Smile

So my original inspiration for writing today was something I read in Kris Carr’s book, Crazy, Sexy Cancer Survivor “Remember feelings aren’t facts, feelings are signposts” because it reminded me of what a counselor told me not too long ago. During a mini emotional meltdown after the ending of a three-year relationship, I called her in a state of high anxiety needing someone unbiased to listen to me and remind me that “This too shall pass.” and she was that person. She told me that my feelings are just that, feelings, nothing more, they aren’t me, they aren’t in control and they are temporary. Allowing myself to feel them, acknowledge them and not attach myself to them will allow me to move through them. So I did.

But sitting at my desk in the back office of a bookstore today, I hear a call for someone to pick up line 2 for customer service and being that a bookseller called out today, I try to help catch the phone calls when everyone else is busy helping customers on the floor. I answered the phone and proceeded to get the customer’s request of a book and headed out to the book floor to search for the book. It was The Boy in Striped Pajamas by John Boyne by the way and a very sad but good book that was recently made into a movie. So standing in front of the teen fiction section looking at the Bs for Boyne, I was unable to locate the one copy our system said we had but I did see an index card sticking out from that shelf so I grabbed it to throw it away, you wouldn’t believe how much trash people leave laying around the store such as napkins, Kleenexes, cups, paper and everything else you can think of. I feel like a maid sometimes. Anyway, I pulled the index card out and looked at it and found a nice little message left randomly just for someone like me to pick up.

On the one hand, it did make me smile just thinking that I found something that was purposefully left for someone to pick up and see. On the other hand, I’ve been a little frustrated lately with being told by everyone I work with to “Smile, it can’t be that bad.” or “What’s wrong? You look so sad.” And I’ve vented to friends and family and co-workers that it’s impossible to smile 24/7 and that nothing is wrong and that I live in my head a lot so am not even aware I have a serious look on my face and then lastly but not very nicely that I’m sorry you’re uncomfortable with the look on my face or the feelings you think I have such as sad or mad or whatever. Sorry, it just rubs me wrong when it’s not realistic to walk around with a bright sunshiney face all of the time.

But in the end, I’m enjoying my little message and hopefully whomever left it will someday know that it did bring a smile to this serious girl’s face.