Someone sent me a text that asked “How are you feeling on this 4th of July!! Any Independence Day plans? Fireworks? Parades? 🙂 “
I wanted to answer but didn’t feel like replying. Sometimes our truths can be heavy for people to hold while also being too heavy to hold in. Meaning no disrespect by leaving them on “read”, I wrote this and will be sending the link as my response.
I went to the store (not Walmart or Target) to buy some groceries. I entered and “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin was played in the background while a lady asked me if I wanted to sample chicken salad with grapes in it. I respectively declined & walked away. Walked around the store until I saw the sign that said what I was looking for was just down the aisle. I turned down the aisle I was directed to expecting to find what the sign said was there but it wasn’t. I kept walking up and down the aisle; surveying every shelf, bustling through every box and bag there…surely it must be here. Tired of looking for what I wanted, I irritatedly leave the aisle unable to get what I was looking for nor retrieve the time I’ve wasted.
Exiting the aisle, I see someone who looks as if he could be an older relative of mine wearing the logo of the store on his shirt. I ask him if he is an employee and, after he affirms that he is, I ask him if the store carries what I am looking for. The older gentleman tells me that not only does the store not carry it, but for all of the years he has been in service there, he can’t remember the last time he has even seen it at the store. I thank the elder and walk away.
Walking away, I wonder: why would they say that they had the thing I was looking for when it wasn’t there at all? Why would they say they have it when they don’t? And then it hit me! They said they had what they didn’t have because all they really wanted was for me to spend my money there. They believed that all they had to do was say they had what I wanted when, in truth, they could care less about me or what it was I needed. My presence in the store says something about them even if what is said isn’t actually true. As I thought deeper, I realized that even though the store did not tell me I couldn’t come in, there was nothing about the experience that made me feel like I was welcome; just a greeter to remind me that I was emancipated to do what they wanted me to while I was there.
I compassionately started to make excuses for them. Maybe somebody made a mistake and put the sign in the wrong place. Or maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough. Maybe they had it & ran out of it by the time I got there. If I just would have gotten there earlier or maybe if I just wait, they will restock it (in their own time) and I can have what I was looking for.
But then, in an instant, I came to my senses. Came to myself & realized that none of that mattered. If they wanted me to have it, they would have made sure that it was there for me and made it easy for me to get to it. There was no other truth but that one…so I left the store.
Got home and made my way to the kitchen to cook myself some dinner. As I looked in my cupboard for ingredients, I saw an unopened case of what I went to the store for in the first place. Pride, peace & persepective all exploded within me like fireworks. I had told myself that I needed to go to the store to get what I needed. Turns out, I didn’t need their store…I already had what i was looking for.
…That’s how I feel on this 4th of July
