Documentalist

I had a piece of pie at a café last Sunday, and while enjoying it I recognized someone with whom I have had dozens of email and phone conversations. I caught his eye and smiled, and he looked away not acknowledging me. And strangely, for a few moments, I was actually trying to think of in what way I have caused ill will between us. Had I not returned an email promptly? Had I been short? Did I say something wrong?

Funny how we all do this sort of thing from time to time. We make grand documentaries in our heads of how we have not measured up, with a play-by-play of all the possible mistakes we have made rolling along in Morgan Freeman commentary-like style. I often read that most of such self-talk and musing in our minds is bunk. We worry, we rationalize, we internalize and the solution or the real present situation is sort of left dangling while we fuss some more.

As we were leaving the cafe, I spoke up and said who I was. Here is the thing – in all my docu-drama speculations I had forgotten that we have only met in person once before and that was over 6 years ago. He simply did not recognize me and was so glad that I approached him.

I guess we all need to remember to stop the train when it starts to run away and actually say to ourselves, what is really true here? And then once what’s true is established, we need to act accordingly in a way that makes a difference, tell Morgan to clam up, we have work to do to make things better right now.

Photo by Photography Maghradze PH on Pexels.com