ever vigilant?

Last year, I spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about how to get to and from school/home. Worrying about being safe walking about alone, worrying about feeling unsafe. All because of a mugging at the beginning of school. I spent hours on that little shuttle bus getting from the library to a half-block from home, and then worrying every time I walked from the bus to my door that those two men would have figured out where I lived and were waiting to get me. Even when there were other people around.

And now, the vestiges of that fear and worry remain. I still cannot trust anyone on the street; I still fear strangers and dark spaces and downtown areas, and I still look upon all unknown men as potential muggers. And that is terrible.

Sure, it's good to be vigilant, I suppose. But at what cost? At making innocent people feel like you are casting them as criminals?

Yuck. So thanks, Chicago, for making me a terrible, fearful person. Thanks, society, for creating the social and racialized stratification that led to those two men targeting me as I walked home that night.

sure, life is different, now, but the memories and the fears linger. I'm glad I don't constantly worry, every fucking day, about how I'm going to get to my front door. A year of that was enough.