The Girl in the Red Rubber Boots

Jul 21, 2009

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At midnight Sunday morning I was at Knepps, hanging out with them and their company until the wee hours of the morning.

The next day I was up at 9:00 and off too Church.

Immediately after Church there was a potluck at Rudd park.

Went home and rested for a couple hours, and then it was off to Red Rock Canyon with Knepps and their company, where I CLIMBED THE ROCKS!!! OH YEAH!

I felt strong.

From there we went to duck pond park with the youth group, where I played steal the bacon. I felt really really strong.

And then it was an enchanted ride in the back of a pickup truck with a whole bunch of friends up skyline drive.

Was that the end of the party? Of course not! We still had to go back to Knepps and play a super-sized game of Rage until the wee hours of the morning.

It was a nice, full, satisfying day, until I woke up the next morning feeling sore and aweful.

Now I know how much is too much. And it is a lot.

Different subject: have you ever played rage, or up and down the river, or seven up seven down, and come to that part in the very middle of the game where you each have only one card? And instead of looking at your card you hold it up to your forehead so that everyone else can see it but you can’t?

That is how I feel when I hang out with people, especially people I don’t know very well.

I can look at Dallas and see that he’s a yellow seven. I can see that Amy is a red fourteen. But when they look at me, what do they see?

Can you ever know how other people perceive you?

Comments

5 responses to “”

lady down the street

July 21, 2009

any very healthy person would feel worn after all that…. we did.

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Iryna

July 22, 2009

Wow. What a thought-provoking post. I guess you can’t really know how other people percieve you. I don’t know if this is just me, but I find I act differently when I’m with different people. That means every one of them has a right, but also wrong image of me. Does that make sense?

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Joyce Walker

July 22, 2009

Excellent observation! You are growing in many ways.So you overdid, wasn’t it great? Just slow down a bit and continue to grasp life. I envy you and your attitude.

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Dustin

July 22, 2009

I like your question, but it’s a tricky one to know what one should do with it. I have a curious streak in me, and sometimes I’m not sure I know myself the way that I want to, so I get really curious any time there’s a chance for me to find out how others perceive me. Usually I just ask, and the answers I get are sometimes humorous, sometimes surprising, sometimes predictable, sometimes the-opposite-of-who-I-thought-I-was being, and sometimes a mix of all of these. But one thing I notice from these conversations is that we humans like to have things make sense, and so we often fill in areas of ambiguity about another person with suppositions, which are in danger of being treated as ‘facts’. But my real purpose in wanting to look into the ‘mist-and-mirrors’ of others’ perceptions of me is in the hope of discovering a new aspect of who I really am (i.e., God’s perception of me), in the hope of living in a closer unity with myself, with others, and with God. If the perceptions that others have of who I am are often murky mists and clouded mirrors, then the perception that God has of who I am is like a piercing light that burns and cleanses my soul. And I guess I, like one of those silly moths, only want to spend time among the ‘mists-and-mirrors’ if they help me on my way to that Holy deadly Flame…

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If hard times don’t change your view of God, then what is the point of hard times? « Emily Smucker’s Blog

November 27, 2009

[…] of my book. Reading reviews of my book is like getting an exclusive peek at the rook card I’m holding up to my forehead. A glimpse of how someone else is viewing me. And sometimes I want to run to them, screaming, […]

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