Be kind even on your bad days.

Man, this was hard for me. Who am I kidding, it still is. I used to be kind when I was in a good mood, when things were going my way and when I (quote-unquote) *thought* someone deserved it. As I gained days, months and years of sobriety, I started practicing the AA principles in all of my affairs and relying on God more consistently for pretty much everything. It was drilled into to my brain that I should be kind because of who I am, not because of anything that is going on around me. It is an extremely hard practice-- especially for someone like me, who lived her entire adult life treating other people however-the-hell I felt on any given day. As I tried to implement this kindness practice, I often had to force myself to do be kind to the cashier at the store or my co-workers or my children for that matter whenever I was in a bad mood or I had received bad news or I only had 30 bucks in the bank. I faked it, tho, because I knew thats what God wanted me to do, I knew it would help me stay sober and I knew that the person I wanted to be-- she would naturally be kind even on her bad days.

Today was a bad day. I can't really say why and it doesn't really matter. My mood was low, my faith was not as strong as it was yesterday (because sometimes that happens) and fear and worry took over. As I was checking out of the grocery store in the self-checkout lane, the worker was hovering over me (or so bad-mood version of me thought). I was annoyed by her presence because thats how I am when I have bad days like this. We didn't speak a word and I sure as hell didn't want to. I didn't want to be kind. I wanted to put my head down and get out of that store as quickly as possible.

But as I was leaving, we made eye contact and I simply said, "thank you, have a nice evening." She replied, "thank you." I took a few steps almost to the exit door and after a long pause I heard her yell to me, "you too!" It was so cute and so kind and it made me chuckle a little. And honestly, my day was ten times better. My mood improved and I whispered to God, "I am grateful that today I have the strength and the wherewithall to be kind even on my bad days. Thank you, God."