COMPLIMENTS

People have been complimenting me recently. I don’t know what the deal is. But it’s nice. I told you about the septuagenarians at the beginning, yes? Well, two Sundays ago, a girl came up to me. Her name is Joanne. She is a cute, simple, nice girl—nothing fancy, but quality. I promise that I had one simple conversation with her I think. Oh, she may have been working in the kitchen the night that Ross (my partner-friend in talks on love and female identity) and I were espousing views in the kitchen for the Thursday night sessions (my church was offering 5 classes during 7 weeks on Thursday for which a pre-dinner was free, and we were the wait-staff and clean-up crew). The problem is the guy-girl relations in some of the Western Christian churches in SA can be weird. So she was really nervous to tell me her compliment but she decided to do it anyway.

This is a Sunday night service at church. I have quietly slipped out early because my life group is serving coffee/tea/chocolate after church today (I have not been to a church that does not serve such drinks after services).

“Hi, Victor.”
“Oh, hi, JoAnne. How ARE YOU?” (smile)
“I’m good. How are you?”
“I’m well. I haven’t seen you in so long.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“What would you like?”
“I would like some chocolate, please?”
“Sure!”
“Victor, may I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“This may sound weird or strange, so I was a bit nervous to tell you and don’t want you to get offended.”
“Please don’t worry about that with me. Go ahead; it’s fine.”
“I was thinking about you.” (this is strange to me because I don’t think we’ve spoken enough for that to happen naturally)
“Ok.”
“And I wanted to tell you that I want to BE you. You’re everything that I would want to be in life, and I hope to become like you in terms of your character and nature and who you are.”
“uhhh. . .Wow. Yho! (South African word). Thanks so much. That’s super sweet. I really appreciate that. And I know that was hard to say not knowing what I would think or say, so I really appreciate you taking the time to share the compliment with me. Thanks so much.”
(we hug and she moves on. Poor girl, I think she was nervous)

It’s really sweet. I am better friends with one of her housemates with whom I worked on a kids camp with back in March (first month of autumn for us).

And that’s what I feel like these days. It’s like there’s been a shift in the focus in life, a move from self to others. It’s not a conscious one or anything. It’s just a natural self from investment to divestiture. Instead of investing in myself which still naturally occurs, I am now divesting myself out in a sense. That’s what it seems.