Where everybody knows my name

I've mentioned before that I've been attending two of the churches in our small town each Sunday.  Stay with me here, I'm not trying to persuade you, my dear readers, to do what I'm doing.  I want to tell you what I've discovered about myself in the process.

How many times have my long-time readers seen on my blog the phrase "I'm a loner"?  Surely I've typed it into a few entries.  I've mentioned it many times on Facebook, and I tell people the same thing face to face.   But I'm learning something about myself during these last few months:  I may not be so much a loner as simply "socially awkward". 

Oh, I do value my alone time.  Growing up, I learned to enjoy my own company.  Throughout my first eight years in rural Iowa, there weren't many opportunities to play with other children.  Until I was five, I was my own best friend, and had no problem with that.  So once I started going to the one-room schoolhouse, I was already somewhat peculiar.  I know this because other kids didn't flock around me at recess.  One little girl told me I talked too loud (I still do, but at least that trait now serves a purpose, since Cliff is about half deaf).  Isn't it strange how a seventy-five-year-old woman would remember such things, and isn't it peculiar how it still hurts just a little?

And that's how the Internet drew me in.  I discovered a Christian chat room on AOL and made friends there.  Sometimes I even felt like the life of the party.  We began having chat reunions and met one another in person, so some of our Internet friends became real-life friends.  Many of those kind people have died now, but I still have Joanna, whom I claim as a sister.  We don't talk often, but we are there for one another when we are going through things.  I spent a week with her in her home near Washington, DC, and saw some of the local sites I would never have seen, if not for her.  She is much more than an "Internet friend".

The chat room group gradually disbanded; I left AOL.  Many years later, Facebook happened, and I re-connected with some of my old friends and made some new ones... online friends, that is, but there was once again that feeling that "somebody knows I'm here".  I went crazy, really.  A person can be very social online, and turn off the party when she's had enough.  I didn't have to clean house or entertain people to have a social life!  It was an ideal situation, I thought. 

All it really amounted to was this:  somebody knew I was alive.

It's worked pretty well for me all these years, but after stepping into these two small-town churches, I've realized something:  It's nice to have some real people to talk to, people who are glad to see me every time I walk through the door because when there are only fifteen of them, one person makes a big difference in the size of a crowd. 

I'll have to skip the Methodist Church this morning because the Baptist Church is having their Thanksgiving dinner after the service.  I'm taking Old Settler's beans, Cliff, and Heather, the grandson's wife.  Yes, Cliff volunteered to go to church this Sunday.  Why?  Because the preacher's wife said to tell him to come in and eat with us, since he comes to pick me up at church anyway.  

Cliff likes to eat, you know.  However, he said he didn't feel right just walking in for a meal.  So he is going to church too.  It'll be a one-time thing, I imagine, but at least the folks can meet the mysterious stranger who, along with my dog, is always waiting for me in the car after church.   I do hate being absent from the Methodist Church today, because I've made a friend who sits in the pew behind me every Sunday.  She was a school-teacher long ago.  We have some nice chats.  Her name is Patty.  She knows a lot about the history of Wellington.  Three generations of her family have attended that church.  She likes sitting behind me because she enjoys looking at my naturally curly hair, which makes her think about her curly-haired brother when he was a child.

As all these thoughts were running through my mind this morning, the theme song from "Cheers" came to mind.  Now, I didn't know all the lyrics to that song, although I never missed an episode of the show.  But I did recall the words in the title:  "Where everybody knows your name".

And that, my friends, is what draws me back to two churches of differing denominations every Sunday.  Not all my beliefs line up with either congregation, but it seems like God is in both of them, small in numbers as they are.  I keep my mouth shut about theological differences, because my opinion, after all, is just another opinion.  That and a dollar might buy you a cup of coffee.  But after sitting at home on Sunday for years or else going to larger churches where I felt invisible, there are two places where I am welcomed heartily and everybody knows my name... make that three.  And many of the people at a fourth one might vaguely remember me.

An abrupt change in my behavior

I've opted out of Facebook briefly on a few occasions, the usual reason being that I simply wanted to see if I could.  This time, it was because of one thing that happened to someone, a thing that bothered me so much it literally made me sick at my stomach and sent me to the doctor.  So day before yesterday I temporarily turned Facebook off and made myself disappear from my four hundred plus "friends".  I didn't give a warning, because people start telling you how they will miss you and it ends up as looking like you're begging for attention.  All the other times I took a facebook vacation, it still had a hold on me and constantly called my name.  

