Insignificant Life

I don't know how I got to this place.

 

And really, my job is almost ideal. I have a laid-back boss who jokes around with me and doesn't criticize. I'm paid as much as I could expect to be paid without a degree. I have benefits, I can work overtime if I feel like it. I don't have to talk to customers.  

Still, I'm ashamed of what I do right now. Since I've said all of that, I'll just tell you. I push mops and brooms around. Dust, and vacuum under the desks of successful people. I talk to engineers and managers about politics and religion so they won't think I'm stupid, standing there with a Swiffer in my hand. They're probably not going to realize, as I'm cleaning water fountains, that I tutored my college classmates in math, or that I can type and figure out complicated Excel functions.

I think I'm above it, even though I chose it.

I've been listening to Librivox books while I work (one perk of doing mindless things). I decided to listen to all of the books I loved when I was little- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Enchanted Castle. Last week, Little Women and Little Men. Today I finished Anne of Green Gables.

I'm listening to answer one question. What made me love this book- what makes me love it still?

It's research for my own book-of-the-future.

I have a different answer for each one. Lewis Carroll is so witty. I laugh at his word plays and ridiculous characters, but I also see the wisdom behind their funny dialogue. E. Nesbit is a plot master. I can't drag myself away from her books- the stories are faded in my memory, so I'm listening to them as brand new, and each twist is fascinating. I have to find out what happens next. Louisa May Alcott's strong point is characterization. Her little women and little men are unique and well-rounded. I feel like she really understands men- and that's not easy. When I listen to Laurie talking, or Dan in Little Men, I think- yeah, he's realistic. He's not talking like a girl would. He's talking like a guy would.

(I was a little bit scarred when another one of my favorite female authors portrayed a male character as thinking things that only a woman would think. Romantical things. Sorry, but I don't believe any man walks around for hours thinking about all the sweet things he's going to do for his girlfriend.)

L.M. Montgomery is just amazing. Plot, characterization, humor, believability. Everything. I don't even have one answer to the what-makes-me-love-it question. Maybe that's why I've read each of her books so many times. Her series is one of two (with The Chronicles of Narnia) that I used to read on a which-one-am-I-in-the-mood-for-today basis. I'm in the mood for Anne of Avonlea today. Anne's House of Dreams. Rilla of Ingleside.

Today, the main thing I learned from Anne of Green Gables was love. I've got to put love in my book-of-the-future.

Matthew Cuthbert was a quiet man. He was a farmer who was afraid to talk to women. He never did anything important, except for one thing.

He made a huge difference in Anne's lonely, neglected life.

If not for Matthew, Anne would never have stayed at Green Gables. She wouldn't have made so many friends or had such tremendous success (passing first of PEI scholars in the Queen's entrance examination, winning the Avery scholarship, going to college, becoming a teacher, marrying a doctor, becoming a mother). She probably would have stayed in an orphan asylum until she was old enough to find work. Then, she would have become a nanny for a big family, earning barely enough to support herself. She never would have SHONE.

I've been thinking that I may have missed my opportunity to "shine" as Anne did. I didn't have her ambition or drive. I didn't have goals or a definite plan when I graduated from high school. I really just drifted around.

That doesn't mean my life is doomed to be insignificant.

I don't know why Matthew lived as an obscure farmer. Maybe he had ambitions at one point. Maybe he had a bitter realization of his own. I'm-a-loser-and-I-know-it. 

(Maybe he's fictional.)

Really? Did you have to say that to me?

To me, he's real. And significant.

I want to write about someone like Matthew, but more importantly, I want to be like him. To quietly pour love into a child's life- some child who doesn't have anyone else.

When I die, my degree won't matter, and the things people think about my intelligence won't matter. My worldly success won't matter. But the difference I made in some neglected child's life will matter.

"In the evening she went with Matthew for the cows, through Lover's Lane to the back pasture. The woods were all gloried through with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill gaps in the west. Matthew walked slowly with bent head; Anne, tall and erect, suited her springing step to his.

'You've been working too hard today, Matthew,' she said reproachfully. 'Why won't you take things easier?'

'Well now, I can't seem to,' said Matthew, as he opened the yard gate to let the cows through. 'It's only that I'm getting old, Anne, and keep forgetting it. Well, well, I've always worked pretty hard and I'd rather drop in harness.'

'If I had been the boy you sent for,' said Anne wistfully, 'I'd be able to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it in my heart to wish I had been, just for that.'

'Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,' said Matthew, patting her hand. 'Just mind you that- rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl- my girl- my girl that I'm proud of.'

He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the future."