Damian having fun developing his motor skills.
08 May 2007

Something interesting and very pleasant happened this morning.  It was educational for me as well.

Every morning I get up about an hour or so before the kids.  I check email and the weather, read the blogs of my friends and family, occasionally blog myself, make a cup of tea, and then swing outside on the back porch and listen to the birds greet the morning.  It’s a quiet and peaceful ritual that I enjoy very much.

Well, today while I was reading my email, I received a reply from an email I had sent over a year ago.  I had gone to the UT anime club to pick something up, and while there, I didn’t say “hi” to Thai, the president of the anime club, even though I passed right by him.  This was my shyness hard at work.  Thai is a good guy and I’ve always liked him, but since we are just passing acquaintances, I was too shy to say anything.

I felt terrible about that.  I felt rude and mean, so when I got home, I wrote him an email apologizing for being rude and explaining that it was just because I am quite shy.  I never heard anything back, so I assumed that Thai either didn’t remember me or just brushed over the email without concern.

Well, he wrote back this morning, apologizing for being so very late with his reply.  He told me not to worry about it.  It was a lovely and kind email and made me happy.

It also made me realize that we don’t know all the ripples we send out into the world.  When we say a kind word or apologize for something we did or do something nice for someone, we don’t always receive any kind of acknowledgement for our act.  That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t appreciated or that it didn’t make the person feel happy.  Just because Thai didn’t write back, that didn’t mean that he didn’t appreciate the apology and email.

And when I realized this — when I realized that ripples I send out into the world can make people smile or feel a little less burdened in the day even though I’m unaware of it — it made me really happy.

So here’s to kindness and shyness and all the happy ripples that you can create in this life.

And thanks, Thai, for the lovely email and for the lovely lesson in life.