Lesson Learned: Pay attention

I had no idea which of my hundreds of mistakes I could use to begin this blog journey; but I spun the wheel and decided on the Lesson Learned of Paying Attention.

Sometimes the simplest of mis-communication or not really listening can lead to an earthquake of misunderstanding . Earthquake, you ask? Yep, earthquake.

When I was 18 or so, I worked at a day care centre part-time while I was in university. The day care was located in a posh fitness and raquet-ball club in St. Catharines. My hours were from 7 am until 2 pm usually 4-5 days a week depending on demand.

I will elaborate more in future blogs, but suffice to say my parents were ultra strict and especially my dad with regards to my car. I wasn't the most confident driver and while the commute to work was less than 10 minutes from home, I always drove slower than necessary because the incessant voice of my dad was in my head reminding me I was going to be in huge trouble if anything happened to the car.

On this particular day, I approached a red light at a main intersection at the bottom of rather long hill and I noticed (as I drove like a 80-year old woman hunched over the steering wheel) that a police cruiser was parked off to the side of the road where I was coming to a very protractedly slow stop. The police officer saw me, probably because of my turtle like speed but maybe also because I was the only car on the road at that hour and I was a cute 18 year old driving like I had a guilty conscience.

Needless to say, he pulled me over, motioned for me to pull my car into the parking lot of a large hardware store and sauntered over to my car where he indicated that he wanted me to shut off the engine and roll down the window.

I was shaking, wondering what I had done wrong. My seatbelt was fastened, I wasn't speeding

( as if), I had signalled by turn and I hadn't broken any laws that I knew about. The officer was kind and had a huge grin on his face, he was handsome and immediately tried to put my shaky nerves at ease by asking me where I was headed so early on this cold December morning?

I told him I was on my way to work, I offered up where I worked and he took my drivers license and insurance slip and studied them for a moment before handing them back to me with a dazzling smile. "So who's car is this?", he asked. When I told him it was my dad's car, he remarked , "Oh, I thought it might be your boyfriend's car. What kind of car does he drive?"

I didn't have a boyfriend at the time and I told him that.

Next the ever-smiling officer began telling me all about the RIDE program and the breathalyzer test he uses on drivers who are suspected of drunk driving. He extolled on the virtues of the way the machine was used and how dangerous it is to drink and drive, while he handed my a pamphlet all about the RIDE Program. He was a regular Chatty Cathy, leaning in to talk to me, smiling and being very charming.

All cues I missed because all I heard over and over

in my head was "omygodmydadisgoingtokillmeifIgetaticket" (translation : omg my dad is going to kill me if I get a ticket)

If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed he was flirting with me, looking for any reason to keep chatting with me. I looked at the clock on my dashboard and it was almost 7am and I was going be late striking up another round of "omgimgoingtobelatetowork"

(translation:omg Im going to be late to work)

I did a lot of fast talking in my head in those days.

The handsome smiling officer finally tried for one last attempt to get through to me, that he actually wasn't interested in my driving but in who was in the drivers seat; and he wrote his number on the RIDE pamphlet and said if I ever wanted to talk more about the program I could just call him.

I finally realized that our little visit was almost over and that I could head to work, when he asked me if I had anything I wanted to say to him?

ummmmmmm.....

I was stumped. After all, I had just spent the past 15 minutes missing ALL. THE. CLUES. and suddenly I needed to say something.

It was hard to hear past all the screaming fast talking in my head, so I looked at the pamphlet in my still shaking hand, scanned it quickly and said "So... um... like how many drinks would I have to consume for it to show up on that Richter scale in your car?"

RICHTER SCALE, yep that's what I called it.

Handsome officer, looked at me for a minute, burst out laughing and said "You'd need to drink a lot for it to show up on a Richter scale. Have a good day!" he was still laughing as he headed to his police cruiser and I pulled into the intersection at an even slower pace than when I arrived.

When I got to work, my co-worker Kelley , immediately noticed that I seemed frazzled and I told her what happened including the odd conversation and the officer's laughter as he walked away. Kelley looked at me incredulsouly and said " did you say Richeter scale or breathalyzer ? "

Omgisaidrichterscaleinsteadofbreathalyzer

Well you get the idea.

I had not paid a lick of attention to what the officer was saying and more importantly I had not paid attention to the clues that he was hitting on me. I had retreated to my usual response of fear and guilt.

I mean I had nothing to be guilty about and probably nothing to be afraid of; but as I said I lived with ultra strict parents who instilled a permanent sense of fear in me. I will elaborate more in future blogs, but taking all of that out of the equation, the simple fact was I did not pay attention .

It was a lesson learned that sometimes things are not what they seem and being open and free of pre-conceived notions would have saved me lots of anxiety and even more embarrassment.

Being present, staying focused in the moment might have led to a totally different outcome. The point of the story is that choosing fear over being present took me out of the moment, I missed cues and clues and it was not the last time that I kind of froze and retreated to a scary place in my head.

I am certain that I have travelled that road many times since ( probably with a less embarrassing outcome though) Cultivating focus and calm was something my regular mediation practice eventually gifted to me but its still very easy to not pay attention. Our minds are so overbooked and so busy multi-tasking that things will fall through the cracks but remembering to keep a sense of humour, be gentle on yourself and when in doubt just breathe.

Funny epilogue to the story-- many years later I married a police officer from the same force and I had shared the Richter scale story with him early on in our relationship. A few years later, he took a course to become a Breathalyzer Analyst and his instructor shared a funny story about a "crazy chick who said Richter scale".

Omgeveryoneintheworldknowsthestory

Lesson learned: pay attention, things are not always what they seem. Oh and its called a Breathalyzer not the Richter Scale ....