Making The Little Girl in the Purple Dress Proud

During the Thanksgiving holiday, I was at my grandmother's house and she told me that she had a photo she wanted to show me.  She prefaced it by saying that no matter how much I was going to like said photo, I wouldn't be able to keep it.  Now God knows I love my grandmother, but she is a textbook case of only children being tight-fisted, read: selfish (as a card carrying member of the I Am An Only Child Society, I'm more than qualified to recognize the behavior).  The picture was one of me, with my beloved grandfather, when I was about 2 or 3 years old and I was in this adorable purple dress.  Come to think of it, every picture I've seen of me when I was small, I seemed to be wearing that same dress, and I was always crying or in some beginning stages of crying.  My mother assures me that my childhood was a happy one, I just wasn't crazy about taking pictures.  She also says that the frequent appearances of the purple dress was just a coincidence.  I choose to believe her.

As I'm looking at this picture of this very cute kid (with the legs of a mini Tina Turner), I can't help but wonder if I've lived up to her expectations.  Did I make her proud?  Now, I'm not talking about career achievements, but I'm talking about the things in life that truly matter: how I spent my time here on earth.  Did I always treat people the way I wanted to be treated; was I kind and compassionate to those who needed me to be; how well did I handle adversity; did I always season my conversation with grace even in those times when I wanted to use more saltier language?  In some instances, I've done okay, but more often than not I've fallen a bit short.

I once saw a saying that I wrote down and taped to my computer that read "where there is breath, there is hope," and it reminds me that every time you are given the opportunity of new life you can make some changes and correct some wrongs.  A chance to allow yesterday's hurts to become today's opportunity for forgiveness.  That's an area for me in which I can stand to grow as I don't always react so well when I feel like I've been wronged, and I'm even more of a brat when you hurt someone who is close to me.  I learned a valuable lesson about this years ago.  My best friend Rockelle was telling me about someone who worked for her (when we worked at the same job) who was being very insubordinate.  Well as her "protector," I took more offense to it than she did and proceeded to give this girl the dirtiest of looks everytime I saw her.  Then one day the girl, Rockelle and I were in the elevator and Rockelle was being really nice to her and I asked how she could be so nice to this person who did her wrong (I also told her that I literally rolled my eyes at the girl everytime I saw her, and I did this for like three months).  Rockelle fell out laughing and told me that that wasn't the girl she was talking about and I had been  channeling my anger towards the wrong person.  We laughed about it, but I just thought about how foolish I was to act so childish and all of the energy I wasted doing so.  I did eventually apologize to the girl, and she could not have been nicer, making me feel like even more of an idiot, which I deserved.  That was also the day that I decided to let Rockelle fight her own battles because she is way better at it than I am.

What I've learned in these 41 wonderful years of living (I have no problem sharing my age because I'm grateful for every year that I've been given and appreciate the wisdom that goes along with age!) is that more often than not when people hurt you it's because they are hurting inside themselves, and that forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person, but it's you who will get the biggest reward.  I honestly believe that you can add years to your life doing this.

So, I vow that from this day forward I'm going to live my life to the fullest and get past hurts and perceived slights quicker than I normally have in the past.  I'm going to show more patience to people even in those times when my head is throbbing from their inane conversation, and I'm going to enjoy the ride along the way.  I want that little girl in the purple dress and her grandfather who was in that picture with her (and who, before his death, imparted enough wisdom in me to last a lifetime) to know that they can always trust that even in times of uncertainty I will always do the right thing and make them proud!

So, that's TarazTake for today, what are your thoughts?