163. Gracious Friends

I’m working through the hard years of my life on my Project 52 project. And it’s been great to get perspective, but it’s been hard, too. Last night I read lots of old emails from my ex-husband, and those emails are packed full of words telling me all the ways I was a terrible person.

Those lines should be stale by now — but today I’m feeling down on myself.

Then I happened to post this quote that says that sometimes we need other people to show us we’re lovable. And that’s where my gracious friends have come in – reminding me that I waited so long for my husband because I loved him and I wanted to give him every possible chance to change his mind.

I see all the things I did wrong with that entire episode. (And this isn’t a surprise — those are the things Steve pointed out.) But, my gracious friends are reminding me that they see it differently.

And that helps.

162. A Secondhand Compliment

Today, at the Neighborhood School Readiness Team meeting, the organizer passed on a compliment. She’d been working with a youth services manager at another Fairfax County Public Library and mentioned the Fairfax City group. This other librarian said about me that I’m a rock star! And that I do great things as a librarian!

This completely blew me away. I honestly had no idea anyone would ever talk about me that way! (Yes, it also made me think some people don’t know me very well.) But most of all — It was good to feel like my colleagues respect the work I do. (Very good!) And it was sweet of the facilitator to pass it on.

161. Diversity in the Library

At the Crazy 8s Math Club at the library today, we had ten kids. One kid was white. I didn’t ask to be sure, but I’m pretty sure we had kids of Asian, Arabic, Hispanic, and Indian descent as well. I heard one girl explaining that her parents were from two different countries, but I didn’t catch which one her father was from — the mother was from India. (The girl said this with a completely American accent.)

All the kids were happily playing together. I think a couple of the boys didn’t speak English real well yet, but they did know how to play with other kids.

It was just lovely to see.