Embarrassed.

Funny thing about embarrassment is it’s a feeling you have to allow or not, because it can only be rooted in a negative thought about yourself.

Yesterday for example. I go to the car wash, early because the day before they’d been lined up everywhere! So this time I went early.

Sadly my normal car wash was closed. So I hustled to the only back up one I’ve been to before but it’s been years!

So I go to this car wash and pull up and around into the line. There’s your or five cars ahead of me (I saw cars. It I live in the north so it’s almost always all trucks including myself) anywho, I wait probably 10 minutes as they pile in, one at a time. Waiting their turn for the big door to open.

I get to the front of the line and stop at the sign that says ‘stop here when full sign is lit’ and it’s got blinking lights around the stop sign so I sit and I wait.

It’s like another solid ten minutes I wait until finally some guy comes out of the car wash, looks at me, looks at the unlit full sign on the wall- WAY BACK BEHIND THE FLASHING SIGN ID BEEN WATCHING- and waves me in.

Oh. Shit. Yup so I had been watching the wrong sign 😅

I pull in, and four or five cars then get to come in behind me.

One of which is one of my coworkers. He smiles and shakes his head and me. I grin and shrug. Wash my truck then go to say afterward. I said, “how come no one honked?” He said, “I was just about to text you but I didn’t know if it was you for sure” he even showed me the text he’d typed up and hadn’t sent.

We laughed.

I wasn’t embarrassed. I felt bad, especially if any of those people were then running late like I was, but I didn’t feel embarrassed. I certainly didn’t do it on purpose, and I certainly would forgive anyone else that did such a simple error.

The point is, I totally missed seeing the right sign, and for me to feel any negative thoughts I’d have to be mad and self talk badly to me. And I won’t do that. I won’t tell myself I was dumb. I won’t tell myself I looked an idiot. Because I would give anyone else the grace and forgiveness, so I tell myself, next time I will slow down and try to seek a back up answer if someone feels amiss.

Or I’ll just stick with the car wash I know!

Be kind to yourself,

Norma Rrae

After thought- maybe it was actually a butterfly effect and by me sitting there for an extra ten minutes caused someone else to have to sit for an extra ten minutes effectively saving them from some horrible accident that was waiting them ten minutes earlier!

Second after thought- I’m ready for my trip!