I heard him whimpering as he turned the corner. His small four-year-old hand reached up to hold the hand of his caretaker, a 20-something-year-old who was taking two small children to the museum for the day.
He whimpered again several times and then choked out these words:
"I'm grumpy and mean...and I don't wanna be grumpy and mean!"
I thought, I hear you kid.
I swear I had said the same words a few weeks earlier when I was visiting my family for the holidays. After reverting back to my worst self (as people sometimes do when they are around people who know them very well), I had become a little bit mean and a little bit grumpy.
Ok maybe more than a little.
So when I heard this boy practically hyperventilating over his mean grumpiness...
I get it. I understand grumpy.
I also understand not wanting to be grumpy.
And not wanting to be a lot of other things that somehow I slide into at times.
And there, in that gallery, I thought of all the new year's resolutions and goals I had for myself.
And how I wasn't quite there on so many levels.
We, as human beings, want to be better than we are.
But we reach that point where we just feel...less than what we want to be.
And this little boy expressed all that sentiment as he mustered up his cry to the world about his mean grumpiness.
A few seconds after his forlorn cry, his caretaker said these words to him which I strangely felt were for my own sake as well as his:
"Ok, take a deep breath..."
So I did.
And he did too.
Kid, we are gonna make it!
He whimpered again several times and then choked out these words:
"I'm grumpy and mean...and I don't wanna be grumpy and mean!"
I swear I had said the same words a few weeks earlier when I was visiting my family for the holidays. After reverting back to my worst self (as people sometimes do when they are around people who know them very well), I had become a little bit mean and a little bit grumpy.
Ok maybe more than a little.
So when I heard this boy practically hyperventilating over his mean grumpiness...
I get it. I understand grumpy.
I also understand not wanting to be grumpy.
And not wanting to be a lot of other things that somehow I slide into at times.
And there, in that gallery, I thought of all the new year's resolutions and goals I had for myself.
And how I wasn't quite there on so many levels.
We, as human beings, want to be better than we are.
But we reach that point where we just feel...less than what we want to be.
And this little boy expressed all that sentiment as he mustered up his cry to the world about his mean grumpiness.
A few seconds after his forlorn cry, his caretaker said these words to him which I strangely felt were for my own sake as well as his:
"Ok, take a deep breath..."
So I did.
And he did too.
Kid, we are gonna make it!
