The Pigeonhole

Something that makes me so sad as of late, is the realization that I so often pigeonhole other people.

Bob started coming into the coffee shop last summer. I instantly detected a hint of Chicago in his voice, I quickly learned that he rode either the bus or the train, and was himself a driver for Greyhound. Always by himself, always eager to talk, offering excess eye contact, often asking very personal questions... I responded by being "weirded out" by this six foot, salt and peppered, plump, middle aged bus driver.

If there's one thing I do not tolerate in customer service it is the creepazoid. And so, I never initiated conversation with Bob, answered his questions in a manner that would end the conversation, hid behind the espresso machine as I made his drink, and rolled my eyes when I saw him walk in. Though most people may think I'm always nice no matter how I feel, when I don't feel comfortable around someone, in particular men, I let them know.

Regardless of the way I treated Bob, he continued to walk in every morning with his backpack, a mighty Chicago Hello!, and a "how are you today?". I've been good at finding things he does that annoy me: double-checking everything I do, "you got the splenda in there? did you get my punch card? did you know it's double-stamp tuesday? did you ring me in for this day-old cinnamon roll?". The way he faces the counter when he finally sits down, how he talks to every customer while I'm trying to help them, how he always comments on who was working the other day, sufficient behavior for disturbing the peace of barista sharon.

A few months later...

I noticed Bob had not been in for a week. Thought that maybe he was avoiding me finally! Checked his customer history (yes some coffee shops have customer histories and can track when you've been in and even your YTD spending, we Baristas really due rule the world), but to my surprise he had not been in at all. The next week when I came in, I could not help but break my silence and ask him where he'd been. It turns out he had been back to Chicago for a funeral of his brother who had been shot. My heart softened that day, and I decided to let down my guard and ask Bob a few more questions. I learned that he was a Lawyer in Chicago, he was married at 23 had two sons, and his wife was diagnosed with cancer at 36, she passed a few years later and he embarked on a journey as a single dad raising two young boys. He eventually remarried and moved to Washington with his new wife, 2 years ago, his second wife divorced him and he now lives in an apartment in Edmonds with his one son in college, while the other lives in the dorms at UW.

Since this conversation, i've gotten to know Bob more each day. He was once part of a wine club with his friends, he used to live in Chicago's equivalent of Medina in Washington. Most every day he gets up, usually takes the train to Seattle, reads, writes or watches people, comes home and watches a few television shows, goes to the store for dinner and a cigar, cooks dinner and the returns to the beach for the sunset and a stogie.

It is obvious that I quickly decided who Bob was after meeting him. My pigeonholing tendencies caused me to see an unmotivated, creepy, lonely older man. Bob is an amazing person. A man who has been dealt many hands of sorrow. A man that rose to the occasion to raise his two boys, who traded in life as a wealthy lawyer for the simpler and richer life of bus driver, a man who can be kind to people no matter how they treat them, can find pleasure in the sunset, a latte and a cigar.

Madeleine L'engle quotes a French priest in one of my favorite books Walking on Water:

"To love anyone is to hope in him always. From the moment at which we begin to judge anyone, to limit our confidence in him, from the moment at which we identify [pigeonhole] him, and so reduce him to that, we cease to love him, and he ceases to be able to become better. We must dare to love in a world that does not know how to love."

All of us are pigeonholed and it is hurtful, it is damaging to the self. For someone to say, "There is only so much to you" is dark and damning. But it happens continually: parents explain to Children the reality of their capabilities, schools categorize and estimate a child's aptitude and intelligence, peers tell us if we are socially qualified, suddenly we are 18 and advice floods into our souls...parents, teachers, friend's parents, pastors, neighbors, aunts, grandparents, cousins, grocery clerks, customers, beach strollers, any person in our earshot wants to clearly tell us who we are, what we are capable of, what they think we would be good at, what they could imagine us becoming, how we would fare in certain situations... and our capacity to believe in ourselves and in others, and in God's plan for us seems to fade. College rolls around, a degree is perhaps chosen, a job acquired, a family formed or a single life sought and the world if we let it, will reduce us to a 3 sentence prototype scribbled on an index card.

I admire people who spit in the face of the world's pigeonholing. I admire Bob, who forfeited the status of a lawyer and became a happier bus driver. I admire Sean who is doing work that has nothing to do with his degree, even though when he tells people he has a degree they respond "well what are you doing this for then?" I admire Bridget, who got a degree because she wanted to and did not cower to people who dare look at her cross eyed when she told them she desired to be a magnificent stay-at-home mom and who defies all stereotypes of stay-at-home moms!
Shame on those who will frown upon the desires of a heart. Yaconelli calls them "The Dreamstealers."

I hope I have learned to never decide that I know who a person is. To realize the fullness of the heart. To never say to someone "I could not see you doing that." To never question a person's hopes or dreams. To never, ever believe that I know what would be best for another. I hope I have learned that part of loving is freeing others from the limitations the world would force upon them.