the enigma of dealing with difficult people.

I hope you'll pardon my sporadic blog appearance of late. Just know: This latest blog silence isn't for lack of words (I've got so much to say!) but for lack of time. For now, here's a feeble attempt at clearing the cobwebs, ignoring the sore feet and the tired brain, and working through it. 

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{calligraphy by Dave the Designer}

I read once -- in a book by Shauna Niequist, I think, though I've thumbed through the pages and can't find the reference -- that God continues to send the same types of people into our lives until we have learned how to deal with them, at which point we will probably still run into them, but they will no longer be the enigma or the frustration they once were before. Instead, they will just be people, just run-of-the-mill, everyday people who we share air with, and we will be free from the burden they used to -- intentionally or not -- place in our lives. 

This blog is a public place, not really meant for private, personal details, but all you really need to know is that my entire life, I have encountered the same type of person, over and over and over and over again, and I am hoping that one of these days, Niequist's hypothesis is going to prove true, and I am going to have reached the spiritual maturity at which I will no longer have to deal with them on a regular basis. 

Because the truth is? I am not always good with people. 

This is unfortunate, because I firmly believe Jesus was a people person. Perhaps not in the outgoing, charming way we think of people people, but in the know-all-about-you-but-love-and-care-for-you-anyway kind of way. 

I want to be that, but it's hard. 

I'd rather hole up in a cabin, Thoreau-style, and hang out with books instead. 

As I get older, though, it's becoming more and more apparent that Thoreau probably had people he didn't like too. There's simply no escaping it, and part of growing up is learning how to deal with it. 

When I was a little girl, my bed lay underneath an air conditioning vent in my bedroom, and each night, when the lights would go out, my eyes would immediately rest on a white string shaped like a perfectly creepy, Cheshire cat smile tucked inside the vent. My imagination -- inherited from the delightful Anne Shirley and, oh yes, my mother -- would run wild, thinking a peeping Tom had sneaked into my bedroom to grin wickedly at me until I fell asleep. 

It was years -- years! -- before I finally realized (or let myself realize) the string was just a string. Not a smile, not a monster, not a peeping Tom, but a string. A string that -- if I'd taken the time to do it -- could have been removed or cut down without much trouble at all. 

I think difficult people are a lot like that string. 

If we're lucky, sure, maybe once we learn to deal with them, those troublesome personalities will go away. I think, though, it's more accurate to assume we'll always have to deal with them. We'll run into them because we are aware of them, because they push our buttons in ways other people just don't. 

But I think, with time, those people will become more like shadows and less like monsters if we learn to handle them properly. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is I haven't figured it out yet. 

God's still sending me difficult people to work and breathe and share space and time with.

Perhaps gradually, though, in ways I can't yet see or understand, He's strengthening my resolve, my kindness, my patience. 

Because those people aren't going to go away. They may not ever change. 

But the way I deal with them, the way I see them, perceive them, talk to them, think about them? That can. 

I found the Niequist passage, by the way. Underlined in red from a time when I'm sure I was dealing with another personality I found troubling. 

I'd remembered it a tad wrong, it turns out. 

The thought wasn't so much that God would remove those people from our lives, but we would ultimately realize why we found the difficult people so difficult to begin with. 

Maybe that's the more important lesson anyway. Maybe my goal shouldn't simply be to learn how to handle, how to deal, but to investigate why my heart and head hurt when I'm around a certain type of person. 

Maybe, just like the rest of my 20s, it's a lesson I'm meant to uncover personally, to figure out the hows and the whys as they relate to me, so one day -- when I'm 30, maybe -- I'll at least be prepared for the lesson I'll have already learned the hard way.