Thursday, August 10, 2006

Reflections on a gated community - - - -

Conversation with a guy at work (who’s known to have a somewhat odd sense of humor)....

S: "You look just like someone who works in our department."
me: "Really? You should introduce us sometime!"
S: "I really don't know her that well."
me: "Well that's too bad."

As soon as I said that I realized that it’s true. It’s really too bad that there are people who don’t know me that well. People I see nearly every day, but truly without much interaction. Then I got to thinking that there are people who should know me so well but then they say something or do something and it makes you wonder if they ever really knew you at all.

There are people we let into our own little world and there are people we keep out. There are times we make mistakes on who we give the gate key too - bad relationships or selfish people - and we wish we could erase them or forget them but they’ve already left their initials carved in every tree, wet cement and park bench in our world.

I’m not saying we should lock the gate and throw away all the keys and keep everyone out for fear of a person wielding a mean pocket knife. Maybe we just need to walk through our world with the next person we want to invite in and help them understand us. Then maybe they will be more sensitive to things that we’re sensitive to. Or at least know why we feel the way we do, even if they don’t quite get it.

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