A Birthday That Was Almost Shared With America

I was supposed to be born in July, perhaps even July 4th, although I would have to ask my parents for the exact date. 

I turned 45 this year and America turns 250 (well will have already turned when you will be reading this). With the years ticking along like a clock that is midway through its battery life, I began to wonder what America and I have learned through our combined experiences.

I have become more emotionally intelligent, that much I do know to be a fact.  I can read the room if you will.  I can tell when people are interested, or uninterested, in what I have to say.  This particular skill I learned from one of my college professors.  She was in her 70s when I had her in class and now has since passed, but she lives on in my memories still and the lessons that she inadvertently taught me.  I remember one particular day.  I was having lunch in the small bistro my university placed in the front of the school.  It screamed we are so hip, so cool, although the food was just recycled from the cafeteria, but did make you feel a bit better receiving your meal on a checkered papered basket.  I entered the small cafe and immediately saw her.  It was awkward to say the least.  I was perhaps a sophomore at the time so had already spent a great deal of time with her.  Me being in several stage plays and her being head of the theatre department.

”You want to have lunch?” She asked me, much to my surprise.

I have to admit I was a bit flattered.  She could be intimidating, never took bull shit from anyone.  I had watched her cut someone deep and then chuckle to herself, her blue eyes twinkling in delight, while the student frowned and grunted what a bitch she was.

But I found myself nodding that yes, I would indeed like to have lunch with her.

I don’t really remember much of the conversation although I highly doubt it was too enthralling for her.  I’m sure I stuttered, put one foot or two in my mouth (hopefully not at the same time) and talked at random about my life.  I would hope I asked her more questions about her than prattling on about myself since what could a sheltered girl of 19 really offer a woman with so much life experience?  However, what I do remember is after we were done eating I launched into probably another verbose story and I witnessed something as my mouth flapped its gums.  Her eyes began to slide from either direction until she abruptly bid me a good day and left our table.  Now, I was not done with said story.  In fact, I was in the middle of a long winding sentence, but she, like the honey badger, didn’t give two shits.

How terribly rude of her, you might think.

But that wasn’t what I thought then and it’s most definitely not what I think now.  My story was boring, probably disjointed from our conversation, and she simply did not have the time for any of it, so she left, but not before teaching me a very important lesson.  Not everything you say is important or particularly funny and when you see others disengaging just stop talking.  They aren’t interested and there will be no amount of improvements to your story that will make them care all that much.

So, I can read the room.  I know when people aren’t interested and I listen rather than incessantly flap my jaws (unless I’ve had two glasses of wine, then I’m a lost cause).

But, can America say the same, I wonder?

Has the US read the worldly room or is it talking and talking, and then talking some more in one hope or the other that if it is louder, bolder, maybe some one will stand and listen and even perhaps agree with all of that mindless chatter?

I hate to say that America has a lot more growing to do, especially in the emotional department and some back pedaling has unfortunately occurred where bloated politicians have given a mouthpiece to the ignorant, the entitled.

I hope that I will continue to grow and learn and be and do and I hope that America will do the same.  I do really think the World Cup is perhaps the best thing that is happening in our world right now because it’s allowing us to realize that citizens aren’t the real problem, but it’s the people with too much power who are. They delight in division and fear so that we become smaller, more pliable puppets to a show that they are the only audience to.  And I for one do not want to go to such a show, even if the admission is free, because I’m not a cog in the every growing machine.  My world may be small, but it’s my world, my life, and that’s important to the one true star in the story of Elizabeth.

Maybe America needs its own theatre professor to teach it a thing or two. Maybe then we can properly grow together to enhance everyone’s experience and not just our own. I wonder how my professor would react to America if she was still alive today, although I suspect she might just walk away because honestly who has time for such ignorance and maybe that’s its own little lesson.