I HAVE A PROBLEM!!!
I had just stepped up to the post office window when a woman with a walker rushed forward (carrying the walker) to stand by the counter. She had not waited in line, and was desperate to get some attention immediately.
“I can’t use the tape!” she wailed.
No one behind the counter paid any attention to her. After all, she had not waited in the line. So she got louder.
“I can’t use the tape! It’s tied down to the counter because apparently we just have so many thieves…” (she spat this word) “… in this area that everything needs to be tied down! So I can’t reach the tape around the box! Can I get some scissors to cut it loose?”
A postal employee calmly responded: “We can’t give you scissors to use in the lobby.”
“Well then how am I supposed to tape my box?”
“I can give you some tape in a minute to ….”
“Well I can’t be running back and forth, back and forth. I can hardly walk!” She leaned heavily on her currently unused walker.
“Why don’t you bring the box up here ….”
“It’s too heavy! I can’t possibly carry it all the way up here!” Someone from behind her plopped the box on the counter in front of her.
“See?” she shrieked. “How am I supposed to get the tape around this thing? I don’t have time for any of this!” She started fussing with tape and doing exactly what she said she couldn’t do.
Meanwhile, I was calmly mailing my packages. The postal employee ignored her long enough to take care of me, but the woman was muttering the whole time. She was crazed, unconsolable, acting like the world was about to end because some packing tape was tied to the counter.
“I shouldn’t even be here. I don’t have time for this. My mother is in the hospital and ….”
And there it was: the source of her fear. It wasn’t the tape, or the walking, or the thieves who might steal the tape. It wasn’t the size of the box or the insufficient taping.
She was terrified. This woman’s mother was in the hospital, and she needed to get back to her.
But I’m not sure if even she knew that the problem was her mother. I’m not sure if she realized that she was distraught because of the deep, underlying fear that her mother was going to die.
Not everyone wails and whines and moans loudly about things that are bothering them. Some people, in fact, keep everything so bottled up that I might not even notice that there’s a problem. This woman screamed: “I HAVE A PROBLEM!!!” the minute she walked in the door.
I listened to her whine and thought: This is what I sound like. I always sound like this.
My kids have tried to explain to me that I don’t need to scream at the cashier when the food order is wrong, or when it is late, or when anything is out of whack. And I’ve often taken this advice by screaming at my kids: “But someone needs to DO something!!!” in much the same way as the lady at the post office did.
And today I realized, at the ripe old age of 57, that my problem is really not the food order. In fact, the problem is likely unrelated to anything outside of … me.
The problem is: I am deeply afraid.
So. Now I know.
But what is causing the fear? Why am I so afraid all the time?
Kirsten, I may be a little behind, but I’ve been reading that you think you are “weird”. You (and I ) are NOT weird. We are UNIQUE!!! And since we have both been made by the hands of God himself, I beg anyone to differ.
I love you, Aunt Joy. You always see things in such a positive perspective! UNIQUE. So true! Thank you!
I had a heart attack to clarify that my anger and fear had been pushing me to act impatient and/or grouchy for years. I always thought I was releasing stress, but it was my lack of control showing. Suffice it to say, as this blog illustrates, almost nothing warrants acting impatient like that. Besides, you’ll have a heart attack. Please relax now and avoid the heart attack. I was lucky. I survived, but there’s no promise that you will.
I am trying – and certainly learning as I go. “Lack of control” makes me feel very out of control, but I will keep trying.
You have a definite point!
Because life is really really scary.