Smiles

I get so tickled at the people I work with sometimes. Last week one of the ladies came up to me and asked me if I was feeling ok? I was rather bewildered by her question and assured her I was fine. She was concerned because I wasn't smiling as much as I normally do. Since when is smiling, or a lack thereof, a criteria for thinking somebody might be ill?

This isn't the first time these people around here have commented on my smiles. I never considered myself as somebody who just goes around smiling at people all the time, but evidently I do without realizing it. I was recently confronted with it firsthand in quite a startling way. At Moccasin Bend we were taking a tour of a building where the long-term patients stay. As we went into a room, I came face to face with a mirror. What did I see? A group of people staring blankly at our guide and me--smiling at her. I've always thought that the reason people seem to single me out to focus on was because I'm dressed differently. But maybe it's because I respond to what they are saying with my facial expressions. The rest of that tour, I consciously tried keeping my face just as bland as everybody else's, but I just couldn't seem to do it. If I was amused or made eye contact, I just couldn't help smiling. Maybe it was because the whole thing made me want to just laugh hysterically once I started thinking about it. I sure hope my face isn't an open book to what I'm thinking all the time.

And that reminds me...one of the last times I was at home, Dad told me that as a baby, he only had to make eye contact with me to make me smile. I guess I'm just weird...make that a happy weird.