It happened again.
Once more I found the dishwasher poached.
It's a frequent thing. Instead of emptying it, she takes just one dish out - a mug usually - and then closes it back up leaving the remaining clean dishes for me, I presume, to finish up.
Today, just as I have on so many other days, I went to add my dirty dish to its rightful place, found that its relatives were all clean and waiting to be put back (minus the one lucky one that had already been plucked out) and immediately felt frustrated and taken for granted.
But today, unlike other days, I slammed that dishwasher closed and vowed not to do it this time. "No! If she won't, I won't! No sir! I'll leave them there all day and the dirty dishes can pile up in the sink until either she empties the dishwasher or they all get confused on which ones are dirty and which ones are clean and get rewashed or first-washed, depending. Yes! That's just what I'll do! I will prevail! I'll show her! If she doesn't care, I won't care."
But that fleeting, pouty-teenager tantrum was quickly followed by a sticky, more-human thought: "Why would I do that? Why double down on the bad? Or, more accurately, why make something bad that never was bad to begin with?"
Now, at the risk of throwing my mom under the bus for being messy or imperfect, and definitely at the risk of exposing me and my anal tendencies (and fully being cognitive of the fact that most of you will side with Mom on this one), what I'm here to discuss isn't which side of the dishwasher we should lean. No, I'd like to talk about that fleeting, pouty-teenager thought. That "Oh, I'm not being treated the way I want to be treated so I'll just treat them like they're treating me" thought. That presumption that it was ever even about me! That audacious certainty that I am being treated in any way at all. As if her every move, every thought, every motivation has something to do with me. I mean, let's face it - she probably was just tired and needed a mug and, though there were plenty of mugs in the cabinet, she just grabbed it out of there because it was closer. I don't know that she didn't have every intention of emptying the dishwasher after that first cup of coffee. I don't know that that's not her intention every single time and I just get to it faster because of my aforementioned tendencies. I don't really know her motivation. And that's my point.
Yesterday at the Gentle Barn, a fellow volunteer came up to me and told me to get back to my job, which basically was cleaning up turkey shit in the breezeway. Apparently, and tragically, someone had stepped in said turkey shit and it was all because I had not done my job. In real life? I guarantee there hasn't been a person to visit the Gentle Barn that hasn't stepped in some sort of animal shit at some point. Face it, you are not going home without shit on your shoes. But that's an aside. The thing is, that her perception was that I was just standing over by a fence, holding a broom, chatting up a guest and looking at a big pig digging in the dirt with his nose rather than doing my assigned job. It was simple - I was goofing off.
But you see, I was doing a job. Maybe not my assigned job, but a more important one at the time. I was helping to prevent a bunch of people from getting run over by a very large pig with very poor eyesight, who is surprisingly nimble and whom, I suspect, actually gets a kick out of watching the seas part for him as he rambles around the barnyard. Realistically, had I not been there, I'm sure everything would have been fine. The upper barnyard manager is very adept and had things under control, as did the pig's docent, but by being at point (ahead of the pig) I had been able to divert the crowd a little more efficiently and saved at least one person from being pushed aside by an enormous animal.
Obviously, I was going to return to my original duties and didn't need this child telling me where I should be. It really rankled me. I didn't like her treating me as if she were the boss of me. I didn't like being accused of not doing a good job - especially me of all people (refer to the tendencies I admit to above). I didn't like her assumptions. I was pissed. And I glared back at her and said something useless in a tone that wasn't very kind. And I felt justified in doing so.
Well, that is until that fleeting, pouty-teenager tantrum was not quite as quickly followed by a stickier, more-human thought: "But from her perspective, I was goofing off." At the point the volunteer berated me, I was not being useful at all. I really was, as she saw it, just standing there. All was well and calm. And I will say that, as a Gentle Barn guest-turned volunteer, I deeply appreciate the importance of the breezeway job. So she was right ... at least from her perspective.
Eventually I realized she probably now thinks me to be a lazy, entitled volunteer that gives a mean stink eye when being redirected. That's so far off the mark, but it's true to her because she thinks it's about her. Her perception is her reality. She thinks the whole interaction took place with no back story and all she was doing was trying to keep things clean for the guests.
And so it is done. Not that I was going to be her BFF, nor was she my future adopted daughter, but the chances are that we will never have a particularly civil relationship now.
Had either of us taken the time to hear the others' backstory, the whole thing wouldn't have been negative. But, I mean, really - who has time for that? And I'm not being sarcastic. Ain't nobody got time for that. My message here isn't about that level of love.
My message is that we don't simply assume things. No, we are certain of things. And in that certainty, if what we receive is negative, we are certain to give that negativity right back. Maybe in spades. She hurt my feelings? I'll hurt hers. Worse if I can. She'll see how it feels.
And that's how everything starts. We see hate. We give hate. They hit. We hit back. They start it. We finish it (until they finish what we thought we finished and start it again).
But the thing is, we don't take the time to consider that maybe it never had to escalate in the first place. Maybe it never was about "me." Maybe there was no first strike at all.
So maybe next time I'm to be at the Gentle Barn I'll poach a mug from the dishwasher, stick some fresh flowers in it, grab a box of vegan chocolates and offer a peace offering. Or maybe I'll just stay at whatever station I'm assigned to no matter what. Or maybe, and more likely, I'll just tread this earth with a little more respect for the fact that it is not, in fact, revolving around me.
- kec
