Upon Finding A Closed Door

Closing doors can be the most confusing things of all.

It is not the typical "closed door" that confuses me.  These are pretty straightforward - one moves in a straight line until one finds the door that is closed, hopefully  by merely testing it but sometimes by running flat into it and breaking one's nose.  Closed door, will not budge - off to try another door, another direction.

Instead, the ones that are confusing are the partially closed doors.

These are the ones that either one gets part of the way through and sudden one realizes one cannot squeeze through it or - even worse - the ones that start moving closed as one is trying to get through it.  These are the toughest and most confusing of all, because the initial instinct is to try to get through the door more quickly only to find out the door is closing as fast as you are trying to force your way in.

In either case you find yourself outside of the door, perhaps holding to everything that you had planned to take in through the door with you.  It is as if you planning to move into an apartment - perhaps were even in the process of moving in - only to find out that no move was going to happen and you are left standing in a pile of your possessions.

You stop and take inventory, of course.  Did I misread the door?  No, it was quite open when you first started to go through.  Did I not move quickly enough?  Well possibly - but then again, sometimes moving too quickly just slams you into the door that has shut more quickly than you could get in.  Or perhaps I should have simply pushed harder on the door and made it yield to my will - but in reality this hardly ever works as well as it seems to be a good idea as broken doors become useless, letting all kinds of things in - or out.

No, the reality is simply this (as painful and humiliating as it sounds):  after jiggling and perhaps testing to discern that the door is truly closed and not merely stuck, there is nothing left for it but to begin the process of picking up your things and moving to another door.

Because there is little more foolish and unfortunate than continuing to bang on the door that has obviously been closed and locked - and miss seeing the open door that is right next to it.