Observations from a Bathroom

You don't really know people until you spend time talking with them, and, even then, you sometimes miss the boat entirely. I know that that idea isn't novel, but I also think we have to remind ourselves of it quite a lot. At least, I have to remind myself of it.

I've spent all of my life in college towns, as both a local and a student. Because of this, it's pretty easy to lump all college students together, to forget the uniqueness of each one. Sometimes that uniqueness is really difficult to see. Going out on any weekend night in a college town is testament to that. The girls often have this studied perfection about their looks--flat-ironed hair, meticulously applied lig gloss, waxed and plucked brows. There's a similarity to the look that's sometimes a bit startling. That said, they usually appear similarly beautiful.

When we're confronted by such beauty, it's easy to forget that there are stories beneath the well-kept veneers. A few months ago, I was in the bathroom of a building on campus, and a young woman was crying, obviously trying to pull herself together to just be able to leave the bathroom and go out onto the campus. I wanted to do something. I wanted to hug her, to cry with her, to let her know that, even in this huge and impersonal university, she wasn't alone. To let her know that we all have hurts, but that I, despite my own hurts, could help her with hers. But, I didn't know how to do that. So, I didn't do anything.

I know. I should have. I've thought of her many times since then, and each time I've wished that I had done something. Perhaps I've wished I had done something because I knew that, at some point in my life, I was that young woman, crying or very nearly crying in the bathroom of a building of a large and impersonal university. And, I wonder sometimes if my story would be different had some stranger done those things for me, had taken the time to ask me what was wrong. It's a silly idea, but it does make me wonder how many times we have the opportunity to be those strangers who reach out to people, who let them tell us their stories, no matter how sad or how silly those stories are.

Like I said, it's hard to remember that the people we encounter are unique, that they all have stories to tell and that sometimes they need so desperately to tell those stories. I think of this when I'm reading bathroom graffiti. Yes, I read bathroom graffiti. I wrote a paper on it as well. In the paper, I wrote about the fact that, because graffiti writers are in a space that's hidden, they're more apt to engage in graffiti writing, a practice that's normally considered deviant. At the time I wrote the paper, I thought that was a pretty interesting explanation.

But, when I think back on that young woman crying in the bathroom, I realize that the paper I wrote doesn't begin to even touch the reasons why young women are writing graffiti. Think about it next time you're in the bathroom. Look at what's written. You'll see that people are writing about love, religion, drugs, music, everything. I guess I used to think of these writings merely as forms of expression. But now, with the crying young woman in mind, all I can see when I read the graffiti are people, saying, "Please, someone, notice me. Please pay attention to me."

When I think back on that crying young woman, I'm struck by the fact that bright young women find writing on a bathroom wall to be a suitable form of communication. I don't mean that in a judgmental way. Save caring for the janitorial staff, it doesn't matter much to me that these young women write on walls. What matters to me is that they may write on walls, often looking for help and affirmation, because they have nowhere else to go, no other way to seek help for their problems, aid for their hurts.

When I walk across campus, it's easy to see what's on the surface. Anyone can tell that many of the students don't have to worry about money. But, you can't tell whose parents are in the middle of a divorce, who's been abused, who's still being abused, who struggles with an eating disorder, who suffers from depression, who is barely holding on. Sometimes, when I think about university campuses, I just think of one huge ER waiting room in which none of the patients will ever get the help they need.

The thing is, students aren't walking to classes with physical wounds that we could bind up, but many are walking to classes with emotional wounds that we'll never see, wounds that will never be bound unless we take the time to find out that those wounds even exist. I guess what I mean to say is, we must remember to practice love at all times. We must learn to look past the beautiful veneers and expensive clothing to find out that there are wounds and scars we could never imagine.

Donald Miller talks about this a bit. He writes, "It makes you feel that as a parent the most important thing you can do is love your kids, hold them and tell them you love them because, until we get to heaven, all we can do is hold our palms over the wounds" (113). And, even though he's speaking of a parent/child relationship, I think that we have to look to the hurts of children who aren't our own, to seek out ways we can help all people who come into our lives.

Sometimes we have to let our hearts break for others so that we can feel enough to help them. After all, each one of us is a little hurt, a little scarred, a little heartbroken. And, somedays, we could each use other people to hold their palms over our wounds as we hold our palms over theirs.