Perspective

1.  the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point.  
2.  a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.

I had the privilege of speaking with a friend of old yesterday.  Someone whose voice I had not heard in about 25 years.  We had been emailing for several years now, commiserating and sharing about the last 25 years, however yesterday we actually spoke to one another.   It was such a delightful conversation and hearing her voice took me back to our childhood, minus the new southern “twang” she’s picked up in TX.  (wink)

As we spoke about our children, our health, families and the hurried life of motherhood we hadn’t noticed that time on the clock was ticking by.  So quickly in fact that my daughter held up her violin at one point and asked quietly if I was ready to leave for her lesson.  A lesson which takes 20 minutes to get to and we had 15.  OOPS!

I continued to chat with the phone attached to my ear, grabbed my purse and my keys and out we went.   We continued our conversation for a short time longer and then said good-bye.  Upon hanging up, as I sat in the parking lot of violin,  I smiled with joy over the blessing of reconnecting and hearing her delightful voice. I also realized that she is the oldest friend I have, knowing her since I was in elementary school, the same age as her youngest.  Whilst I pondered our conversation,  I looked down and realized that I still had my pajama bottoms on with a silly t-shirt, no makeup and my hair was unbrushed and pulled up in a sloppy hair clip.   Another OOPS!

It was all I could do to drive carefully home so as not get pulled over or get into a car accident.  After all, what would they think?  I mean really, it was 5:30 at night and I looked like I just woke up.  The perspective someone may have if they saw me could be construed in other ways as well….slob, depressed, terrible mother, the list goes on.

I asked my daughter when she got into the car if she had realized I had on my pj bottoms and she gave me this corky teenager look with a simple yes, and looked away.  I wonder what her perspective was?  Future therapy?  That she would never do that someday?  That my priorities are completely messed up?   Although I didn’t ask her then, I may have to now.   🙂

As a reader, I am wondering what perspective you are considering right now, or, now that my friend knows about the pj bottoms, I wonder what perspective she has at the thought.

Depending upon the angle one looks at a situation, many considerations can be observed.  Isn’t that something we do each and every day?  We look at something or someone, make an observation and sometimes an unwarranted judgement and take a perspective without knowing details of the situation or person.   We jump to conclusions based on our perspective because of the angle we looked at something.  I wonder how our perspective may change if we changed the direction that we looked at something?   If we turn the view of the object we based our conclusion on and ponder it for awhile will we see things differently and will our perspective change?  Something to consider when jumping to conclusions or when life overwhelms with situations we feel are out of control.

As a reader, I put this in your ball court as well and hope that together we can learn to look at or view a situation from a different angle, giving us a different perspective which may lead us to a different conclusion.

I need to say in closing that yesterday I took my morning to get my daughter set with her school work for the day, got nearly all my meds in and then decided to tackle cleaning one more room, closets, cupboards and dressers.  I took a short break to get some water when I checked my email and saw my friend had emailed.  It had been months since I’d heard from her and I knew that she was coming into a busy time of the season.  I shot her a quick text addressing something she needed to see at that moment because of something she wrote, and I told her I planned on writing more later.  I began to get up to get back to work, yet, due to the nature of her email I felt compelled to sit back down and lend her some moral support.    As I typed I thought that it was great that I had the time to do that, however, wouldn’t a phone call be more suitable?  So I called.  Shortly thereafter she called back and hence the reason for the pj bottoms.   It’s all about perspective!  From my point of view, I was not a slug, I was not depressed, I was not anything other than busy doing some cleaning before my husband returned home from a business trip when a friend reached out and I gladly lent an ear.   After all, that is what kind of friends I enjoy the most.  Those that will take the time when I need them the most and who can hear my plea for an ear.   A friend that will not look at time, but that will be there.  A friend that has the ability to take a perspective that is not about self, yet can reach out to someone else.

(Just have to add that I did get cleaned up and showered before my loving husband appeared in the door.  God is so good that He provided all the time I needed in the day. )

Perspective!