So, my wife asked me this morning if it would be okay to let her friend and her friend’s nine year old daughter ride with us to New York this Christmas. My first thought was “Great! A fourteen hour drive is bad enough, and now I’ll have to make awkward conversation with someone I don’t know, not to mention put up with her kid (‘Are we there yet?’).”
So much for the holiday spirit! This poor woman is in a bind and can’t afford plane tickets, and all I can think about is how I’ll have to hold in my farts and make a few extra bathroom stops. I can be a self-centered prick sometimes. In fact, that’s usually my first response to anything that disrupts my routine. As my wife can attest to, I NEVER want to do anything that cuts into my “me time” or that I perceive as a potential constriction to my personal freedom (even the freedom to fart in the car).
I don’t think I’ll ever get to a point in my life where my knee-jerk response to the unexpected is anything but “all about me.” I’m getting better, however, at holding off on decisions and commentary until this familiar pattern plays itself out. I don’t feed into these thoughts as much, having experienced their self-limiting effects for years. So, after a little hemming and hawing, I consented to the amended travel arrangements. It may not have been my first thought, but it’s the right thing to do.