Reading

I am a super fast reader. I can down a 300 or 400 page book in a day. It’s not skim read or portioned. I can get it all and form my honest opinion on it.

But no. For the girl that reads as much as she breathes, this post is not about a book.

It is about people.

I am horrible at reading people. I love people. More than I can even say. There is a part of me that comes alive when I am around them, particularly people who are alive with life, vibrant, beautiful, full of personality, and in love with God. I enjoy being around them, listening to them, laughing with them, crying with them… 

 

 

 

But I do a horrible job at forming judgment about people. I cannot understand what they want. I do not get what they are feeling. I feel caught, trapped, in a world of my own, separated from all that they are.

I have always lived with a rosy view of the world. Everything is happy, not because it is perfect, but because I have decided to look at it with delight in my eyes.

I had a very painful childhood. Something happened to me that I have opened up to few people about that shaped who I am. It forms me more than anything else.  

But it taught me one thing more than anything else.

To look at life with the decision in my heart to be happy.

Happiness is not something that happens. It is something you choose.

Because of that, I fail to understand a lot of the way people feel, because I have trained myself to smile even when I am in pain. I have made the decision to laugh even when I want to cry. I told myself to ignore the rejection even when I wanted to shout at the world.

I put my rose-colored glasses on and only looked at the good.

Sometimes, that is a good thing!! I get to see people in a light that most others do not. I enjoy their good points without finding their flaws. I can relish the joy they bring me without dwelling on the pain I get too.

And other times it is bad. 

When I don’t understand them. When I cannot get what they are feeling. Because those feelings are alien to me. I am not washed with uncontrollable emotion. About anything. Except utter joy.

I do not understand what they mean when they say certain things and do certain stuff… I am confused, bewildered, caught with my mouth open with nothing to say…



I am not sure if I can learn this art. I have tried. I have studied people, tried to anticipate what they are feeling, how they will react, what they want, why they said that, where they are going with that. What are they thinking right now? What's in their head? What are their motivations for doing that?

I wish I knew.

But I don’t. I can’t. I am stuck with my glasses on and the rims hold back full vision.