I serve brunch at a local restaurant. Today, being Mother’s Day, is one of the busiest brunch days of the year. Last night after blogging I carefully set two alarms, double checked the time and volume, and went peacefully to sleep. And I slept. I slept until after noon. My eyes flicked open and I cussed to myself because I could feel that I had slept much longer than I was supposed to. I checked my phone to find angry messages from my manager, and the clock to find that my shift started five hours prior.
How did I sleep through two alarms and several phone calls? Why did this happen today? Did I still have a job? I had so many questions, and my only answers were frustration and disappointment in myself.
I apologized to the four servers I would have been working with. I talked to my managers, though only briefly and with more discussion to come, and found that I did still have a job there. But I still feel terrible. Strangely, it isn’t even about the restaurant–it’s about me. I’m angry at myself, but moreso angry at the universe because I can’t help but feel that I’m not at fault.
I felt bad because my Mother’s Day conversation with my mother revolved mostly around my disappointment in myself. But she said the one thing she could have said to calm me. She said, “You just have to surrender.” She said the universe deals us good hands and bad hands, and I should just be grateful that all I did was sleep through a shift. She alluded to the bad hand I was dealt just over a year ago when I broke my skull in a bike accident.
I had to confront my own feelings of entitlement. That’s really what I was mad about, that I could work hard and still make mistakes. My parents, my teachers, and society raised me to believe that the world was mine for the taking. This is one of those petty lamentations of the privileged. At the root of everything here, I am angry that I can’t have what I want because I have been raised to believe that I should have whatever I want. So in surrendering, I must confront my sense of entitlement.
And god damn if I’m not extremely lucky. I’m not dealing with institutionalized oppression, with lack of love in my life, with lack of education or employment opportunities, with death, with drugs, with anything like that. Surrendering means being grateful. Rather than being upset that I missed out on one little thing, I must be grateful for everything else that I do have.
So hey, mom, sorry the conversation revolved around me. But thank you for one more of your lessons. I wouldn’t be half the man I am without you in my life. Happy Mother’s Day, and I love you.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I love you too! It is challenging to see how hard stuff also fits into the scheme of things…but it does somehow. Still and always working on this myself!
May 12th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
“You wanna see pain? Swing by First Methodist Tuesday nights. See the guys with testicular cancer. That’s pain. ” -Fight Club
I in particular, and Americans in general, get so caught up in our own small dramas that we forget how blessed we are. My tough days are full of mildly unpleasant meetings or somewhat boring number crunching; they’re not full of evading armed militias or breaking big rocks with other rocks. I don’t have to try to cope with serious health or family crises.
All in all, life is pretty good. Sometimes you need a “tough moment” to remind you that they’re only moments, only small rocks in the river.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
im outside, looking at the carribean sea in psycadelic running shorts and a very not me bikini top that my mom brought for me (bless this woman and her slightly awkward addiction to ebay). smoking my first cig in like 20 hours, and wondering what sort of fucked up world this is that my biggest problem (besides running on 45 min of sleep for the last 48 hours and having been in airplanes and airports all day) is that i am annoyed that everybody here in mexico talks to me in english…
i’m having US culture shock and i’m not even in the US……………..
and i will see you in EXACTLY one week. to pretty much the minute.
i love you, and this is my favorite post so far on the new blog. sorry you missed that shift. i know that feeling, and it is, as my father likes to say, a shit sandwich.
May 20th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Its amazing what we are able to say in words, but not verbaly. i think you may have tired to tell me this that day, but i just didnt get it. I didnt understand why you were so upset. now i do.
the melodramatics of our lives seem to swirl us up and down the drain of self pity, gossip, self hate. but placing them in persepctive, with some meditation, and reflection, and a healthy talk with a trustee, can give a clear vision.
it there is one thing i wish much of us americans could feel, believe, is just how damn lucky we are. everything is relative. but i wish we could feel gratetude, truely deeply, in our life viens. and i wish that we could surrender. just surrender, i can fight the currents, but i dont control the river. lets us shed the layers of fear we build around us, the we imagine protects us, but just prevents us from feeling the connection we have to humanity, the universe.