There are times I'll walk in a building or a room--a place--where I'll feel so radically different from the carefree, happy-go-lucky comportment (it's my mind, not yours) I found myself in prior to laying a hand on the door. Stepping across the threshold, I feel as if I have both come up from a deep sense of centeredness and composure only to find I'm in an inversely dense and foreign-feeling atmosphere. What is this? Why is this?
"But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light..." (1 John 1:7)
Approaching approachability
So I look to my left and to my right. Sometimes I'll pull out an earbud so as to take in the aural ambience. But I still feel it. There are times when I'm so focused on whatever it is I'm focused on--be it God or some train of thought or what-have-you--that I come across as either standoffish or weird. Or autistic? Asperger's? I don't know. And it's not my place to speculate as to why I feel the responses in people I do. Does this make it seem like I'm somehow doing anything other than the aforementioned "stepping across the threshold"? I assure you, aside from grasping the door handle and walking in to the place, I have done nothing but bring to bear my person in this place. This is what comportment means, I should add. I can't help but remember a shade of connotation in its definition along the lines of "insincere". But this nagging doubt is silenced with the two dictionaries I reference as I'm writing this. But my interaction. Because there isn't any with anyone to speak of. I step up in line and order my coffee. I look the barista in the eye but only for a fraction of a second. The ones I don't know, anyways. I then replace my earbud and wait. And yes, I am listening to music--not just looking like I am.
One thing I constantly battle inside is this notion that I should somehow come across as more approachable. As more in tune with the "ambience" I mentioned above. This is only partially true. I am who I am (yes) and so long as I'm not hurting anyone, I don't have to answer to anyone else's unspoken expectations as to who I should be. But! There comes a line when once you grow up into a more adult version of yourself, that you cross where God becomes the one whose attentions and whose solutions soothe any trace awkwardness from childhood. And if one is not in tune with God for themselves, they won't get you. God gets you though.
This is where the word "decompression" comes to my mind most times I encounter what I have endeavored to explain. You may not know why you feel what and why you do. But the Holy Spirit knows. And if you respond to the atmosphere you sense by hardening and inverting, you may well miss something or someone He has placed in that very place, to bless you. Decompress slowly.
"In your patience possess ye your souls." (Luke 21:19)