Just a Painter comment
So this week at work someone actually said to me, oh, your just the painter. I just smiled while Prodigy's "Run with the Wolves" played in my head (It's a Techno song). I guess I could let that be a hit on my pride if I wanted. Several comments went through my head, for those who have forethought you know what I'm talking about. It's a list of nice and maybe not so nice things to say but you decline to let them go from your brain to your mouth. Controlling the tongue.
Here is the deal. This person doesn't know me. They take this snapshot of me in their mind of my life right now and assume (you know about that word don't you) I'm just some backward recovering alcoholic hick slinging paint. Little would they know the real me. They may be surprised to know that I was less than a year from a Master's Degree in Computer Science. How about the fact that I was an engineer at a top research company working with databases in Taiwan, Singapore, and Mexico. Or the the little known fact I worked in as a file room supervisor and developed a program from the ground up to orgranize thousands of files and be able to pinpoint their location within seconds. Or how about that I'm crazy smart with math. I'm a quick learner, after all I've taught myself to draw portraits and photography. That's right, good enough to sell portraits and photos. Yes, I know how to paint and do drywall. I learn best by watching it done, then doing it with supervision the second time, then you leave me alone. I come from a family of crazy smart people.
Addiction took many things away from me, and I walked away from alot of things as well. People wonder why I don't get back into computers when I can build them, literally, from the motherboard up. People wonder why I work as a painter, why don't I go for more. More what, stress? I love being able to roam free, even if it is in an apartment. I can always walk away and come back. I get to work with my hands. And there are things that are way more important to me now. God, my wife, my family, the freedom to get off at 5:30 and go home to a beautiful apartment that only God could have provided Ginger and I and be loved.
Just a painter. Hmmm. What other assumptions do you make? Am I tainted in your eyes because I'm a recovering alcoholic, that I lived an addicted life for several years? Is that how you define me? Or the mistakes I made in that life? Have you taken the time to ask me about it? Do you define me by this job I do? Do you even take the time to get to know me before you make your assumptions? Lucky for me, those assumptions that you make don't define me.
Because, you see, here is the important part, who cares what people like that think. Really. Trust me, Ginger does not look at me as just a painter, I'm a loving husband. My family, well a walking miracle. My true friends, well, my past is the past and I'm not judged by that, not with them. Trust me, my past, well, when you've given your testimony in front of hundreds of people and bared your soul, well, my skeletons are quite literally out of the closet. The little barbs, the enuendo's, oh I get them I just choose not to respond. I'm bigger than that. At one point it was comments like these that would drive me to the bottle. Now they remind me of how far I've come and give me a reason NOT to go to the bottle.
Think I just know painting and drywall? Keep believing that. When I'm working in an apartment I'm pretty much left alone, not many people want to just visit the painter. I'm usually last to know about anything going on at the apartment complex. I'm the odd man out, or so you would think. But I have my friends there, those who do take an interest in me, who do want to know me. And yes I do have people, even at work, who know my past, and choose to look beyond that and see the changed man, see what God has done. And I do more than paint. Carpet cleaning, make ready, even some maintenance now and then. I'm more than just a painter.
So if you think I'm just a painter, that is your lost. Because there is alot more to me than being a painter. Just sayin....
Baa
I've definitely been taking pictures this past couple of weeks, here is my favorite. It was a hard picture to take because behind me the sky is completely black with a coming storm. I wanted a picture of the calm before the storm. When I left work not hardly a cloud in the sky, which is what you see in the picture, hardly any clouds, but behind me, wow. Enjoy.
Here is the deal. This person doesn't know me. They take this snapshot of me in their mind of my life right now and assume (you know about that word don't you) I'm just some backward recovering alcoholic hick slinging paint. Little would they know the real me. They may be surprised to know that I was less than a year from a Master's Degree in Computer Science. How about the fact that I was an engineer at a top research company working with databases in Taiwan, Singapore, and Mexico. Or the the little known fact I worked in as a file room supervisor and developed a program from the ground up to orgranize thousands of files and be able to pinpoint their location within seconds. Or how about that I'm crazy smart with math. I'm a quick learner, after all I've taught myself to draw portraits and photography. That's right, good enough to sell portraits and photos. Yes, I know how to paint and do drywall. I learn best by watching it done, then doing it with supervision the second time, then you leave me alone. I come from a family of crazy smart people.
Addiction took many things away from me, and I walked away from alot of things as well. People wonder why I don't get back into computers when I can build them, literally, from the motherboard up. People wonder why I work as a painter, why don't I go for more. More what, stress? I love being able to roam free, even if it is in an apartment. I can always walk away and come back. I get to work with my hands. And there are things that are way more important to me now. God, my wife, my family, the freedom to get off at 5:30 and go home to a beautiful apartment that only God could have provided Ginger and I and be loved.
Just a painter. Hmmm. What other assumptions do you make? Am I tainted in your eyes because I'm a recovering alcoholic, that I lived an addicted life for several years? Is that how you define me? Or the mistakes I made in that life? Have you taken the time to ask me about it? Do you define me by this job I do? Do you even take the time to get to know me before you make your assumptions? Lucky for me, those assumptions that you make don't define me.
Because, you see, here is the important part, who cares what people like that think. Really. Trust me, Ginger does not look at me as just a painter, I'm a loving husband. My family, well a walking miracle. My true friends, well, my past is the past and I'm not judged by that, not with them. Trust me, my past, well, when you've given your testimony in front of hundreds of people and bared your soul, well, my skeletons are quite literally out of the closet. The little barbs, the enuendo's, oh I get them I just choose not to respond. I'm bigger than that. At one point it was comments like these that would drive me to the bottle. Now they remind me of how far I've come and give me a reason NOT to go to the bottle.
Think I just know painting and drywall? Keep believing that. When I'm working in an apartment I'm pretty much left alone, not many people want to just visit the painter. I'm usually last to know about anything going on at the apartment complex. I'm the odd man out, or so you would think. But I have my friends there, those who do take an interest in me, who do want to know me. And yes I do have people, even at work, who know my past, and choose to look beyond that and see the changed man, see what God has done. And I do more than paint. Carpet cleaning, make ready, even some maintenance now and then. I'm more than just a painter.
So if you think I'm just a painter, that is your lost. Because there is alot more to me than being a painter. Just sayin....
Baa
I've definitely been taking pictures this past couple of weeks, here is my favorite. It was a hard picture to take because behind me the sky is completely black with a coming storm. I wanted a picture of the calm before the storm. When I left work not hardly a cloud in the sky, which is what you see in the picture, hardly any clouds, but behind me, wow. Enjoy.
Leonardo was just a painter of churches, just sayin....
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ReplyDelete(I was, "oh, you're just the nurse" for years. ;) baaaa...