It's a small world sometimes
I attended my parents' church yesterday, as a prelude to going out to lunch with my mother for her birthday. Aside from the fact that I am dramatically out of place in a church (what with my epistemological materialism and all), I always feel uncomfortable for another reason: people know me.
From the moment that I step into the doors, people I don't know walk up to me and address me by name, asking me how I'm doing. They obviously mean well, and I can usually talk to them for a short period of polite conversation, but the fact remains that I have absolutely no freakin' clue who they are.
The last time that I attended my parents' church with any regularity was when I was a Senior in high school (I stopped going right after a friends untimely death). When I was that age, I didn't pay too much attention to the people that my parents talked to at the church, but now I'm wishing that I had. All of these people, who knew me from the better part of a decade ago, still recognize me, and I couldn't tell you their names if my life depended on it.
Well, this weekend, I found myself in another one of those situations, and I don't mean while I was in my parent's church. I had to run out to get some groceries yesterday, and while I was standing in line to check out with my meager fare, I heard a voice behind me.
"Excuse me, I don't mean to bother you, but are you, by any chance, [Academian]?" I turned around and was confronted with two women standing together who obviously knew me. Once again, I was at a loss as to their identities. My mind was racing trying to pin them down. Were they from one of the several jobs I'd worked in town? Were they from my parents' church? Neighbors of my parents? This time, thankfully, the strangers divined that I couldn't place who they were and introduced themselves to me, obviating the social awkwardness.
This woman (who I learned was a professor at the law school) and her partner didn't know me from the law school. They remembered me from the few times that I attended a particular church that is especially friendly to gay people with my father from when I was in elementary school. I have to give them credit for having stellar memories. I can barely recall what the place looked like, what it was called, or where it was in Topeka, let alone the people that attended that other church. These two women recalled a young child that attended a few dozen times with his father (who still goes to the church occasionally) from more than a decade and a half ago. Wow. I wish I had that kind of mental acuity.
It's a small world after all.
From the moment that I step into the doors, people I don't know walk up to me and address me by name, asking me how I'm doing. They obviously mean well, and I can usually talk to them for a short period of polite conversation, but the fact remains that I have absolutely no freakin' clue who they are.
The last time that I attended my parents' church with any regularity was when I was a Senior in high school (I stopped going right after a friends untimely death). When I was that age, I didn't pay too much attention to the people that my parents talked to at the church, but now I'm wishing that I had. All of these people, who knew me from the better part of a decade ago, still recognize me, and I couldn't tell you their names if my life depended on it.
Well, this weekend, I found myself in another one of those situations, and I don't mean while I was in my parent's church. I had to run out to get some groceries yesterday, and while I was standing in line to check out with my meager fare, I heard a voice behind me.
"Excuse me, I don't mean to bother you, but are you, by any chance, [Academian]?" I turned around and was confronted with two women standing together who obviously knew me. Once again, I was at a loss as to their identities. My mind was racing trying to pin them down. Were they from one of the several jobs I'd worked in town? Were they from my parents' church? Neighbors of my parents? This time, thankfully, the strangers divined that I couldn't place who they were and introduced themselves to me, obviating the social awkwardness.
This woman (who I learned was a professor at the law school) and her partner didn't know me from the law school. They remembered me from the few times that I attended a particular church that is especially friendly to gay people with my father from when I was in elementary school. I have to give them credit for having stellar memories. I can barely recall what the place looked like, what it was called, or where it was in Topeka, let alone the people that attended that other church. These two women recalled a young child that attended a few dozen times with his father (who still goes to the church occasionally) from more than a decade and a half ago. Wow. I wish I had that kind of mental acuity.
It's a small world after all.
posted by The Academian | 6:27 PM
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