This week has been stressful at work In fact, I haven't had a weekend all to myself since August, and this weekend is the culmination of a big project. I'm a bit burned out by it all and I'll be glad when it's over.
As such, some of my "acts of kindness" are better than others. Today was not one of those days. Today my act of kindness was to bite my tongue.
I took my daughter to "Adaptive Aquatics" - swim classes for kids with autism, Down's Syndrome and other disabilities. She loves it. Only when I got there, they didn't have her on the list. When I signed her up, they said she was already enrolled.
Frustrated, but channeling my kinder, gentler self, I got my own suit on and took her in the pool myself. She was a bit annoyed or confused why she didn't get to play with the nice lady instead of her dumb old dad, but we made it through.
When it was time to go, we headed for the two "family changing rooms". These tend to be in higher demand around Adaptive Aquatics, and both were in use when we got to them. So we just stood there, waiting patiently, dripping dry.
As it turns out, one of the family changing rooms was being used by someone (an individual, not a family) taking a 20-minute shower. The other changing room was actually being used by a family, but when they came out, another family cut ahead of us to use it.
Rather than taking these people to task for being such inconsiderate jerks, I let it go. I figured, you know, I have no idea what these other people were thinking, but maybe they had good reasons. Who knows what challenges they are facing in their own lives? I spent my time making up stories and imagining scenarios about why this person really did need to use the family changing room alone for a long shower, or why the other family really did need to cut ahead of us. (Great creative writing exercise.)
Some days are better than others...
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