There's this store of a college sophomore...she was completely immersed in her sorority duties, President of her Pre-Law student association, and involved in the women's volleyball team. She was one of those girls that when she was not in class, she was studying, when she wasn't studying, she was volunteering, when she wasn't volunteering she was at volleyball practice, when she wasn't at practice she was at meetings, when she wasn't at meetings she was planning events, and the list continued on and on. She was never "jus' chillin", she always had something to do. Her friends and family wished to see her more and more but she always made excuses. She always had something else to accomplish before the next morning. Her time with her family was always limited, and there was too many times to count that her parents remembered that she had to leave them during dinner or family celebrations cause she was the go-to girl. Her friends were always cut short on her time and missed her when she was not there. The inside jokes never included her, and she had no reclamation of 1'o'clock walmart runs or all nighters spent unproductively switching music on computers and eating grilled cheese. She would never admit it to anyone but herself but she was lonely. She appeared not to be, but on the inside she felt stretched and sad. She felt as no one really cared about her actions or life.
One day this girl was walking on her campus to her one class that she believed defined her. She changed her major because of this one class, because of this one class she changed her future. This class, politics, law, and civil responsibilities, was the most awe inspiring class she had taken and it was providing her with lessons she could get no where else. This day she was more then excited to go to class, she was ecstatic. They were having a guest speaker that she in part helped to invite and arrive there. This guest speaker was a woman who she herself knew from her childhood. The speaker was a political advocate that her father had befriended when his daughter was but a small girl. This woman was speaking on the importance of advocating for others when you know they can not; on being the voice of reason when no one else the courage to speak up or to participate. She thought she was that girl. She believed it so much she ignored all the obvious signs that morning. She was oblivious to all the world that morning.
She missed the boy trying to get down the stairs on his crutches, because the elevator was broke, again. She missed the hungover half-grown Frat boy sneaking away from the dorms. She missed the kid falling off his bike into the bushes cause some butt would not move over on the sidewalk, and the 8 year old girl walking across campus by herself at 7:30 am, and the man that was slowly following her. She completely sidestepped the arguing couple. And went right past the man and girl as she went in her building for class, and completely ignored the crying girl in the next stall over.
And so her class began...and continued...and ended.
That night as she was studying alone in her room she began looking over her notes from class that day. She bagan thinking of everything her morning had consisted of. She remembered all that she had winessed and realized all she could have prevented. Then and there she made a pact to herself that she would pay attention, that she would step in if need be, that'd she be the one to speak up. From that moment she was a new person
This same renewed young woman, 12 years later, was walking the same campus at the same time to the same class, but not as the same student. This time she was a guest speaker, speaking on the importance of societal interaction. In that front row there was a college sophomore very similar to the girl she was at the same time of life.
There was one underlying difference between the two though. One difference you had to dig to learn. This girl was abducted and kidnapped for a year of her life, 12 years earlier riding her bike through the same campus. Little did she know that it could have been prevented by the woman in front of her...
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