No Stealing My Minutes

The other week I was at a little girl's birthday party from my daughter's class. While there, visiting with a couple of the other mothers, one mother tells me about the Red Box rentals at the local Acme store. The Red Box has new release DVDs for rent for just $1.00
The next time I was at Acme I saw the box and decided to try it out. So, I rented a movie for 1 dollar. It had to be back in 24 hours. We watched the movie that night and I went to take it back the next day. I had just done food shopping the day before when I rented the DVD so I was just dropping it off. As I was walking in the store a woman and a child were walking in front of me. They went right to the Red Box and started looking through the selection of DVDs.
I waited behind them. After about 10 minutes, they had gone through all the selection of DVDs and couldn't decide what to rent and hit the button to start all over again. I politely asked if she would mind if I just dropped the DVD off real quick since they were starting over. (It only takes a second to drop the DVD off but you can not do it while someone else is using it)
The woman became very irate and told me how rude it was for me to ask that. I was so taken aback. I said I was sorry and that I thought it would just take a second and was only asking if she minded. Obviously she did mind so I would wait.
She turned to me, apparently annoyed that I was still standing there waiting to drop off the DVD and yelled at me to go shopping while they finished choosing what they wanted to rent.
Flabbergasted, I said, "Wow, ok...have a nice day" and I walked away. I didn't need to do any shopping, I was only there to drop off my DVD but I didn't need to be yelled at either so I walked around the store and just watched to see when she left.
After I saw she had left, I dropped off the DVD which literally took 2 seconds. On my drive home I was steaming over how the woman treated me. Had I known asking if I could drop off the DVD would have gotten such an angry reaction from her I never would have asked. I kept replaying over and over in my head, getting more and more angry over how she acted.
Then I realized what I was doing...I was letting this bad experience steal my joy, steal my minutes of my life. I decided I need to have a talk with myself. Now, I am not a person who talks outloud to herself all the time but this was a time I needed to.
I said, "Jane, this is not what life is about. DO not let this woman and how she treated you ruin your day. Do not let it steal another minute of your life. Do not allow yourself to go home to your family in a bad mood because of this. You have Follicular Lymphoma, a cancer with no cure. You do not know how many minutes you have left. Do not let those minutes be wasted being angry. You should have just waited patiently and not have even asked to pop the dvd in. Enjoy your minutes, don't let them be stolen away."
I went home and hugged my family. This was the first and only moment that I became grateful for what cancer has shown me. Had I not known that I have Lymphoma, I may not have taken the time to think about how I was letting time be wasted by my dwelling on a bad encounter with someone.
So for that... Cancer, I thank you...
I thank you for that lesson learned.