My Hobo Day

Yesterday my little family and I traveled to Park City, which is about a 45 min drive from our house, We were looking for new kitchen countertops. Before we could leave the house however, my second son who is three years-old, had to grab his precious puppy dog backpack that was full of his collection of transformers. Grudgingly, we let him bring it along, but not without a warning that he needed to keep track of it, or else it would get lost.

Well, it got lost. We left it at Home Depot and didn't realize that it was missing until we were all the way back home. I called the store to see if they had found it, but it was not in lost in found, and I sadly told my little boy that it was gone.

This morning, of course, the only thing he could talk about was how much he missed his backpack, and not wanting to go through this all day, I gave the Home Depot one last call in the car after I had dropped off my kindergartener at school. They had found it!

So since I didn't have anything better to do today, I decided to make my son's life a little brighter and drive to Park City to get the backpack. Now you need to know that I had left my house only planning to drop my oldest off at school. I had on old Levi's, a baggy shirt, a hat, and I was wearing no makeup. I did not look my best. I could have driven home and changed, but I decided to just go straight to Park City thinking that I don't need to look too impressive to go into The Home Depot.

I drove the 45 min drive, got to home depot and went to the desk where the lady over the phone said she was going to put the backpack, but.... it wasn't there, and the girl I had talked to over the phone was in a meeting. Soooo, I decided to run some errands around town. I had been wanting to get some new pants and check out the outlet stores in Park City for a while, so I made that my new plan while I waited for this girl to get out of her meeting.

It wasn't until I got to the outlet stores, and got out of my car that I realized that this might not be a good idea considering how I looked. I also took a look at my boys for the fist time and realized that they didn't have shoes on and they were still in their pajamas. Taking in a deep breath, I decided to go in anyway.

It was hard for me to pay attention to the clothes I was looking at because of all the stares I was getting with my boys running around with no shoes and my obvious poor appearance. I tried to look at a couple of women who were looking at me and smile, but they immediately looked away, making me feel even worse.

I hurried through the store, picked out a couple of things and went to the checkout where I found that the backpack I was carrying on my back was hanging wide open!..... Nobody told me that!

Needless to say, I left that store feeling very small and insignificant. I wanted to shop at another outlet store, but I didn't want to go through the embarrassment again, so I didn't.

Instead I went to Walmart.... where I felt perfectly at home.

Unconditional Love- The ability to love without any limitations or conditions.

I can't blame those women for judging me at the store. I do the same thing everyday with everyone I associate with, and my judgments are not always kind or fair. But this morning I remembered a moment in my life when someone loved me unconditionally. A moment where I had admitted that I made a big mistake but they pulled me into their arms, smiled and said that they still loved me. It was an incredible feeling.

I've realized lately that I don't just judge others harshly and love them conditionally, but I do the same thing to myself. I limit my self-love to moments of perfection and when I am anything less, I criticize myself with very little compassion. I don't like to understand the truth behind my mistakes embarrassments or weaknesses; instead, I dwell on the fact.. that I have them.

So after today, I've made a new goal. To love others 'unconditionally'. To love them even in their moments of anger, frustration, jealousy, or sadness. To love them whether they look like a hobo or not :) To support them and embrace them for who they are. I hope that this will further help me see that if others can be loved unconditionally by me...then I can be loved unconditionally by me.

So here's to a good month!

By the way, we eventually got the backpack :)