The Chronicles Of Nay

Hello, happy friday! This was a rough week.. by Tuesday I was ready for it to be over! Something great that did happen this week is I got to see Karen! She subbed as an administrator while our principal was out! It was so nice to have her on campus. Felt almost like the old days! 

So last night I was talking to a friend and I had asked a question and she misunderstood it. Let’s be honest sometimes I just assume people are in my head so I asked questions without all the information because I know what I’m talking about she should too. So she went off on this whole other thing. I was like oh I have that covered my question was referring to this other thing. And she said well I guess you don’t need my idea then. I told her I’m sorry I don’t want to seem ungrateful for her suggestion. However, we’re here because of my inability to ask a question. So she answered the actual question that she did in fact have the knowledge for when I asked it properly. We moved on and she probably didn’t think about it again but I got to thinking about my response. The first thing I went to was I don’t want to be ungrateful. And I got to thinking about this attitude of gratitude (haha I wasn’t even trying to be funny there) that my parents instilled in me since I was a kid.

Let me set the stage I must have been 7 maybe ish? Let’s go 7. I still remember what I was wearing that day. I had this white little outfit and it was really thick so maybe it was made of like denim or something I don’t remember. I just remember it was really thick and it had little strawberries all over it. What I don’t remember is what I said or how it was perceived as being ungrateful. What I do know is clearly my parents have been warning me about this ungrateful attitude I’d had and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In Spanish the term we use is malagradecida(o). So this particular day whatever it was I was being super ungrateful about. I remember my dad taking me into the bedroom and I thought I was getting a spanking because that’s how they dealt with things when I was a child. Instead he pulled out my strawberry shortcake suitcase and he told me “pack five pairs of underwear and five outfits I’ll be back”. I remember crying thinking my dad is kicking me out of the house and I am seven! What am I going to eat for dinner? Will I still get to go to softball practice?  So as I finished packing he comes in and takes me by the hand and my suitcase and I grab Bear. That was the name of my childhood bear, just Bear, I was fancy like that! I grabbed Bear off of the bed and I’m hugging bear and I’m crying and my dad puts me in the car and he drives me across town. While we were in the car he was telling me that I have so much to be grateful for and that this attitude of ungratefulness is not cute, it’s not nice, it’s rude and he will not tolerate it. So we get to childhaven. At the time all I knew about childhaven was that it was a place where kids without parents lived. So we get there and my dad gets out of the truck and he takes my strawberry shortcake suitcase out of the truck and I get out of the truck and I’m standing on the sidewalk crying holding on to Bear with my little suitcase and my dad drove off. In my logical brain I know now he didn’t go far he probably went to the end of the parking lot or whatever. But as that 7 year old my dad drove away and left me there. He wasn’t gone long like I said logically he probably went to the end of the parking lot or around the corner or whatever but he came back and I’m standing there crying and he hugs me and he said we have so much to be grateful for, these kids don’t have all that I have. They’re in situations that I couldn’t even fathom. He told me that not getting the toy I wanted or the candy I wanted or whatever I had been throwing a fit about was nothing compared to what these kids were dealing with. He said we have to be grateful for all of the things that we do have and if I continued to be ungrateful for all that I had he was going to bring me back, And actually leave me. It sounds kind of harsh but I will say that clear through my childhood into my teenagers and beyond I was always thinking “is that going to make me sound ungrateful I don’t want to go back to childhaven.” Haha 

It was a good lesson and I often think about that talk with my dad. I do think that sometimes we focus so much on what we don’t have that we forget about all the blessings that we do have! So I encourage you this weekend, take a step back and be grateful for what you have!