Humble Pie

In light of Thanksgiving, I thought it only appropriate to share my most recent experience with eating a large helping of Humble Pie.  As a side note, the expression actually used to be "Umble Pie" and had nothing to do with humility. But enough from the English major.  Back to the introvert-attempting-to-turn-extrovert.

So recently I've been dealing with a very frustrating co-worker at my job.  This person basically smokes and talks her way through her shifts and makes everyone else on shift work that much harder to pick up the slack. And with the holiday traffic, it's made things quite exhausting for myself. In addition, I've just been dealing with my usual cold-weather-is-striking-depression/grumpiness.  So I've pretty much been an Eeyore meets Oscar the Grouch at work the last little while, especially towards this particular co-worker.

Well this week I came to the stark realization of what a jerk I've been being to everyone around me, especially the people I see most often--my family and my co-workers--and decided it was time to make amends and turn a new, happier leaf.  This meant, at least in my eyes, that I needed to approach said co-worker and personally apologize for my recent grumpiness. Which I did.  It was a scary thing but I simply took a deep breath, pulled her aside and said, "I'm really sorry for how grouchy I've been. It hasn't been right of me to take it out on you."  And as I said the words, an amazing thing happened. I began to tear up and feel really good inside.  I can only describe that experience as humbling and perhaps a little humiliating, but well worth it.  In short, in biting off a piece of Humble Pie I became fed with compassion for others around me and yes, I guess you could say my heart grew two sizes too.

And the award for most awkward member of society goes to...

I just moved to a new city, and I'm trying to be social and make new friends.  But, if I'm going to be honest, I might as well just tell you... it's hard.  Really hard.  I just get so shy.

So my church has tons of activities for young single people around my age.  Thursdays they have a religious class with desserts and mingling after. My brother's been going for a while and I decided to tag along this last week.  About halfway through the class, this pretty attractive, scruffy guy in a plaid shirt walks in.  First of all, I love plaid. Secondly, I find scruff really attractive.  So, win-win.  But, of course, afterward the class ended, when it would've been a perfect opportunity to introduce myself and get to know him, my initial instinct was to book it out of there as fast as I could.

Well, as I was walking out the door, who should speed over to me and hold out his hand? Scruffy plaid-shirt guy!

"Hey!I don't think I've met you!" he said, shaking my hand, and being super friendly.

Well, naturally, my heart started pounding and I get all flustered.  NATURALLY.

And the following happened:

"Oh, I'm Anne," I said.

 "Anne? Nice to meet you, I'm [Scruffy-plaid-shirted-guy]. So are you new?" he asked.

"Oh no, I'm just Mike's brother," I said pointing to my brother who is now down the hall. I turned red. "I mean, sister.  I'm his sister...."

Then I became completely flustered and embarrassed and couldn't form any more complete sentences.  So he was super polite and was just like, "Okay, well, nice to meet ya..." and I walked away, a complete fool.

Ha! Good thing I can laugh at myself. But seriously. Talk about awkward.

...You Open Your Mouth and Nothing Comes Out

Sometimes I think I have a hard time communicating because I speak so many languages. At least that's what I like to tell myself. 

The other day I was walking out of a building on campus, when I crossed paths with a guy I know from the French house on campus.  He was walking into the building, and it was literally one of those brief moments where you only have time to smile and make some kind of brief exchange like, "hey, how's it going?" or "sup yo!" Super low-key interaction, right?  Well, I had just come from Swedish class, so when the guy smiled at me and asked how it was going in French ("Salut! Ca va?") my brain got confused and this is basically what happened:

Except instead of spitting water I smiled and garbled out a word that kind of resembled "hey." And instead of stopping to chat and be friendly or at least laugh and explain how sometimes my Swedish and French get tangled up, I just booked it out of there on my merry little way.  

Lesson learned and goal for the future: It's okay to stop and talk to people you know when you see them, so I'm going to do it more!