Finding forgiveness August 1, 2008
Posted by admin in : Life 101 Tags:fire, forgiveness, innocent mistakes , add a commentI had an awesome day. I spent several hours on my new businss plan, I practiced yoga, I meditated, I went and taught a beautiful yoga class, I went to the grocery store and bought some fresh vegetables to make a nice healthy salad, I had a great conversation with my mother on the way home, and then I walked in to my house to find the kitchen pretty much on fire. The house was completely filled with smoke, I couldn’t see two feet in front of me and the smell was horrendous. I couldn’t breathe and it took me a second to realize what was happening.
Backing up about an hour and a half…I walked down the stairs to head out to teach my yoga class and saw my roommate was boiling a dozen eggs. This isn’t uncommon considering there are three girls here who love to eat hard boiled eggs. We pretty much eat them every day and you’ll usually always find one of us boiling eggs at some point in the week. The only difference was nobody was in the kitchen, but I thought, “hey…we’re all adults, right? She knows they’re there…she’s watching them…she’s probably just multitasking…no big deal.” I left and didn’t say anything to her, which I’m still kicking myself in the butt for not following my intuition and saying something, but such is life.
I have no idea what time she left the house, but the stainless steel pot boiled on high for the entire time I was gone. The carton of eggs exploded all over the house so there were eggs everywhere. The gas stove was still on high when I got home and the pot was burning away. I immediately turned off the stove, opened up all the windows, and then turned on the A/C to try and pull some of the smoke out. I left the house because I couldn’t breathe and headed over to my friend’s house. (Many thanks to Jill for taking me in, feeding me dinner, and having a glass of wine ready and waiting!)
I called the roommate who left the pot boiling, but she didn’t answer. I was upset with her carelessness and annoyed with her irresponsibility. I found myself judging her and not being compassionate. We’re not perfect, right? We all make mistakes and I surely wouldn’t want someone being upset with me over something I didn’t mean to do, but on the other hand, she could have burnt the house down. How could she be so careless?
I immediately thought back to the time I opened a bag of dark chocolate espresso beans in my boyfriend’s new vehicle and the bag totally busted out the bottom and all the beans came flying out. It was totally by accident, but he got really upset with me. He jumped out of the car, ran around to my side and starting picking them up agitatedly. He made me feel terrible and I will never forget feeling like a total idiot for something I didn’t mean to do.
Stuff happens…it’s life! What’s important is that we learn from our mistakes. Life is just a big playing field. Sometimes we hit home runs…sometimes we hit fowl balls. It is what it is and making someone feel worse about something they already feel terrible about doesn’t serve anyone. I could feel my roommate’s energy when I walked in to the door and I immediately wanted to put my arms around her because I knew she felt terrible for what happened. I know how that feels to know you’ve done something horribly wrong and not be able to do anything about it. What’s important is that she will never do it again…that’s for sure! To have made her feel worse would have been inhumane. We must learn to forgive more easily and leave room for error, as we are human after all.