Are you kidding me?
Yesterday was hard.
There had been a particular incident that had made me lose my cool.
We had been taking a walk when urgency entered my daughter’s voice and she declared through teary eyes that she needed to go to the toilet immediately.
We ran into a coffee shop and I politely asked if we could use the bathroom. The man behind the counter refused. “The toilets are only for consumers”.
My daughter was crying at this point. Fearing the worst was about to happen, I begged the man to let us use the bathroom. Still he refused, “you are not a consumer, you cannot use the bathroom. Go to the public toilet’. Here I should add that the public toilets were 500 metres away. We were never going to make it.
I explained to the man that my 4 yr old was growing quite desperate, still he didn’t care. My husband entered behind me and said he would order a drink. A women who had overheard this entire interaction pointed me in the direction of the bathroom and off we ran.
A few minutes later we emerged, and my husband asked me what I would like to drink. Through a shaken voice I told him I didn’t want a drink. To which he replied, “good, me neither” and turned to leave.
The man behind the counter was clearly furious. He berated my lack of manners and told me I was a terrible person, repeating his line that the toilets were only for consumers.
I was shaken. A pinch of feeling angry, a dash of feeling bad, and a dose of the adrenaline rush that comes with supporting my child in her moment of need.
One day, in this man’s future I suspect he will be placed in a position not dissimilar to the one I was in. I wonder if he will review his steadfast response with a new perspective. Perhaps even consider that we would have stayed, and happily drunk some coffee if he had taken a moment to see the distress in my eyes and the quiver in my voice, trying to spare my child from the humiliation that comes with such moments.
Perhaps some of you will consider me to be in the wrong.
This man owed me nothing.
This man was probably plagued all day by requests to use his bathroom.
This man was trying to earn a living.
And in many ways I would agree. It is important to see other perspectives and consider what invisible influences bare down on the decision of others.
Weighed down by the day, I took a late evening walk and listened to an audiobook. I was about 30 minutes in when a women, completely distracted by whatever was playing in her own earphones, cut in front of me across the pavement. We softly collided. I looked at her with hate in my eyes, motioned what she had done, said “are you kidding me?” and huffed off. She was saying sorry, but I continued walking regardless.
I instantly regretted it.
How dare I get on my high horse about the man in the coffee shop when I was prepared to treat a stranger on the street with the same disdain?
Pride and self-righteousness stopped me from heading back to her immediately, but within a minute the tears welled up in my eyes and I turned around to head back to the women. Arguably, not for her benefit but for my own.
As I approached, her shoulders raised, and she had a look on her face that suggested she fear I was about to launch an attack.
I gently raised a hand to indicate I came with no threat and said I was sorry. I was in a bad mood and had taken it out on her and I shouldn’t have done. Still nervous, she quickly muttered that it was okay.
I walked on; the tears came fast. Relief? Guilt? Struggle? Embarrassment? I’m not sure.
What I do know is that I have no right to criticise the man in the coffee shop, especially when I choose to model similar behaviour, make someone feel insecure, belittled, or desperate.
We are very quick to judge others, and even quicker to model the very behaviours we deem poor.
What we can do is:
Choose to swallow our pride and call out our own actions when we spot them.
Forgive those who we believe have wronged us and remember we have no clue on what has influenced their choices in that given moment.
Provide light and calm in situations where others see hurt and darkness
Acknowledge that our children are sponging up absolutely everything they see and hear and recongise that her outbursts later in the day were likely connected to the frenzied emotions she saw from her mother earlier that day.
Know that we have a choice about how we show up, how we treat others and whether we choose to get dragged down into the mud or rise above it.
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