Around this time last year I was just returning from a trip to Oregon. A couple of friends were getting married and I was to sing at the reception. On my flight over I had a window seat, for which I was very thankful. Somehow being able to look out the window made being stuck on a plane for three and a half hours more bearable. I know all of you who have taken longer trips are scoffing but it's hard for some of us to be stuck in one place for long periods of time.
From my view at the window I looked down on the flatlands of the Western States, places like Kansas and the Dakotas, and as I looked I saw these long, straight, treeless roads stretching from one corner of my window to the other. Every now and then they were broken by houses or barns. Silos. And as I looked down from that great height I realized that people lived in those houses, going about their daily lives. Someone was probably out tending to horses. Someone else was fighting with her brother. Another was probably not home, out at the grocery store or to visit family or going to a wedding or, heaven forbid, a funeral. None of them knew or cared that I and a hundred others were flying overhead. I found myself wondering about the people below. What are their lives like? Do they have friends? Have they lived anywhere else? Suddenly the thought that I am the center of my universe was laughable, just the naivete of a smalltown girl.
The problem with most humans today is that they can't think about anyone but themselves. We get caught up in our own wants, needs, desires and forget that other people are affected by the way we handle ourselves.
During my trip down memory lane to the gardens in Portland and the air above Utah I thought of something.
For years I've had extremely low self-esteem. There was this lingering feeling that I wasn't enough, no one liked me, I had no true friends and there was nothing about me worth being around. I wasn't pretty enough, thin enough, exciting enough, funny enough... And yet anyone who saw me wouldn't have any idea I felt that way. When I'd drive to WalMart my music would be up loud as I dangled my arm out of the open window, the sun glinting off my sunglasses. As I walked through the automatic doors it was with the air of belonging, as though I proclaimed "I own this store. Bow to me!"
At my college one of our buildings has doors that, when you open the inside doors forcefully, the outside doors automatically open. I guess it's a handicap feature designed to make life easier. If the doors stayed open long enough it probably would. These doors, in truth, are a vice for the underappreciated. If you happened to be the lone person to be yelled at or to mess up your lines during dress rehearsal for the upcoming production, or you were just in a bad mood these doors would help you regain your sense of purpose. Shoving the doors wide you stride out, epicly unafraid, hair blowing in the sudden wind into the wild darkness of the unknown called Muskingum College, stretching your arms wide you scream into the night sky "I am Spartacus!"
Who wouldn't find a sense of purpose with a scenario like that?
Even with my obsession with doors and feeling better about myself I eventually began taking the side door. The one for mere mortals. As I wander campus or search the aisles or fly overhead in a giant silo with wings I find myself glancing at the people around me. What's their story? Even now, as I sit at home alone every day, praying for God to give me a job and end my boredom, I hear voices on campus and I wonder who it is. What are they doing? Why are they out in the darkness of the night? Or I get on Facebook and see a cryptic status. What happened? Why do they feel that way? Sometimes I make up stories about them, pretending that they've answered my questions.
So today, as I thought about this I wondered about those people who can only think of themselves and I realized, I can't do anything without wondering about someone else.
Yes, I'm still selfish, still wallow in self-pity, but all I can wish for is to meet new people, find new faces, learn new stories... perhaps its the writer in me. Perhaps it's because other people's stories are far more enticing than my own. So many people outside of my little world with stories and adventures and ideas that are completely foreign to me. One friend spent an entire semester in Africa because, as he told me, he wanted to go completely outside of himself into a new place. New world. I was fascinated. Being a person who believes she has nothing to offer I often wonder what these people, with all the experiences, can teach me. What will I learn from them? Because obviously they've learned enough, I've nothing to give.
I have to wonder... is this tendency good or bad? Is it selfish, to want to learn from others experiences? It's such a slippery slope that it's a hard question to answer, let alone ask. Unfortunately I can't answer. It was just a thought.
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