Humility

I know, I was going to drop it, but I can’t. It comes with the turf. Starting over doesn’t even sound good after eating a dose of ‘humble pie’ this week, because someone saw my morality board and decided to beat me with it. Thankfully, it was only a mental beating, but it still hurts.


Perhaps it all started when my office was moved to my dining room, a very public space, because my office space was needed as an extra bedroom for company and so, my private space became public, just like publishing something on the internet.

I have always felt that people who have an office to go perform whatever they do out of sight of others were fortunate. Now, I really do, as what I do in my office, means a lot to me, but when put on public view, it doesn’t stack up for much, as it isn’t physical enough for some, and I would have to agree, that reading and writing are very sedentary activities, unless you go jogging on the coastline wearing an ipod wherein you cannot hear spluttering engines and take the risk of being mowed down by a passing airplane running out of fuel. Excuse me for jumping from the physical to the deadly; it’s a knee jerk response after being beaten up mentally.

When people walk in and out of your temporary office and see that blank look on your face and sitting perfectly still, they automatically think it is a good time to break into your world and fill your space with whatever they think. Unfortunately, I have a habit of just looking at them blankly, as I really am somewhere else, grappling with metaphors and analogies, and when they talk to me and I do not talk back, the other parties now privy to walking through my office begin to take offense. I am not listening to them; I am being rude, self absorbed and not a very good person.

O....O....O.

I try to love them through it, I really do. But, when I try to explain that I really didn’t hear one word they just said, so deep into my own world had I been, it gets even trickier. Now, I am justifying my existence. Well...it is humbling to see what people think of what you are doing that means so much to you, but nothing to them because they chose to hold no value for reading and writing. And, I would have to agree, for most of the time, it looks like a very empty occupation, but every once in awhile there comes a sentence, a sentence so ripe and full of all the words you have been dying to hear, granted, they are words from yourself to yourself and certainly that should never be more important than the person standing in your temporary office berating you for not being more cognizant.

‘Darlin’ ain’t ya listening?’

‘No, I isn’t.’

Well, to those who know me well, they understand why I am not listening; I am not listening because I have gone somewhere else for the moment, to return for sure with a whole lot of words about something. But, when my office space suddenly went public, I did not anticipate the ramifications it would present on the psyche of my visitors and myself...it made them feel like I was ignoring them and just not interested in them or anyone else, but myself, and it made me feel rather agitated about being interrupted all the time.

‘You selfish sister!’

‘No, I isn’t’

‘I am writing this for you.’

‘But, I don’t read!’

O...O...O

I hadn’t thought of that.