Learning What Matters
Some days, everyone is weather.
At the grocery store, I moved through other people’s attitudes and let them belong to them.
On the road, I had the too-slow driver in front of me and the ride-my-bumper driver behind me, all of us funneled onto the same narrow highway and bridges. I let them go. I didn’t need to teach anybody a lesson. I just drove.
At the fast-food window, the workers were getting it from both directions — customers cussing, horns honking, irritation spilling everywhere. I waited. I had exact change. When they finally got my food to me, I told the woman I hoped her day got better. The lunch shift was almost over. She looked at me, softened, and said, “Thank you, lady.”
And she meant it.
As a service worker to another, I know.
As a mother and wife, I know.
The honking and cussing at the fast-food restaurant was more weather I navigated without throwing mine onto somebody else.
Then I came home.
There was hunger. Hormones. Fatigue. Frustration. Grief. Old hurts. New irritations. The thousand small things that make people less graceful with one another.
I know this.
I also know that I am carrying things too.
I am working. Parenting. Driving. Feeding. Cleaning. Listening. Adjusting. Trying again. Trying not to pass irritation from one person to the next. Trying to notice when someone needs food, space, kindness, quiet, or another chance.
Sometimes that means shifting.
Sometimes pivoting.
Sometimes shouldering more than I expected.
Sometimes recognizing that another person is not especially aware of how they are coming across and deciding whether to let it pass, work around it, or finally say:
No. That is not acceptable.
Sometimes I have to stop in the middle of all that and remember:
I matter here too.
Someone else having a difficult day does not make my effort invisible.
Someone else being tired does not make contempt acceptable.
Someone else being overwhelmed does not mean I have to quietly absorb, “I don’t care.”
I can understand where someone’s mood comes from and still say:
You may be struggling, but you may not dismiss me.
Because I am navigating weather too.
And I repeatedly choose not to put it out onto other people.
Sometimes the bad weather comes from strangers at the store.
Sometimes it comes through the windshield.
Sometimes it comes through a fast-food speaker.
And sometimes it comes from the people closest to me.
I can have compassion for all of it without volunteering to become the ground where everybody else’s weather lands.
Today I had to check in with myself and say:
I matter.
My work matters.
My care matters.
My stories matter.
My difficult moments matter too.
I deserve to live inside my family as a person, not merely as the person who keeps everything moving.
And then, after all the shouldering, shifting, pivoting, adjusting, absorbing, releasing, and finally confronting what needed to be confronted, I called myself back.
I swam in the water.
I rode my bike +5 miles.
I showered.
I lotioned my feet and rubbed scented oil into them.
I put on peaceful, resonating meditation music and let the noise begin to leave me.
Not everything was resolved.
Not everyone became easier.
The weather did not suddenly clear.
But I returned to myself.
My body.
My breath.
My feet.
My evening.
My life.
The bad weather comes.
I flow.
I matter.
Those closest to me may bring bad weather.
It is not mine.
I matter.
I am not here to be mistreated, discharged upon, or hurt because someone else is hurting.
Their pain is theirs.
My peace is mine.
I matter.
Today I remembered that as I let my confrontation go.
No guilt.
I said what needed to be said.
Heard or not.
Change or not.
I stood up for myself.
And that is how I came home to myself.
A Lesson Learned
I truly wish I had this point of view last year. I wish I had this practice.
Last year, I was in my office and already in distress.
I had permission to leave. I was trying to finish what I needed to finish, sign off, gather myself, and go.
Then a coworker came into my office.
He had already been rude, sarcastic, and cruel toward me, and he brought that same energy into the room at exactly the moment when I had very little capacity left to absorb anything more.
I reacted.
I exploded.
My nervous system fell apart after three years of navigating rude, unpredictable, invasive behavior that sometimes included direct verbal insults.
Even when I later reported what had happened, I tried to keep it clean and matter-of-fact. I didn't deep-dive into all the relationships and behavior I had been forced to navigate without meaningful intervention.
Looking back, I wish I had understood then what I understand now:
He was bad weather.
I did not have to absorb him.
I did not have to absorb them.
I did not have to correct him.
I did not have to correct them.
I understood part of this at the time. What I didn't understand was the first part: I did not have to absorb the harm.
I could have walked away and allowed other people to remain responsible for the way they behaved.
I did not need to become their straw man.
I did not have to defend myself against every sarcastic remark or make another person understand how badly his behavior was hurting me.
I did not have to stand there until his weather became mine.
I could have recognized what was happening, stayed at home within myself, and said calmly:
“I already have permission to leave, and I'm leaving now. I'm not available for sarcasm or disrespect. If there is something work-related that needs to be discussed, it can be addressed later. Right now, I need you to give me space to leave.”
And if he continued:
“I'm not discussing this with you right now. Please step back.”
No argument.
No explaining.
No attempt to make a cruel person suddenly become kind.
No need to prove that I was upset enough to deserve to leave.
Just:
This is bad weather.
It is not mine.
I am leaving it behind.
I wish I had possessed that point of view then.
I do now.
And I can also look backward with compassion.
Without intervention, there was only so much one human being could continue absorbing — professionally and personally — before something gave way.
What happened to me was deeply unfair.
I am sorry that I did not yet know how to walk away sooner and protect myself from the bad weather and difficult people I encountered.
Whatever they thought of me, whatever they projected onto me, whatever they were reacting to:
It was not mine.
I am sorry I ever knew some of those people or that place.
These things happen.
And I have compassion for the person I was while they were happening.
After all this time, I can finally see more clearly:
The cruelty was never mine.
I release it.
I give it back to the people who carried it into the room.
I give back the sarcasm.
I give back the contempt.
I give back the indifference.
I even give back the silence of the bystanders.
None of it needs to live inside me anymore.
Intervention would have mattered.
Being protected would have mattered.
Being treated as though my distress mattered would have mattered.
Perhaps I did not matter enough to some of the people around me then.
But I most certainly matter to me now.
I matter.
May they learn and grow without another person having to become their victim.
May I continue to recognize bad weather without making it mine.
May good things come.
Namaste.
