I am not a kind person. I am often rude. I am brash. I am judgmental. I have no filter. I tend to say what's on my mind without regard for the social situation I am in. Despite this, I am a good person. I am honest. I give money to worthy causes (and unworthy ones, from time to time). I volunteer as an English tutor. I try my best to live a low-impact lifestyle.
I know this about me. I have never denied this aspect of myself. This is who I am. It's who I will (probably) always be.
This last Yule, however, I decided to work on being less judgmental. I wanted to talk less and listen more. I had good intentions - the best, in fact - but, as is the way of resolutions, it's been broken. Yes, so soon.
I won't go into the details. All I will say is that my father-in-law's second wife and I had an exchange over Facebook and it wasn't pretty. We have different views politically. I'm sure we don't share the same opinions in many other areas of our lives. Last night, though, as I was sitting in the library with the two people I tutor, telling them about my upcoming trip to Alaska and discussing our own families' health challenges, I realized if I wanted to actually live my Yuletide Resolution, I had to change my perception of myself. Perhaps I'm not brash, but passionate. Maybe I'm not rude, but (a little too) eager to jump into a conversation. Perhaps I don't have a filter because I think I am being honest.
Think about it: if I could redirect all of these negative qualities about myself into positive ones, maybe I could become a kind person.
Keeping this in mind, two things happened to me today; the first I was not expecting, the second I had orchestrated on my own.
I always take my boys to the library Wednesday morning. They don't have school (because of the pandemic, our school district has chosen to teach online), so it's a good way to get out of the house and find something new to read.
A woman in a white car parked next to me. She had her window down, trying to get my attention. When she had it, tears spilled down her face as she spilled her story. She was living off her savings and trying to find a job. She needed money for her phone bill. She had tried to make some calls in the library to check the status of her applications, but the librarians had asked her to leave. It was obvious she was barely holding it together.
I've had my fair share of dark days during this pandemic, but it's been harder on so many others. I have a place to live and food to eat. My husband has a good job. My boys are doing well in school. We have internet at home. We are lucky. We have the necessities. We're doing okay.
I gave her some money. I always do when I talk to the homeless or someone down on their luck. I consider it an exchange for their story because I never know when I could use a good story. After snatching up the crisp bills, she drove off. I hadn't expected to ever see her again.
My boys and I checked out our books, then went to the candy store downtown to buy some gummies for my nephew. I drove to the post office and packaged everything up for his birthday present in my car.
The woman from the library left the post office and walked up to her car, the one parked next to mine. She gave me a shy little wave, then got in and drove away. A simple, wordless exchange, but the smile behind her mask said it all. And all I had done was listen.
This afternoon, I called my father-in-law's second wife, determined to let her know that Facebook isn't the best place for political discussions, and as such, things I had said were probably misinterpreted because it's so hard to gauge tone and sarcasm. I wanted to make it clear that it was important to me to have an open discussion on topics we disagreed about. We had a nice talk. Neither of us changed our mind, but we understand each other now. (I intend to make good on the promise to call whenever I see one of her posts I disagree with.)
I don't give kindness much thought. Perhaps I should.
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