Yellow Roses and Stephen Colbert
A few Valentines Days ago I saw a news story on the meaning of the various colors of roses. Why that made the national news, I don’t know, but of course I watched it. The only thing I remembered was that red was for true love and that yellow was for friendship. About that time I started seeing my now fiance, who has a wonderful habit of buying me flowers – roses in particular. I was joking with him about what he was trying to tell me and the “curse of the yellow roses” became a running joke with us. So it is understandable that on Sunday when we were at the grocery store I nearly missed my chance encounter with Stephen Colbert because of the yellow roses in our cart.
There are inherent dangers in having a degree in Psychology. The good news is that I have a fascination with human behavior. The bad news is that I tend to spend WAY too much time analyzing situations and motivations, rather than taking them at face value. Here are my cases in point:
Situation one: Guy loves girl. Guy wants to show his love for said girl by buying flowers.
Situation Two: Couple is entertaining guests and goes to the grocery store for the supplies.
These are very mundane, normal situations, but I have been known to be able to make a Bic pen complicated. So here is how my analytic mind saw it:
Situation One: Guy loves girl. Guy wants to show his love for said girl by buying flowers. However, she has perfectly good flowers at home that he bought less than a week ago. Why does he feel the need to buy more? Is he feeling guilty for something? And then he picks out the YELLOW ONES! Of course they are the prettiest and healthiest of the bunch, but really, yellow?! What is he really trying to tell me here? Is this is a joke or is it an unconscious message? And there is red tint on the edges.. does that change the situation?
You can see how with this swirling in my head that I nearly missed Stephen Colbert brushing past me in the produce aisle. His wife had to ask me (very politely) to move. This jarred me out of that analysis and into a new one of situation two:
Situation Two: Couple entertaining and at the grocery store for supplies. Except the couple is made up of a celebrity who is acting rather standoffish. Is this because he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself or because he is self-absorbed? And yet his wife seems very warm and open. So what could I say that would get his attention in a non-threatening way and yet get him to see that I am a fascinating and funny person that yes, he’d love to have me on his show some time. Or maybe even over for dinner. Heck, we’re practically neighbors anyway. Although I’m not crazy about octopus. I wonder how they cook that?
You get the picture…
My challenge today is to use my wonderfully analytic and creative mind to observe and move on – not to tie me down in worry and conjecture. I need to be grateful for what is and not wonder about what could be. My reality today is that I am healthy and safe and having loving friends and family – and two beautiful bouquets of roses blooming on my table. Life is good, regardless of the color.
Tags: gratitude, overanalyzing, overthinking, stephen colbert