Musing: So Now do I start Project Rob[bie]?

I see Robbie at the Library every time I go there, though according to his name tag he now goes by Rob which makes sense because as you grow up you probably want to shed the “kid name” that you had in elementary school. In at least the past two years I’ve never said hi to him even though I frequent the library at which he (frequently) works.

Waiting in the check out line I decide tonight I’m going to say hi. I gear up thinking “Hi Robbie, you went to Bonneville Elementary--right?” But then, “I probably look weird with my hood on. I bet he will see that I didn’t wash my hair today. Do I really want him to see that I’m checking out a pilates video? I pause. Okay if he is the one to check out the movies I’m getting I’ll talk to him, if the line leads me to the old lady I won’t talk to him.” But my heart’s not in it anymore. I’m praying that I’ll go to the lady and not him. My prayers are answered. I check out my two DVDs--one yoga video and one pilates video-- and leave, glancing at him to see if he glances at me as I go, but he doesn’t. He just keeps scanning books. Oblivious. Which he would be because I didn’t say anything to him or draw any attention to myself.

I leave, feeling unfulfilled. My mind wanders as I’m driving on Foothill with the windows down. I imagine what our conversation would have been. “You went to Bonneville didn’t you? What are you doing these days? That’s cool. Do you live around here?”

I catch myself. Here I am enjoying an imaginary conversation with someone I could actually be talking to. If I had been more fearless, or friendly, or turned off the critical part of my brain (or washed my hair this morning) I might be having a real conversation which would be better than an imaginary one. (Imagination can only get you so far. Imaginary friends will only ever say or do what you can think up and after awhile you will always realize that you are in your backyard alone anyway.) What’s more, if I’d started talking to this kid two years ago we might be really buddy buddy right now, and I certainly wouldn’t be chastising myself at the moment over a lack of confidence. But in reality I’ve never talked to him--probably not even in elementary school.

I, like many other people I assume, am made up of paradoxes. Opposites are true about me like how I’m shy and yet gregarious. So if I change my behavior from shy to friendly it’s not changing who I am but changing which side of me is winning or surfacing. And I like the gregarious, fearless person better even though she can be harder to push into action. But it’s a lot easier to feel fearless when I’m alone in my room looking in the mirror (and knowing that the hood looks fine and my hair looks clean) than it is to be fearless in the moment. But I guess that’s what a full life needs: more fearlessness.

Look at it this way: it’s better to write on your laptop in the library where you might meet someone new than to write at home where you definitely won’t. Not that you need to want to encounter the new all the time, but if you are hankering for it it’s not going to pop up in your basement.