For the past week, I have opened the bathroom drawer that holds our toothpastes, deodorants, clippers, etc., and been extremely annoyed. My husband, while caring for a wound by wrapping it in a little bit of cotton and a bandaid, has been placing his cotton in my section of the drawer. Every time I go to grab my toothpaste, the cotton is there and needs to be moved to another spot – in HIS part of the drawer – before I can get to my stuff. He has ownership over most of that drawer, and so it baffles me that he would place his cotton in my one little container. And yet, every time I brush my teeth, he is either gone to work already or in bed asleep. Until last night…
So as I grabbed my toothpaste and needed to move the cotton to a different spot (you’d think he would have realized it has been moved all week long!), I finally was able to bring it up. I asked him why he was putting the cotton in my spot in the drawer, and his answer was, that’s where it belongs. I cracked up laughing! I told him it didn’t belong in my space and to stop placing it there. We shall see how this turns out in the next couple days…
This morning I laugh about this occurance because I have finally confronted Jeff about it. But until last night, that one little action, placing his cotton in my space, was truly annoying me. It’s amazing how we can let one little thing upset us so much. I would spend about ten minutes festering on how I was going to bring it up to Jeff, when I remembered to do so. (See the importance it really had? I had forgotten, all week, to bring it up, and it only really annoyed me for 10-15 minutes in the mornings and evenings. And yet when I opened the drawer, it was like a wound needing stitches, it pained me that much.)
How often do we let our little annoyances disturb our day? How often do we carry it into the rest of our day? We fail to notice the warming weather outside. We fail to notice the longer days. Our attention tunes out the miracles of the day while we dwell on something as little as misplaced cotton!
Today we are reminded to put our actions and the actions of others into perspective. Give them their moment, and then move on to the next moment that holds a miracle or surprise.