Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Ramblings: difference

So today my friend, who is a doctor, mandated me to go outside and write. "It will make you feel better," she says. She knows me too well. 
I've been wanting to do these short posts for some time. I usually don't have long bits of information or thoughts to share, but wanted to find a way to capture those fleeting thoughts. I have come to call them ramblings: random little nuggets that come to mind and bug me till I write them down. Sometimes they make sense. Mostly they don't. But there is always something there, lingering beneath them waiting to be discovered. 

Maybe we can discover them together. 

The first is entitled difference:

I am different now. 
Mostly in ways I cannot explain. 
Not because circumstances have changed. 
No, I figure I was destined to come out on the other side of this. 
I am different because I allowed myself to learn. That's all we can really do anyway. Learn. Discover. Explore. Get it wrong and learn all over again. 
Even teaching is learning. We teach not what we know but what we've come to learn. Otherwise we only teach close mindedness. 
But yes, difference. I can see that now. I find myself at a crossroad of difference. Will I just accept the difference and travel down the road to complacency that always leads to stubbornness? Or has the stubbornness already set in, bringing resistance to any and all difference that threatens comfort? Or will I resist both the complacency and stubbornness; scratching and crawling my way out of its lure and pushing toward change?
Should it be anything but the latter, I am most certain that I will fail in this season. 
Outside, two women each lunch together. They laugh and cover their faces. I wonder why they are so ashamed of their happiness. When did we learn to treat our joy so delicately? When did love become so polite? Hate surly isn't. 
I am different. 
Yes. I can see that now. 

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