Here Goes

The most difficult thing about writing a personal blog is the word 'personal'. Sometimes I want to write something because it meant something important to me but I fear how it will sound, how I will seem, and how it could be taken. I think everyone worries to some extent about the image they portray, everyone tries to project an amalgam of the person they are and the person they would like to be. This makes honesty sometimes an unappealing route to take in recording, publically, an important personal moment.

When 'it' happened, I knew immediately that I wanted to blog about it. A millisecond after the idea of blogging 'it' the thought 'and just how will you pull that off without seeming pathetic' struck me. So I've wrestled on and off with writing about 'it'. Last night after getting home from the mall, where I only crashed into one door jamb in 'Henry' my power chair, I even spent a while reading past comments, reminding myself that I have nice readers with kind spirits.

Oh, no, I've just re-read what I've written and now I'm worried that I've given 'it' too much build up, it's not that big a deal. But, I'm not erasing what I wrote and I'm not going to just change the topic.

What 'it' was.

I was at work yesterday, my office overlooks a vacant field and I watched as the snow swirlled around making small science fair sized tornados. I had just finished the edit on a policy thing a ma jig that I had been asked to edit when one of my fellow co-workers came into my office. She is someone I have come to really like, even admire. In my unerring ability to misjudge people, I flat out didn't like her when I first met her. I was wildly wrong on every count that I had first held against her. I am, with age, learning to slow down my judgements. Anyways, she came in with a question and we began talking.

Then, out of the blue, appropo of nothing, she complimented me on the colour of my eyes. I was startled and blushed like a schoolgirl, because I too, like the colour of my eyes. I get complimented a lot on my work, on my lecturing, on my writing, on things that I do ... I never, ever, ever, get compliment on anything to do with my looks. Well, never, ever ever, is wrong, Joe does - but then Joe knows how to butter bread. But other than him. Never. Ever. Ever. New shirts are never noticed. Haircuts occur in a vaccuum. No one ever, ever, ever says anything about me physically.

Hold on now, as I'm writing this I realize that sometimes when I write something about being unattractive, belted with the ugly stick, people writing in and essentially say, 'you're not that bad' ... which isn't a compliment - it's reassurance, which is a long way from being complimentary.

So back to the compliment. I don't live my life in need of compliments. I like the recognition I get for my work, I like the feedback I get from lecturing - sure. But personal compliements - I don't even notice their lack, until something like this happens. An out and out compliment.

And I won't lie. It felt nice.

Now I'm near the end of my post and I don't know how to end this. I don't know why I'm telling you or what urges me not to hit the delete button. I'm absolutely NOT asking people who know me, who see me for tea, who meet with me, to suddenly flower up their language, to scan me desperately for something nice to say - don't do that you'll embarrass the hell out of me. I do not want to get comments full of compliments, projectile vomitting can ruin a computer. I am absolutely NOT wanting to sound like a whiny baby complaining about how tough it is to be born me - I don't want to be anything other than who I am, I have grown comfortable in here.

I just wanted to say, that someone, for a moment, noticed something nice about me, physically, and said something about it. I don't know if it took courage to do so, maybe it did. But she did it so naturally and so honestly that it seemed that she had been able to look over the huge mass of me and see something sparkling therein. A nice skill to be blessed with.

A nice blessing to give.