By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3
Let me set the scene. We were at a restaurant with the whole family, including my mom, all three of our college kids, plus two roommates brought home by our 20-year-old son Jack, who was in town for spring break. His roommates were both born and raised in Michigan, and this was their first trip to a city in the South. We were on a culinary mission to show them the best Southern cuisine has to offer.
With plates loaded with barbecue brisket, ribs, green beans, burnt ends, and mac and cheese, we navigated through the bustling barbecue joint to the enclosed patio out back. We settled down at a long picnic-style table, and I couldn’t wait to see the boys’ reaction to what would undoubtedly be the best barbecue they’d ever had.
That’s when a middle-aged guy sitting two tables over started singing. His loud snippets of an unidentifiable song clashed with the background music. He wasn’t crooning. He was caterwauling. And it kept going on and on, separated only by brief pauses. The guy’s back was to me, but I watched the people at his table as I tried to figure out what was happening. Was this a birthday party? Was he drunk? The people at his table seemed amused.
But I wasn’t laughing. I was bothered. What started as mild annoyance was ramping up into anger. Doesn’t this guy know how rude it is to be so loud and 
disruptive in a restaurant? Why wasn’t he stopping? Why weren’t his friends asking him to stop? How did they think it was okay to interrupt dinner for other paying customers who’d come for a meal and conversation – not an off-key mashup of noise and nuisance.
I aimed a few pointed, pleading stares in their direction. But my furrowed brows were no match for the chaos at their table. I considered finding a manager and asking if they would tell the guy to dial down the distraction. But I didn’t want to make things worse. I just wanted our out-of-town guests to have a good time and a good meal.
I glanced down the long table at the five college kids we’d brought with us. They were elbow-deep in barbecue sauce – eating, talking, and laughing. If they’d noticed the guy causing a scene, they didn’t seem bothered by it. And that’s when a connection formed in my brain that helped me go from furious back down to fine.
Earlier that day, I’d started listening to a popular audiobook titled “Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins. I was only a few chapters in, but I was beginning to get the gist, which is this: Let people be who they are and do what they do without becoming obsessed with fixing or changing it. (Usually, you don’t have the power to change it anyway.) After the “let them” part of the formula, you’re supposed to say, “Let me” and focus on yourself and what you can control (which is typically your own reaction).
As one book reviewer put it, it’s about “learning how to protect your peace without needing to change what others do.” Easy to say, but often hard to do.
But something clicked in that moment. I realized the loud and obnoxious guy wasn’t “making” me mad. I was choosing to be mad. I had the option of focusing only on our table. I didn’t have to stew. I didn’t have to go to war, even inside my own mind. I didn’t want to spend that dinner feeling frustrated, and I realized I could stop – even if the rude guy didn’t.
So that’s what I did. I protected my peace. It turns out that having control over a situation is not a prerequisite for having peace. Try it the next time something or someone is driving you nuts.
In the weeks since my barbecue epiphany, I’ve thought more about the guy from that night. Maybe he was just a jerk, or maybe not. I remember how my dad, who suffered from dementia in the last decade of his life, sometimes said and did loud or inappropriate things in public. Medical and mental conditions don’t always play by the rules of polite society. And I have no idea what that man and his friends or family might be learning to live with. But I do know I wish them peace, whatever it is.
As for my own peace, from now on I’ll try to be more responsible for that, too.
Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated freelance columnist. Email her at gwenrockwood5@gmail.com. Her book is available on Amazon.
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