Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The things people say

Today an unfamiliar car drove up our driveway.  I feel like I write this a lot but it seems to happen at least once or twice a week.  Today's visitors were a husband and wife who live a few miles from here.  They stopped to see the donkeys.  She got to give Shiloh some good scratches and Chy allowed her to pet her neck and face.  She told how she had been watching them and that James once told her she should stop by sometime.  She's the lady who draws his blood when he has his cholesterol checked.  They seemed like nice people and we talked donkeys and horses a little bit.  She grew up with horses "when horses weren't fancy, they were for transportation".  They stayed maybe 15 or 20 minutes and all the while Luti, one of my big goats, was rubbing her head all over their legs like she does to everyone.  As they were leaving the woman said, "the goats don't do anything for me.  Their eyes creep me out".  She said she doesn't like cats either and goats were kind of like cats to her.  Well, that was kind of a weird thing to say. 

That reminds me of an at-the-time friend who walked into our house, looked at a victorian chair we had and said, "I hate victorian furniture".  He's also the guy who criticized the way we lived and didn't know why we chose to live in poverty.  When he saw the house we live in now he said he'd visit us again when we had it fixed it up.  Note to self:  don't ever finish fixing this place up.

I guess we all do it, say things that should be kept to ourselves.  I notice the older I get the more I speak my mind.  I'm going to do my best to temper this as I age. 

A friend of mine has a brain tumor.  She worries her personality will change if her cancer progresses and she won't know it.  She asked me if I'd tell her if it did.  I said, no, of course I wouldn't.  What would it change?  When you think about it, what's the point of saying most negative things out loud?  Very rarely is it helpful or useful.

It's good for me to type this.  Maybe it will remind me to watch my mouth and be more thoughtful.

3 comments:

  1. I used to really hold on to negative things people said to me. (for hours sometimes). Then I learned how to not take things personally and now I let things roll off. One of the best things I ever learned. One of the "Four Agreements"

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  2. The Four Agreements are:

    1. Be Impeccable With Your Word.
    2. Don't Take Anything Personally.
    3. Don't Make Assumptions.
    4. Always Do Your Best.

    And the fifth: Be Skeptical.

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