DAY 18. ONE INCIDENT

Write about one incident, occurrence, or confrontation during your life that changed your way of thinking about something or someone. What conflict is important here?

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Example

I carried a crate filled with two textbooks, about forty research papers of fifteen to twenty pages each, and the ever-popular red coverage slips along with my classroom door keys. My palms burned as the heavy crate’s edges cut into them. I moved down the hallway through the maze of students who stood, sat, or hung at their lockers or in the middle of the passage. With the door in view about fifteen paces on the right, my brain calculated how difficult it would be to position my key in the door to unlock it while I still held the load. As I pictured the scenario in my head, my eye glimpsed her scampering in the other direction, and the guessing game began. Would she acknowledge my presence? Or would she pretend not to notice me and turn to the other wall as we passed each other?

 

Beads of sweat formed on my back. They were mostly from the warm April weather and the exertion I put out to carry that load of papers and books in the crate. But my perception of how she made me feel insignificant and invisible in the last few months and the confusion about our relationship created the heat that added to the fever.

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I reddened and my head seemed to blow up like a balloon as if each slight added another puff of air. The balloon would explode long before the airflow stopped in my head. As she approached with her hand on the key that hung from a lanyard around her neck, control slipped out of my grasp. I can’t do this anymore. I’m gonna let her know I exist.

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“Here, I’ll get it.” Her morning voice penetrated the air even from ten feet away.

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I dropped the crate with a boom that echoed down the hall. Students and teachers turned and gazed in my direction. I stared at her and barked “DON’T BOTHER. I’M FINE!” in my get-out-of-my-face voice. She meekly retreated to her classroom.

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Suddenly I felt young, like a kid again, but not in a carefree way. What am I? Thirteen? I thought. Hubris. Why can’t I just say good morning? 

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I froze for a few seconds. Shallow breaths came fast as the heat crept through my entire body. I shakily unlocked the door, opened it, picked up my crate, and moved like I was walking over red hot coals to the desk in the classroom.