David McElroy

Cora often called to chat, so it wasn’t any big deal when I heard her voice on the phone in March. I was driving to work and we chatted for about five minutes. She reminded me that she wanted to take me out to dinner sometime.

As she was about to hang up, Cora said, “I love you. You’re such a good neighbor!” And I told her that I loved her, too.

Cora has been my neighbor for a bit more than five years. She’s a feisty and strong-willed black lady in her 70s who was a high school English teacher before she retired.

She’s always pestered me to find out about any women in my life. When she’s seen a woman at my house, she always wanted to know whether this is “the one,” and she was always disappointed when I told her otherwise. As she was about to leave my porch one time in May, she looked at me very seriously.

“I’m going to find a good-looking white girl for you,” she said. “I know a lot of rich and powerful white people, you know.”

She’s always seemed determined to find “a white girl” for me. But I found out tonight that this is very unlikely to ever happen. In fact, it’s unlikely I‘ll ever talk to Cora again.

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When I was a little boy, I went to sleep almost every night making up stories in my head. I was always the hero.

By the time I was old enough to start liking girls and wanting their attention — about fifth grade, it seems — my stories were mostly about being heroic for a girl. I had a crush on a classmate named Wendy, so she was the metaphorical princess and I was the knight on a white horse.

I didn’t understand it at the time, but I was setting a pattern for much of my life.

I wanted to feel special. I craved the attention and admiration of one woman. Over the years, the identity of that woman changed. of course. When I did something I thought might impress her, I wanted the crowds to love me, but only because that meant she would see.

I wanted her to think I was special. I wanted her to love me for that.

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We talk a lot about changing ourselves and we spend a lot of time waiting for other people to change. But what if the truth is that we never change who we are? What if all the people we are waiting to change are never going to change, either?

I’ve been watching others and paying attention to myself long enough to believe that none of us essentially change who we are. We merely develop the maturity and deeper personal understanding to change the way we act.

We learn to listen to the better parts of ourselves and refuse to obey the darker parts which will always be hidden inside, whether we like it or not.

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