Revisiting the Past
This week I have had the pleasure to spend time with my head of department and get to know something about her. We all have interesting stories of how we landed on this "cruise ship", but the daily grind can keep people from getting to know much about each others' past.
There is much in that statement. I know the people I work with as they are today, in this part of their life. Not before. In turn, they too, also only see a sliver of my life and are judging me based on what I choose to reveal to them.
If there was ever a time for reinventing one's self, it is now. At another point in my life, I may have enjoyed the chance to become someone else. Now, I only seek to share who I am at this moment, and to learn how the people around me became who they are as we share this time together.
I must have grown into my skin, because I really wouldn't have any other life at this point.
I shared my wedding photos with the ladies I work with this week. They were shocked to see my red dress and asked how I came to choose it. I was able to tell the tale of my color coated childhood, and bring to life my mom's survival techniques. In those photos they saw everyone important to me and all of the people who are important to Adam. Sharing this other moment, our wedding day, with these ladies who only know us in this moment, over seas and out of our element, helped to round out the picture of who we are for them.
I kept trying to give them an out, saying, "You really don't need to keep looking if you'd rather not." But each person was interested in seeing more.
This blog is a bit like that. Every time I post, I wonder who is reading and I feel like I should offer the same out to you, "You really don't need to keep looking if you'd rather not." But then I look at my stats and see that I have hundreds and hundreds of page views each month.
I know that life here is different than life at home. That the friends I make here will never replace the life-long friends of childhood, or share the knowledge of who I have been before this point like my brothers and sister do with me. However, those friends made here who are interested in knowing my stories, and whose stories I ask for in return, will be a different kind of friend for my future.
Seeing how easy it is to let daily life get in the way of knowing the people around you is a bit of a shock. It seems that the people you see on a daily basis should be the ones you know best; that is not often the case.
I'm going to work on making those slivers of what I know about the people around me a bit bigger.
There is much in that statement. I know the people I work with as they are today, in this part of their life. Not before. In turn, they too, also only see a sliver of my life and are judging me based on what I choose to reveal to them.
If there was ever a time for reinventing one's self, it is now. At another point in my life, I may have enjoyed the chance to become someone else. Now, I only seek to share who I am at this moment, and to learn how the people around me became who they are as we share this time together.
I must have grown into my skin, because I really wouldn't have any other life at this point.
I shared my wedding photos with the ladies I work with this week. They were shocked to see my red dress and asked how I came to choose it. I was able to tell the tale of my color coated childhood, and bring to life my mom's survival techniques. In those photos they saw everyone important to me and all of the people who are important to Adam. Sharing this other moment, our wedding day, with these ladies who only know us in this moment, over seas and out of our element, helped to round out the picture of who we are for them.
I kept trying to give them an out, saying, "You really don't need to keep looking if you'd rather not." But each person was interested in seeing more.
This blog is a bit like that. Every time I post, I wonder who is reading and I feel like I should offer the same out to you, "You really don't need to keep looking if you'd rather not." But then I look at my stats and see that I have hundreds and hundreds of page views each month.
I know that life here is different than life at home. That the friends I make here will never replace the life-long friends of childhood, or share the knowledge of who I have been before this point like my brothers and sister do with me. However, those friends made here who are interested in knowing my stories, and whose stories I ask for in return, will be a different kind of friend for my future.
Seeing how easy it is to let daily life get in the way of knowing the people around you is a bit of a shock. It seems that the people you see on a daily basis should be the ones you know best; that is not often the case.
I'm going to work on making those slivers of what I know about the people around me a bit bigger.
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