An Unpleasant Encounter (and a Lesson learnt)

Today (Well actually YESTERDAY now haha since it's 12:01am) I saw a woman and we had an unpleasant encounter.

She had a whitte dog in a pram and was towing the pram along, had a bag around her hips and was holding a money collecting tin. By her physical state, it was apparent that she was attempting to beg for money.

She came up to a crowd I was standing in, and everybody in that crowd walked away awkwardly as she was starting to talk about desperately needing a motel to stay in tonight. As I reached for my wallet, she smiled at me and I made small talk, asking her what her dog's name was. She said it was Misty.

This is where the encounter becomes unpleasant.

I give her most of my coins (including gold ones) but she spies a $20 note I had inside my wallet, which I needed for today (well yesterday). She looks down at the coins I gave her, puts them into the bulging hip-bag and thus rendering the collecting tin pitifully empty again, and her attitude turns sour.

Rather than the kind smile and grateful eyes she had for me, instead she snarls and insists I give her the note, whilst I stand there not knowing what to do. Expletives and uncouth language begins to spew out her mouth at me and she gets louder and louder, which undermines me and makes me feel guilty and selfish.

What do I do?

I stand there and take it. I don't even know why I didn't walk away or try talk back but she made me feel so horrible and selfish and the constant 'f-word' droppage is uncomfortable and just plain MEAN.

I don't know what I was supposed to do in this situation. Eventually she marches away (snarling more swear words about me under her breath) when it becomes apparent that her guilt trip attempt has me frozen and I won't hand over the note, although I did consider giving it I would only be able to return home and eat lunch that day if I, say, asked her for $10 change from a $20 which she wouldn't give me and I knew she would just get away with my $20.

And what I did after?

I don't think I handled it in the best way by walking dejected to the bathroom and bursting into tears, but that's what I did.

That was my unpleasant encounter, and I'm still contemplating how I feel about it. I don't feel any resentment or anger towards the woman, (although I did at first), nor am I any longer afraid of her but I do feel pity for her. How much of what she screamed at me was true, about her living on the streets and desperately needing a motel? What if I was in that situation (if it was true)? Wouldn't I want all the help I could get? Was I being selfish, seeing as I'm here typing this on a computer and she possibly doesn't know where her next meal is? Can I justify these things she shouted at me that I can't help, such as having a family and a house? Was I supposed to apologize for the wrongs the world has given her?

In the end though, if we consider perspective, our life on Earth isn't eternal. What we have here is just a foreward to the main event: Afterlife. That's why I think, even if in this life I end up with a far more wretched life than the one the woman seems to be having at the moment (possibly), we must remember everything happens for a reason, if I end up along that path so be it, and that GOD is always there for us whenever and wherever. So I pray that that woman, however at first unpleasant that encounter was, is better now or at least has calmed down, and that if screaming abuse at me in public helped her, then so be it.

I guess I can even see it as a blessing because I got to appreciate all that I already do have in life :)

Love: Michelle

I know today's blog entry was a little different to normal, so here are a few pictures of things I was planning to make this blog about before I had that encounter.

I got my glasses fixed (rememeber the ones Biscuit chewed and broke?)

My mum bought me a WHOLE BOX of Mi goreng. WHAT A TREAT!!!!! :D

My sister and I spent two hours finally taking down all the Christmas decorations :)