Go away... You're Big

I know somebody who smiles all the time. No matter what's going on, he's smiling. It's weird. People will come up to him and start talking to him and he makes friends wherever he goes... It's because he's smiling all the time. Some people (much like myself) think "There is something seriously wrong with this guy. I think he might be ON something..." but a good portion of the time, people will smile back.
I gave it a try the other day. Instead of my usual "Don't fuckin' talk to me!" puss, I made a conscious effort to smile. What a difference! People asked me stuff, talked to me, smiled back and they didn't part like the Red Sea when I came trudging by... I didn't like it. So, I went back to my "not smile-y" face and all was right in the world again. (I do apologize if there was a shift in the time continuum or if reality got skewed somewhere or the gravitational pull on some part of the planet was switched off or even if it was that some people's chakras got misaligned or it clouded some people's auras or unbalanced someone's chi or something... It won't happen again, I assure you, as I will not make the mistake of smiling too often in public like that. It really creeped me out...) Adults are so judge-y and weird like that...
But, kids are different, aren't they... I went to volunteer at a party the kindergarten class was having in my youngest child's school. I cut bagels, I handed out plates of noms, I passed out juice, I went from table to table to make sure that the kids got everything they needed. I helped out with the party craft project that the teacher had organized and went from table to table helping to glue stuff and color stuff and glitterize stuff... Good times. I guess I must have been smiling or something because by the end of the little shindig, I had all the kids climbing on me and hugging me and talking to me and asking me when I was coming back to the class to help out. Weird thing is, I didn't mind.
I don't know at what point they go from being all cute and fun to be around to the nasty adults that I run across far too often. My hope is that the next generation doesn't turn out to be the next wave of those people or worse.
We could all learn a valuable lesson from volunteering in a kindergarten class and hanging out with a bunch of five year olds. These kids are not yet "ruined" by life. They make no judgments, don't care what you look like, they're willing to laugh with  you and talk to you no matter what. They lack the "maturity and wisdom", sure, but I think somewhere along the lines as the maturity and wisdom comes, that innocence gets lost sometimes. I wasn't trying to make a conscious effort to smile. It just happened and it was great. I wasn't expected to be anybody, I wasn't expected to do anything, just...Be. Outside of that classroom, and it came to be an effort that I had to think about and I could feel the "Go away!" aura that I usually emit coming back to the surface. The difference, at least for me, of being around little kids and big people...
People who know me well enough usually see past my "anti-social" thing. They've actually taken the time to strip away the layers and figured me out. Not that I'm a complicated being... I have my quirks and being a woman... Well... I have my moments, but just like any person, there are many facets to my personality that make me who I am. My friends are who they are BECAUSE they took the time to discover what I'm about. It's all good. At least this way here, I know who my real friends are... I'm just sayin'...