It's How We Learn

I'm still shaking my head at myself. What the F was I thinking?! What a weirdo.

I went to a gender reveal party for our cousins who are having their first child. It's a little awkward for me because we were so excited to hear that we were expecting about a month earlier than this couple- and we were so excited to get to try again and be pregnant with them and have our kids be exactly the same age. And then we lost the pregnancy, but thankfully theirs has continued with no issues, and today we found out they are having a little boy. The sonogram pictures were so sweet!

At this point, I'm feeling good about the whole situation and I'm so excited for them, although I am always a little worried for couples having their first kid because I've seen the other side of the coin and it wasn't easy for us at first. It's awesome now though, so I try to make sure they hear about that part.

Anyway, when I got there, I was greeting everyone, and talking to the mama to be and one of her friends who I remembered from the mama to be's bachelorette party. "You know Allison, she was at my bachelorette party!" and I agreed with her. "She had a baby!" she said.

"I've been pregnant 3 times now," I said. And then just let the words hang.

Why in the world did I think that was a normal response to that type of statement?! It's not!

I don't remember what I said next, because I just made it so weird and I realized it immediately. She doesn't care that I've been pregnant 3 times! I did have a baby, but she's 2 years old now. I guess I'm just so excited to be the opposite of pregnant right now that it's uncomfortable to think about being pregnant ever.

Maybe I was trying to short-hand say, "I have zero desire to do it again!"

It would have been funny if I had just said that! Instead I opened my mouth and shoved a huge foot in it. Geez.

I hope I didn't make the mama to be uncomfortable. Sometimes I think it's uncomfortable for people to be in the same room as me because they don't know how I feel about what's happened in my life in the past couple of years, or how I think it's been a blessing that has turned me into a much better person than I was before- but they do know the tragedies, and maybe they feel sad for it.

I'm going to forgive myself for it. It was such an awkward mistake, but now I won't forget to think about the audience. Someone I haven't seen in 3 years and barely know does not need to know my personal health history in the shortest sentence possible!

I want to switch to the flip side of this coin and tell you about the highlight of last week.

We are working on updating our pantry, so we pulled all the food out and sorted it (more on that later!), and I had a small box to donate. I thought it would be good to talk to Abs about it, so I planned a morning to go to a local food pantry and donate it. She was excited, I was excited, and we went.

When we pulled up, I immediately felt self-conscious because the place was bustling with customers shopping at the pantry, volunteers helping them load their food up, and people were everywhere. Here I come (and I had put on makeup and jewelry that day which is rare) with my kid in her cute outfit with a measly box of random food to donate.

I'm walking to where I think the entrance is, and a tall guy about my age stops and says to Abs, "Hi! What do you have there?" (she was clutching a Minnie Mouse figurine) "Minnie!" she says, and I explain she brought it because the place is called Minnie's Food Pantry. He asked what her name was, I told him. Then he asked if we had a donation. I said yes, and told him he could keep the container if he wanted. He asked if I needed a receipt. I told him no, since it was clearly such a small amount.

"How about a hug then?" he said.

"Sure," I replied, without thinking about it too much, and he gave me a solid, kind, strong hug. A good hug.

You know when you go to hug someone, and they limply toss their arms around you? Or they try not to get too close because they feel weird? Or they do the one armed side hug? Or the one armed front hug, which is really weird? What about the one where their hands are lightly tapping your shoulders?

This was the opposite of all of those. The kind of hug you give to someone to make them feel good. Or the kind you give someone you haven't seen in awhile.

He asked my name, then told me his name was RJ.

He seemed really glad we came in and brought in that tiny donation, and I drove out of there feeling like a million bucks. I wanted to volunteer! I wanted to learn how to extreme coupon so I could buy pallets of food and donate them to the pantry! I wanted to go to the grocery store immediately and buy a gift card to go back and donate!

In the end, what made it feel so good was not that we donated the food, it was how friendly he was, and how gracious he was in taking the food. He was genuinely glad we came that day. And that made me feel the same way.