FACE-PLANT
I stepped off the bus at Pieter B. Coeymans Elementary on my way into school. As I walked alongside the bus, someone still on the bus started shouting less than kind words at me. Fixing my eyes on them, I gave them the fiercest look I could muster and then walked right into a brick column. (You are free to laugh.)
The morning I face-planted into that brick column, I was eight or nine years old. This year I will turn 54. Any physical pain has long since gone away. Yet this is one of my most vivid memories from those elementary school years. Something about being made fun of, trying to be tough, and then walking into the column, well, it did not measure up with my image of what I should be.
FEAR OF BEING FOUND WANTING
One of life’s biggest fears is that people will discover how little we have our lives figured out and put together. So we often make decisions or say things all to protect people from discovering the “truth we know about ourselves.” We put on mask after mask, so people do not see our struggles. Our biggest fear is that if they knew, truly knew who I am, what I am dealing with, they might not like what they see.
If we are not careful, people might realize we are seconds away from walking into a brick column. [Read more…]
