We're Not Doing That!

I had an appointment this morning and I biked there. I parked at the building where I thought I needed to be, locked the bike and headed inside to find the office I needed. After staring at the listing of offices and not finding the one I was looking for, I pulled up the address on my phone to figure out what was going wrong.

A voice behind me said, "Can I help you find something?"

A Black man wearing construction worker clothes and hardhat was sitting on a desk. He stepped over and I told him the address.

"Come with me," he said.

We turned back toward the entrance door I had just come through and he pointed at a building right across the driveway with the address largely emblazoned above the front door.

"Oh, good grief," I blurted. "How did I miss that?!"

"No, no," he replied, putting a hand on my shoulder. "We're not doing that. It's a new year. We're going to be kind. Kind to each other and ourselves."

That, my loved ones, is the blessing we all need to begin the new year.