Familiar Strangers

In response to Dana's blog, writing this essay also helped me sort out memories from a long time ago. I hadn't realized how much I'd forgotten about grade school during high school, or how much I'd forgotten about certain relationships. It's strange, but thinking about that time makes me feel really different. It makes me feel almost how I did back then.
It was really awkward to write about such a personal part of my body, but not in the way I originally expected. I didn't mind talking about that part of my body so much as I minded sharing memories of mine with readers I don't know. It feels weird to know someone will be reading something personal of yours, and you don't know a thing about them.
I've done journalism before, I've blogged, and clearly I've written papers for school. But with journalism, you don't write about yourself. Normal academic essays do not focus on personal aspects of the writer's life. With blogging, you expect strangers to read it when you write it, but you don't really care because it's the internet and they could live on the other side of the world.
But when it's a stranger you see every other day, sitting a long ways down at the other end of the table during class, it's weird.
They're a stranger, but they're not.
Another point Dana made is to appreciate what we have.
I wrote about my hips for this essay.
The other day, I was walking to class and I (oddly enough) noticed that the girl walking a few feet in front of me was absolutely tiny. I could pick this girl up like a baby and carry her around. I remember looking at HER hips and thinking "If she has kids that is going to hurt SO bad."
All of this because of a doctor telling me I have a nice wide pelvis for having babies.
I may not appreciate the baby-having potential right now, but maybe years down the line if I ever have kids, I'll feel a lot more grateful for my pelvis.