to muster.

“What do you MEAN they wouldn’t help you at the store next door?”

“Well, I was waiting in line with all my stuff and the cashiers were all standing there but nobody helped ring me up. So then I walk to the counter put my stuff down and they start helping another customer instead. Then I waited for here and when they were about to start ringing me up, the phone rang so then they helped that customer on the phone. And then I didn’t want to be late to this appointment so I spoke up and asked them to ring me up so I can go and not be late here and then she asked me if I was late for a nail appointment…” my voice trailed off.

My doctors face was frozen. She was appalled. “Were going back there to talk to them, now. Here let’s go!” as she motioned towards the door.

“No. I don’t need you to go in there for me and speak with her. I shouldn’t be treated like that. I shouldn’t need a [white] person with me to be able to get rung up somewhere. My husband’s white. You’re white. Its not fair. What if the next person after me doesn’t have anyone else with them to do this sort of thing for them?!”

“I know Alex. But if you don’t say anything… If we don’t say anything. It’s just going to keep happening. How are they going to change?”

“But… *I paused* she’s a patient here…”

The room went silent. And then they knew who I was talking about. They were shocked but honestly, not that surprised.

So because I didn’t want to go back and relive my experience she gave me a piece of advice. “The next time you go somewhere and they start treating you like that… you say loudly and calmly, Are you treating me this way because of the color of my skin? And wait and see what they’ll say. Okay, Alex?”

“Okay,” I nodded.

My doctors decided my nervous system was too fragile and on edge to handle the therapies we had planned so we finished the day with a consult instead.

I’d like to say I never went back to that store again. It took me awhile actually. I can’t believe I’m even sharing this story. For weeks I walked by that store and couldn’t get myself to go inside again. But finally the other day, without thinking about it, I went back into the store.

I got greeted when I walked in. It was a calm, quiet, and everyone was kind- yes, even our friend was there. She was different. Kinder, softer, gentler. She really wanted to talk to me. I didn’t feel the same way. I don’t know what this means. I don’t know how they’re going to treat the next woman who walks in that door.

Was I treated better now all of a sudden because she felt bad for me? Or was I treated better now because she saw the error in her ways and is now actively trying to fix it? I don’t know. I really don’t. But Jenny was right, my first crystal is pretty powerful.

“At the tender age of six, Ruby Bridges advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South.”- Debra Michals, PhD

“The Lovings had committed what Virginia called unlawful cohabitation. Their marriage was deemed illegal because Mildred was Black and Native American; and Richard was white. Their case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the couple won. Now, each year on this date, "Loving Day" celebrates the historic ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which declared unconstitutional a Virginia law prohibiting mixed-race marriage — and legalized interracial marriage in every state.” -NPR

We act like this is history, and it is, but its also the present. It’s now.

Ruby Bridges is alive to tell her story. This was only 62 years ago, she’s 68 now and is an activist. That’s both amazing and sad to me. Interracial marriage has only been legal for 55 years. Theres still people alive right now, A LOT OF PEOPLE, who still believe that these laws should not exist.

We have a lot of work to do. I don’t know what to do. I just know we are raising 3 little ethnically diverse girls who are already asking me if people will not like them if their skin is not white. She’s 6 and asking me the tough questions already. Bless her heart she is going to save the world. One human interaction at at time.

That’s enough rambling for now friends.

XO,

MWAP

Resources:

-https://www.npr.org/2021/06/12/1005848169/loving-day-interracial-marriage-legal-origin

-https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ruby-bridges

-The Story of Ruby Bridges: A Biography Book for New Readers by Arlisha Norwood Alston PhD