March 26: Random Group of Atoms, Aubri, Being Authentic

So a hole appeared in the Galaxy . . .

As it closed up, lots of paper hats and party balloons fell out of it and drifted off through the Universe.  A team of seven three-foot-high market analysts fell out of it and died, partly of asphyxiation, partly of surprise.

Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs fell out of it too, materializing in a large wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system.

The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.

The nothingth of a second for which the hole existed reverberated backward and forward through time in a most improbable fashion.  Somewhere in the deeply remote past it seriously traumatized a small random group of atoms drifting through the empty sterility of space and made them cling together in the most extraordinarily unlikely patterns.  These patterns quickly learned to copy themselves (this was part of what was so extraordinary about the patterns) and went on to cause massive trouble on every planet they drifted on to.  That was how life began in the Universe.

Tonight, my niece, Aubri, visited.  She came over to dye and cut my wife's hair.  When Aubri enters a room, she sort rearranges the atoms of that room in extraordinary ways, as well.  She is one of my favorite people in the whole world.  Whenever she's at our house, there's lots of laughter and family gossip.  I've said it before in this blog that I can be a bit of a mean girl.  Aubri gets that.

Aubri is authentic.  She doesn't put on airs.  I know very few people like that.  Most people change depending on the situations in which they find themselves.  In job interviews, people become super positive team players.  Visiting sick friends, people morph into caregivers.  At wedding receptions, with a little alcohol, people transform into rap singers and line dancers.  Aubri, on the other hand, is always Aubri.

I'm sort of like that, as well.  I think that's why Aubri and I get along so well.  Being authentic means putting yourself out there all the time, regardless or how people may react.  What you see is pretty much what you get.  This approach also opens you up to self doubt sometimes.

This afternoon, I was supposed to receive a phone call about a job for which I applied.  Come 5 p.m., my phone hadn't rung.  This launched me into a tailspin of introspective questioning.  Was I not dressed well enough?  Did I not answer their questions satisfactorily?  Should I have prepared for the interview more thoroughly?  Don't I have the skills they are looking for?  Maybe I shouldn't have talked about my habit of listening to Christmas music all year long?

You get the idea.

Tonight, Aubri lifted my spirits.  Took my mind off my worries for a couple hours.  And she did it by simply being herself.  Fully.  She's a beautiful person, inside and out. 

Saint Marty is a lucky uncle.