Victims, themes, and recurring friends

The worlds really is a small place. I left the kids home with my husband and walked to the store tonight, pondering the theme I suddently realized my WIP has (more on that below), and had a lovely time just wandering in my own thoughts and staring at cereal and flour. Just when I was feeling satisfied with my alone time, I ran into some old neighbors. Seven years ago, we were students here and got to know a Pakistani family in our student family apartment. We didn't know them well enough to keep in touch, but we did talk to them often. We left after a year, but came back for a month on a mini research trip in 2002. Who did we run into in the store? The same neighbors. And tonight, even though both of us have moved and have jobs and do completely different things, there we were, in the same random grocery store. Their daughter is a year older than our oldest son, and they go to the same school. How coincidental is that? This sort of thing happens to me quite often, it seems, with people wandering across continents, even. Thanks to an academic schedule (bring your own inflatable furniture), we move often, and it's strangely comforting to know that goodbye is probably not really goodbye.

So, theme. I don't set out to write something on a Theme (ugh, that sounds like a writing assignment for school), but after several chapters and an outline you sort of start to see patterns. The theme for this one is how to stop being a victim. I live in a country with a much higher tolernance for bullying; my son has had his school snacks and treats stolen out of his hands by kids who regularly steal other kids' money at school, and no one (read: adults) seems to really be concerned. I had experiences with quite a variety of bullies as a teen, as well as encountering a lot of racist adults at the time, but after enduring miserably for a year, we moved back "home" and everyone there was nice. I can't say I really dealt with the problem, other than to just leave. I don't know that you can always stop the bullies from bullying. But I think you can stop being a victim, and that's what--I realized tonight--has been on my mind for some time now. I'm not sure I know the answer yet.