July 24, 2025
Met someone today who just made my day (insert sarcasm here). Our interaction was brief and the only things I discerned about this particular individual was that they seem to be very angry with an ego and huge sense of entitlement.
Now, I deal with this kind of thing all the time and while I’m usually good about letting it go, understanding that the reason they’re in my vicinity is not always by choice but necessity, and that it can be scary, and that each person deals with stress and fear differently, the entire experience ruined a solid hour or so of my morning. I’m afraid I was not nice in their description to a friend when I asked for help and vented my frustration at their treatment of me: I believe “d-bag” was used more than once.
And then a colleague brought me my favorite coffee cake.
After I was able to sit with it a bit, and devour my coffee cake, I started thinking about how this person got to the point where they are angry and hateful, and not just today, but in almost every interaction they have. I spoke to other colleagues who reported similar experiences. What had they been through? What brought them in today? Are they getting help? Do they need help?
And then I decided that I didn’t need to let this experience continue to ruin my day or bleed into what I do best.
But more importantly, I didn’t want to let this turn me into the worse version of myself; she’s not a nice person. I didn’t want to be so consumed in anger that it would be all I would experience. I did that before and it almost ruined me.
I was completely overwhelmed after Kevin’s accident; I was mad, angry, grieving, scared, scarred, and changed. I wasn’t the same. I was short tempered, quick to cry, and snapping at everyone. I didn’t feel like I was that person at the time, not until someone sat me down and described behavior I have zero recollection of.
To be honest, many of the days following Keivin’s accident are lost to me; there was too much to feel and too much to do and honestly, I just don’t think I was capable of taking in or processing anything else in those days. I was just surviving going through the motions. Not really interacting but acting. In many ways.
Acting like I was fine. Acting like I wasn’t angry, or scared, or broken. But I was and I didn’t like it. I never considered myself an overtly happy person, but I was never the angry, bitter person I had turned into.
That’s when I got help and found a good therapist. But that was still 4 months after the accident. Four months that I can’t account for my behavior.
I don’t want to be that angry person again, and I started feeling sorry for this person who I only know as this.
I did change with Kevin’s accident: I’m still changing, to be honest. But this little experience today, it’s only as important as I make it.
I have this little board for short quotes: it usually changes based on interactions I have or things I want to focus on; so today, it was changed:
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
~Clare Pooley
And love yourself.
The Harrowed Heart 