Half Full Spilt Coffee

This morning as I was headed out to drive Briana to the train station her elbow caught underneath my hand holding a full cup of coffee and the coffee rose up and spattered all over me, the walls and the floor as if it was a gruesome crime scene. Another mother might have said God damn it Briana why can’t you be more careful!! Look what you have done!! And then with annoyance changed clothing and cleaned up the mess. But I am not that person.  I laughed and said Nice shot—let’s give it a quick wipe and I’ll change when I get back.

If I were to use two trite phrases to describe myself the first one would be that I tend to see the glass as half full as opposed to half empty. In the aforementioned case I would say at least the coffee wasn’t so hot as to scald me or at least I wasn’t dressed yet. The second phrase to come into play would be its corollary—Don’t cry over spilt milk.  Accidents by definition happen accidentally. It is not purposeful. It isn’t done with malicious intent. And it solves nothing to have a temper tantrum. Temper tantrums do not clean up the mess any faster. In fact intense emotions usually halt progress no matter what the emotion is. It’s why Tom Hanks says There is no crying in baseball in the movie A League of their Own.

In other words: Sh** happens, clean it up, don’t waste your tears, and figure out a new plan.

Which isn’t to say I do not get annoyed by mishaps—it just means that I try to express my annoyance that the mishap happened, not at the director of the mishap. So if I got angry in the coffee scenario at all it would be at the mess—not Briana. I am certain she did not think hmm why don’t I hit Mom’s arm and make the coffee splash all over.

I used to play platform tennis with a woman who had the most wonderful attitude. She was a pleasure to be partnered with. And it was because when you would hit a bad shot she would always say That’s okay. And if her match and/or others were lost she never got angry. She would tell the disappointed players to stop feeling sorry for themselves—she would tell them to get over it. No one got up that morning and said gee maybe I should lose today. Losing was never done with intention. That’s what next time’s were created for. Losing was as much a part of the game as winning—it’s just that winning was way more fun.

And it was a good thing that that coffee spilled this morning--the floor and wall needed cleaning anyway. The acids dissolved some of the embedded dirt in my Pergo floor. And when I got home from driving to the train station I finished drinking that cup of  lukewarm coffee— after all the cup was still half full----no use crying into it. And then I poured another cup.