When I was a little boy, my mother would regularly tell my brother Caleb and me to go outside and play. We were happy to oblige for a half hour or so, but then we would get hot and bored and decide to go back inside. However, when we came back to the house, we would often discover she had locked us out.
The other day, someone posted a rant on Facebook in which they laid down the law about certain people who have a particular lame habit, which I shall not name here. The point is, their rant totally applied to me, and I involuntarily felt defensive.
After aggressively saving for a while, my wife and I just purchased a home that was totally remodeled. When the inspector was going through the house, he warned us that during the course of the first year, the new structure would settle, leaving cracks in the walls. Then a friend who purchased a similar home warned me that no matter how good the house looked, I would find all kinds of things wrong with it during the first year. Despite getting this advice from an experienced home inspector and a trusted friend, my internal reaction in response was, My house is going to be different.
The other day, I met a D.C. traffic-directing cop in the line at J.C. Penney, and I remarked how dangerous her job was. “I mean, people in D.C. drive so crazy,” I said. “You could get killed.”
The other day, I was riding the city bus with my daughters in Washington, D.C., when I noticed a heavy-set, middle-aged couple sitting next to us wearing shirts that appeared to read “MILLION MAN MARCH FOR BIBLES” in hot pink. But I wasn’t totally sure that’s what it said, because they were leaning forward looking at their phones, and it made it hard to read their shirts.
Dear Mom, The other day, someone came into my office and asked me why I have an old typewriter in there. I said, “My mom gave me that for my birthday back when I was in the sixth grade. She said I was a writer, so she wanted me to have a typewriter to help me do it right. I always appreciated it because it showed me how much she believed in me.”
One time when I was a kid, I went to this church lock-in, and for whatever reason – I don’t remember – I was being so negative about everything. I was criticizing the building, the food, the people; if it had something to do with the lock-in, it was a target for my put-downs.
Three weeks ago, my family and I picked up and moved everything from the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, to the busy streets of Washington, DC. I’m grateful for the chance to return to DC, but at the same time, everything about life feels upside down.
I am not known for raising my voice in frustration – at least not by my coworkers and friends. Apparently, it’s a different story with my family.
Yesterday, my two-year-old daughter and I walked to our neighborhood Walmart, which is a block and a half from our home in Washington, D.C. While we were in the meat department, Renee noticed an elderly lady in an automated wheelchair, but the woman didn’t see us because we were behind her.
I grew up in south Mississippi, where we kind of looked down on city folks – especially if they were from up north (“up north” basically meant anywhere past the northern border of Tennessee, or too far into south Florida, or anywhere in the midwest – or the west coast).
I had someone whom I refused to forgive for years. The odd thing was that I was sure I had forgiven them. I had prayed about the hurt they caused, told others I had let it go, and even made a point to build a relationship with them.
I used to be convinced I was going to spend the rest of my life in Venezuela. I had a number of friends there, I loved the culture, and the gorgeous Venezuelan ladies treated me like a celebrity when I visited during my junior year of college. So when I got back from my visit, I spent an inordinate amount of time talking about my plans for moving. And my poor mother was one of the main victims of my endless diatribes about the new life I thought I wanted.
One time I agreed to go tubing down a river with a bunch of friends, thinking it would be something akin to whitewater rafting. It wasn’t. We basically just sat in inner-tubes for several hours and took a slow-moving ride down a shallow river. It sounds easy enough, and generally it is, but the hard part is keeping up with all your friends.
I still remember the night my friend Aaron suggested I interview three people to learn what kind of impact I had on them. I was in a men’s accountability group, and no one other than Aaron seemed enthusiastic about our doing it. I was especially uncomfortable when I looked at the interview questions, realized they were designed to elicit mostly-negative responses, and saw one question that was particularly pointed: What do you observe about my life that you find distasteful?
Joshua Rogers 