This time is very different.  It was a relief to be in the real world.  I'm a nicer person.  When I'm reading, the book I hold has my full attention.

Yesterday was magical.  Cliff and I went to do some pre-Thanksgiving shopping, starting at Aldi.  He handed me a quarter and I walked to the line of locked-together carts.  I pushed the quarter in the slot, but it wouldn't release the cart.  I struggled with it awhile; a man approached the line beside mine to return his cart, and I asked if I could have his cart, offering my quarter to him.  "Oh, sure," he said.  "But keep your quarter."

I've had folks at Aldi ask me before, as I'm getting out of the car, if I need the empty cart they are returning; and I've had a couple of them tell me to keep my quarter.  But somehow this time, the tiny kindness set off a chain of events that I almost couldn't believe... but maybe it was because my full attention was right there, instead of wondering what somebody meant by some meme they posted on Facebook two days ago.  When I went into the store I saw, ahead of me, a man in a wheelchair with a service dog on a leash beside him and his wife ahead of him.  I noticed how when the wheel chair stopped, so did the dog, a mongrel who had no outstanding quality except the way he moved in tandem with the fellow, living in the present as only a dog can do.  The wife looked serious as she did her shopping; I said to her, "Isn't it wonderful how a dog can be trained to help a human?"

She answered, "Oh yes!  And this was a stray that was afraid of everything and didn't trust anybody before."

I hadn't been in the store long when Cliff decided to come in and join me.  He picked up a can of salmon I'd put in the cart and said, "What's this for?"

"Oh, I thought I'd make salmon patties soon; it's been awhile."  (The truth is, I love salmon patties, but they stink up the house for days!)

"Is that hard?"

I smiled at his complete lack of knowledge about how food is prepared and said, "No, you just crush some crackers, beat an egg, add that and some seasonings and onion, make patties, and fry them."

I realized what he was thinking:  We'd gotten a late start, and I said as we left home, "We are not going to eat out.  If it's time to eat when we get home, I'll just make us a grilled cheese sandwich."

So now I told him we'd have salmon patties instead of grilled  cheese, cook some peas, open the cottage cheese I was going to buy, and have an actual meal.

Cliff loaded our groceries into the trunk and a lady got out of her car nearby; I offered her my cart and she smiled and started to hand me her quarter.  "Oh no," I said, "just take it."

She started to insist, but I said, "A man gave it to me and said keep the quarter, so I want to hand it off to you."

She said, smiling, "Well then, I'll pass it on."

A simple exchange, right?  But if felt good.

Then on to Price Chopper.  When I finished there and was standing in the checkout line, I noticed the cashier looked unhappy as she did her job, hardly looking at the people in front of her.  When it was my turn, I said, "This season is tough for all of you doing this job, isn't it?  Half the people are excited and happy, but the other half of the people are grumpy."

She looked at me in surprise, visibly relaxed a little, and sighed out the words "Oh, yes!"  

I think she was just relieved that someone knew her job wasn't always easy.  

Then I paid her, told her happy Thanksgiving, and she smiled.

If you only knew how I've shopped in my little bubble for years, not looking anybody in the eye and hoping nobody looked at me... good grief, what has happened to me?  I laughed later, telling Cliff about all this.  "I think I've become an ambassador of good will today!"

I won't tell you how many people responded to my "happy Thanksgiving" greetings throughout all this.

What does this have to do with Facebook?  Simply this:  I was living in the present, rather than thinking about what I might be missing on Facebook.  And honestly, it was such a transforming experience, I may get off Facebook permanently.  This is a thought that would never have entered my mind before.  

I'm a 75-year-old woman, but when there's a family gathering and everyone else is playing on the phone, I give up and join them on my iPad or phone, because there's nobody to talk to anyhow.  Usually, we are all on Facebook.  I've met so many wonderful folks on the Internet that I'll never interact with again if I make this drastic change; that's the only thing that makes it a difficult decision.  Will I get sucked back in if I try to limit my Facebook time?  Does it have to be all or nothing?  

I stopped carrying a phone or iPad to bed with me a long time ago, and I stopped looking at the phone when we are in a restaurant.  I believe from now on, when everybody around me is playing around with a device of any kind, I'll just go in another room and do something else, or maybe start reading a book.  Of course, I read my books on an iPad, and I don't think that would be much of a change.  

I'll let you know how it all turns out.