Have you ever said something to someone that haunts you later? Maybe you compliment someone, but then hours later while you’re trying to fall asleep that night you think, “I hope they took that as a compliment.”
I can’t be the only one with that insomnia-inducing anxiety.
I wonder if the gentleman who I recently had a conversation with has that same anxiety.
The memory I am about to share with you occurred in the last week of my maternity leave. I was rushing to finish a bunch of projects around the house during my daughter’s nap time. The task of that day was to build shelves in my laundry room. I had the garage door open with a mitre saw in the door and a bunch of scrap lumber stewed about the driveway and garage floor.
As I lined up to make my final cut, I noticed a gentleman with his dog at the end of my driveway. I cut the power to the saw, so I could hear what he was saying to me.
I took off my safety sunglasses to speak to this stranger.
I almost immediately wished I hadn’t.
That sounds harsh, and maybe that was due to my rushed mood at the moment of our interaction, but I tried my best to contain my emotions and I politely smiled and nodded.
The gentleman was concerned whether I needed some assistance running the power saw. I immediately said, “Pardon me?” partly because I was half reading his lips as I didn’t hear him over the roar of the saw.
He repeated himself.
It caught me off guard. I actually paused, looked around, and simply said, “No thank you.”
He pressed on one more time offering his assistance at which point I again said, “No thank you, this is my final cut.”
I wasn’t lying and I was in a rush to check this project off my to-do list. Perhaps my tone was a bit gruff the third time he offered to help, but he waved and continued to walk his dog down the road.
After he turned the corner and I was finishing up my work, I thought about how his words made me feel.
I felt misunderstood.
Little does this man know that this was not my first do-it-yourself project in my home, or that in many instances I am more handy with power tools than my husband is.
The more I thought about that interaction immediately after it occurred, the more anger I felt. I began to think about all of the better comebacks I could have said to him – the most comical one would have been that birthing my two children was harder than running a power saw.
After my anger and annoyance had passed, I was glad I didn’t say those harsh things to him. Perhaps he was being friendly. Perhaps he enjoys a good project, like myself, and didn’t have anything else better to do that day.
There was no way he could know that I was sleep-deprived from being up through the night with my teething daughter and I had a temper thinner than the layer of sprinkled sawdust littering my driveway.
I began to feel a bit guilty for my negative thoughts towards this person.
There was no way for him to know how I was feeling that day, and he really hadn’t been rude to me.
Isn’t it funny how even kind words can hurt your feelings if you are already in a bad mood?
My belief is that you are always entitled to your feelings. However, I also believe I would have been in the wrong if I had chosen to vocalize my less-than-polite thoughts at him.
This whole interaction was my most recent reminder to always choose kindness first, no matter the challenge.
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Kelsey Bent is a journalist with Midwestern Newspapers, for question or comment please email kbent@midwesternnewspapers.com.
