Unexpected

Have you ever met a person you just . . . didn't particularly like.  For no good reason.  Someone who just bugged you from the start, even though they weren't any more annoying or obnoxious than anyone else you know.

I hate to admit this, but I have a few of these.

And once that is in my head, it's really hard for me to change my opinion of that person.  It's a fault, and I know it.  I'm working on it, but still, it happens.  Way more often than I'd like to admit.  But every once in awhile, it happens.  Someone I didn't like changes my mind.  But never so profoundly.

There is a performer I've worked with for three years now.  Let's call him "D".  When I met D, he was still a young teenager.  His hair was long and in his eyes, even though he was auditioning.  He was just a little too cocky for my taste.  But, he was a talented actor, and he got the part.

It's terrible, but I never took the opportunity to get to know D.  I didn't particularly want to, truth be told.  Yes, that makes me a bad person, but it's the truth.

And then, when I least expected it - and most needed it - D said something to entirely change my mind.

He told me I was a good mother.  That he wished he had a mother like me.

I cried.  And I hugged him.  Because at that moment, I totally didn't feel like a good mother.  I felt like a failure.  I was struggling.  I was at a place where I didn't know how to be a good mother to a child who has always been . . . a bit of a challenge.  I was feeling very fragile, and weak, and insecure.

And in a few short moments, all of that melted away.  Because of the words of a person I had never taken the effort to get to know.  If I am a failure, it is not because of my abilities of a mother.  It is because I refused to give a young man a chance.  A young man who has needed something that I may have been able to give him.  I can only hope that it's not too late for me to forge a relationship with him.