[stylist] Stop signs never change to Go

[LoriStay at aol.com]

This article has been published in my local paper, in Slate & Style, and 
possibly in the Monitor, though I'm no longer sure about the latter.   (It's 
been awhile)

Stop Signs Never Change to Go

Loraine Stayer

This is a truth I learned long ago.   Stop signs never change to go signs.  
 For as long as you sit and wait, that sign will always say, "Stop!"

Live holds lots of stop signs.   If you think about it, you'll realize 
you've clashed swords with them yourself.   There was the teacher, tired after a 
day of coping with children, who looked straight at you and said, "You'll 
never learn to read!"   But you did.

And your father.   He went out with you to teach you to drive, and after 
two harrowing lessons, exclaimed, "You'll never learn to drive!"   But you 
did.

Or your mother, cleaning up after you burned supper one day:   "You'll 
never learn to cook!"   And you did that too.

I know lots of people who didn't believe the stop signs in their lives.   
They did finish their education.   They did marry, and they did have 
children, and they are successful.   But these same people were once stopped cold by 
stop signs in the form of the expectations of other people.   They were 
thoughtful enough to know that though the stop signs had accomplished their 
purpose, they were not meant to hold the people back forever, simply to cause 
them to pause and examine their direction, or correct their mistakes.

But I also know people who have been stopped cold by such stop signs, only 
to stay in place, marking time forever, waiting for the sign to change to 
"go." And it doesn't.

I know a young woman of thirty-five who has never been given permission by 
her parents to grow up because she is blind.   She will not marry because as 
she told her boyfriend, "You have no future with me."   That means, "I have 
no future."   Her parents are a stop sign she cannot get past.   She wants 
permission from them to learn the skills they have denied her, and that 
permission will never come from them.   She will have to go around the stop 
sign.   To do that she will have to believe it is possible.   and she doesn't.

I know a man, thirty, withough a profession, who has minimal vision.   He 
tells me that because he went to public school and couldn't see the 
blackboard, he never understood what was going on.   Ironically, had he been totally 
blind, he would have been taught Braille early on, and been given 
accommodation in the classroom.   He was told by an authority figure in an agency for 
the blind, "You are incapable of learning."   Until then, the agency was a 
stop sign for this man.   but the absurdity of the statement brought him up 
short.   He knew he was capable of learning.   Hadn't he taught himself 
Braille as an adult?   This man will walk around the stop sign.

In order to proceed around the stop sign, one needs to realize that one's 
life is one's own, and that one is capable of making decisions without 
permission from authority figures.   That stop sign will never change to go!   But 
being a sign, it will never do more than just sit there.   Once you walk 
past it, what can it do to you?

Slate & Style--Volume 17, #3, August 1999
Merrick Life--October 1, 1987




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