Guest SEP

This has been one of those non-stop weeks. Laurie asked to sit in the big rocker under the fan for this week’s Saturday Evening Post. Grab your cuppa and snuggle into a rocker. Laurie wants to talk.

Life is about changes from the time we first pop into the world unaware of the pure hell that it actually is. It becomes evident early on that we have choices and supposedly the freedom to make our own choices. Do we really?

In time we learn to adjust to the changes in routine, surroundings or do we? Could it be that we just go numb to our surroundings and block out everything but what brings us the most pleasure? There are those that crave human contact, even seek it out. Then, there are those on the other end of the spectrum that do not know the meaning of lonely, only of having a physical need met.

The ones that have no comprehension of lonely move out away from everyone and set a routine that limits human interaction to extremes. Their doors say “invitation only” and showing up without one just to chitchat results in the door slamming promptly in your face when they bother to open it to your intrusion.

First impressions are a dangerous thing; lasting impressions do even more damage. Things below the surface are often far different than they appear when looking at the outer shell. There are those around us that appear selfish or just plain stupid. Did you ever stop to look below the surface to see what was underneath? No? Where you too preoccupied with your own desires or did you not give a damn in reality?

The perception that those who do not get lonely, yet want physical urges met and human contact on their terms, are self-serving is not correct. They find that very few people understand in the slightest and they let fewer in close enough to find out. Telling them they are hard to read means they tell you to stop trying; they are not a book that opens for your leisure.

Maladjustment to change can occur for a million reasons. The easiest to explain is the change was forced with what amounts to little or no choice by the one making the adjustment. It takes longer to adjust to things that feel as if our free will was completely lost.

There are those that must surround themselves with people in order to make adjustments while others are content to find one person that makes them comfortable in the new surroundings and allow them to make them laugh at even the stupidest of things that would have otherwise irritated them to no end in order to make the transition.

Friendships form in the strangest of places, and those seeking answers by looking at the outside will never understand the inside. It is said, repeatedly, that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. This means that those you think may be dwelling on the past might not be; they could actually be attempting to remind themselves not to repeat the same mistakes since forgetting said mistake made them repeat it in the past.

When’s the last time you took the time to look past the surface to find out what was actually going on? When the last time you let someone close enough to do it you?

We have a tendency to build mechanisms of defense overtime and without realizing that’s what we did. We push away the ones that would love us, support us and walk through the fires of hell for us without a second thought all in an effort to prevent damage they do not intend to inflict. So are we not adjusting, maladjusted or coping and adjusting in our own time and way?

Laurie Childree is the author of Moments, Money & Memories and Observations Obsessions Oddities and a contributing author to Flash in the Pan. You can check out more of her work at her blog, Odds and Ends of a Wondering Mind.

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