“I have this new mask for you to put on.” The assistant who met me at the door said.
“What?” I exclaimed.
She could tell by my tone that I wasn’t too happy. She had a little bit of a tone of her own. “You need to have a new mask if you’re going to come in here.” Now, I really don’t know if that’s exactly what she said, but that’s what I heard in my mind. Because my ears were filled with a roaring of my rage.
How dare she ask me to put on a mask. I’m wearing a mask. What the hell is wrong with my mask? Of course, I didn’t say any of this, but it was filling my head and pushing at the inside of my skull so hard that it colored over what she actually said. There was a quick moment where I wanted to walk right out of the opthamologists and tell her to hell with these glasses… Do I really need to get glasses anyway? I stifled all of my anger and irritation and I stood there answering the questions she asked me like a disgruntled teenager. One word answers only. That’s all she was going to get from me. I reluctantly swapped out my cloth mask for the disposable mask and the assistant who had checked me in went about her business.
I took a seat, brooding. I finally noticed a couple of people moving around looking at glasses. This made me feel safe that I could do the same. I’m not kidding. My irritation and anger was sitting inside me for so long while I sat there that I had actually become immobilized, unable to get up like a kid in the “time out” corner. As I began to browse the glasses, I realized that I was avoiding looking at the ones that were next to the counter where the assistant was showing other people their glasses. Finally, I went back and sat down in the chair where I first started.
“Mr. Bevacqui?” A young woman came out to take me in the back for my eye exam. She was very sweet and I used the time during my exam to kind of decompress, ask questions, and make a connection with another human being. This helped to move some of that uncomfortable emotional energy through me. I was feeling less stuck by the time I got back to the lobby. I decided to go to the bathroom and check myself out for a minute. I didn’t have to go, but I wanted a moment with myself to try to figure out what the hell was going on with me. I needed to know why I was so upset that the assistant had asked me to put on a mask. She was giving me a brand new mask to walk into the office. Yet, I was having a tantrum and acting as if she was insulting me and the mask that I was already wearing.
Here comes the honest questions I didn’t want to ask myself: Does it make any sense, in any possible way, that this woman was intentionally insulting me? No. Did I get triggered? Yes. Why do I think that was? This was a tough one. It called for me to be emotionally honest with myself and I knew the chances of me being in the wrong were high, that’s probably why it took at least 15 minutes with another person doing my eye exam to even get to the place where I could think this through.
Somehow or other, in my mind I was thinking: Oh my God! It’s not enough that I have to wear a mask everywhere, now I have to wear their mask? Why is it that some stores I can go directly in, and other stores I have to wear special masks! I think everybody’s just taken all of this a little bit too far. I sat there for a second. I smirked at myself. I felt ashamed. The shame was because I thought of the many times I’ve expressed disbelief that ‘these people’ aren’t wearing masks, and I can’t believe ‘these people’ aren’t washing their hands, and I can’t believe… I can’t believe… I can’t believe… What I was really expressing disbelief in was that ‘they’ weren’t all thinking like me.
Yes, there are some scientific protocols that are, without a doubt, important to follow. But the rest of them are coming up for other people‘s comfort. For their sense of security. What did it hurt if I took another mask and made the people working in an eye doctor’s office feel more comfortable? I knew there was an apology coming, and I knew it was going to be from me.
I finally left the bathroom and went out to take a look at glasses and lo’ and behold… I got the assistant who hit me with a mask when I first walked in the door. “What’s your name?\’\’ I asked. She told me. I said, “My name is Lou and I’m really sorry I gave you a hard time about that mask when I walked in. I think I was just confused and irritated at this whole thing.”
She looked at me, surprised I even mentioned it. You could tell she thought we were going to play that it never happened, but I couldn’t do that. She laughed and told me not to worry about it. In fact, she was incredibly helpful as I picked out my glasses, and I am grateful to this day that I made the choice to open up, be vulnerable, apologize and admit my wrong. We ended up talking about some of the speaking that I did. We talked about her travels, Covid, the difficulties the kids are having these days (adults too!). By the time I left we had a great deal of mutual respect for one another.
I had promised the woman who did my eye exam that I would bring in a copy of my book, Changing Your Weather, for her five-year-old son. I brought it in, signed it, drew a little cat on it with a personal note that read: “Your mom gives great eye exams!” then handed it to the assistant who had given me the mask at the beginning of this entire hour to give to the ophthalmologist. As I left, she said, “You are a beautiful human being.” I felt the same for her. Honestly, there are a lot of really ugly emotions that were going on for at least a half an hour. But taking the time to process those emotions, grow from them, and go back out and ‘walk the talk’, was what allowed for the beauty of the honest interaction between us.
