Bud Out

My relationship with my co-workers is pretty cordial. In fact, the human resources / compliance director commented in my review that I got along with everyone. It isn't difficult as I like most of them. Most are pleasant and cordial in their own right.

Then something . . 

Last week a co-worker sidled up to my workstation with a pretense of making chit-chat about tea. A couple of seconds in, she pass me a note. My ears started burning for I knew this was BS in the making. The note began, "I don't mean to be nosey. . "

Why do folks open with the gambit when that is exactly what they intend?

In her note the co-worker wanted to know if I'd received a raise in conjunction with the recent review and if so, if I was happy with it.

Once  the urge to flash her my, "are you kidding me?" face passed, I replied, as gently and cordially as I could, "I am not comfortable with this topic." Co-worker cobbled up her note and toddled along back to her own workstation

We've worked together for over a year with little more than cordial greetings passing between us. If not for recent circumstances (company lost a large client forcing a couple of lay-offs. Others have resigned due to unhappiness with reassignments forced by lay-offs) I believe we could have gone weeks, months, beyond in a similar fashion.

Recent events notwithstanding, I was still taken aback.

Yet, I will endeavor to maintain my equanimity. I hope she and anyone else she may have shared some version of this event with does the same.

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Dream Driving

Once we were lovers, but somehow things have changed, now we're just lonely people, trying to forget each other's names.

For many days leading in and for a few after my birthday, I awoke with this song creeping out of the corners of my mind. Birthdays, like New Year's bring about the thoughts, a look through the rear view as well as ahead.

And thoughts often revolve around relationships--past, present, and future--for relationships are life.

All the past relationships, intimate and otherwise, hold some fond memories--more hurt--but some pockets of pleasure, as well. It is the pleasures on which I choose to dwell. There is no present intimate relationship, and to be honest, I don't see such an event on the road ahead. But, just because I don't see it doesn't mean IT isn't out there waiting for me to drive through. I keep the trunk stocked, just in case.

I get along pretty well with my son and daughter. I love them, of course. But, I like them a bunch. And they seem to like me which works out really well. And while it is stress filled having the three of us (plus two cats and a 55 pound dog) under the same roof, everyone is respectful and . . well, humor wins the day--most days. Relationships with other family and friends are continual works in progress. I work to nurture all my relationships. Still, every now and again, even with extreme care, relationships fade. . .

. . . and then there is me, learning to embrace the skin I'm in, to appreciate the square peg-nacity that I bring to the round party, to drive my lane, at my own speed, in my own vehicle--nurturing the relationship with my own true self, for that . . . well, is life.

And sometimes at night I think I hear you calling my name, Mmm, mmm, mmm, these dreams, they keep me going these days*

*These Dreams written by Jim Croce.

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We Know of Each Other

She is not that kind of friend. She is more of an acquaintance. She was a co-worker many years ago. Briefly, I was her boss. We had a cordial relationship, but nothing I would categorize as “friends”. Yet, when the employment circumstances forced us to part ways, we traded email addresses and said we’d keep up, the way folks who worked together companionably do.

Like many of the others (the company that employed us went through a monumental change and 90% of the staff was laid off) who danced this ritual, the expectation was that after a few emails, perhaps a holiday greeting or two, new lives would emerge and communication wane.

Not Joan. A decade later and Joan still emails. To say that Joan and I have nothing in common would be the understatement of the millennium. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. We do in fact, both wear glasses and we’re both women. Soon, we’ll both be in our fifties, though I think by the time I’m in my fifties she’ll be in her sixties. Or at least, knock, knock, knocking on that door.

Our dance, Joan’s and mine usually begins, “Hi Debbie: I haven’t heard from you in a long while.. " And that would be because we’re not friends and certainly not confidantes. And yeah, she has always called me Debbie despite my gentle prodding when we worked together, Deborah. She continues, “write you this little note to find out if you are okay and what is going on with you.”

A little background, I get one of these haven’theardfromyouinalongtime emails every 5 or 6 weeks. I reply with a short, friendly or rather cordial update of the current surface factoids of my life. In my reply I inquire in-kind and get zilch in return, until another 5 or 6 weeks. That is unless she’s in the middle of a crisis with her “man friend” or in possession of gossip concerning another former co-worker that she's itching to spill.

She finishes, “I am okay. Please write soon and let me know what is going. God bless you, Joan”.

As previously noted, my replies are short and to a particular point. Given that we have very little in common, there is little in the way of quid pro quo and I'm rankled by the write soon directives, I should probably refrain from replying at all.

But I do, mainly because she has the number (and extension) to the job. She will call if I don't reply. I know, she's done it. Trust me when I say, addressing Joan's sporadic emails is a more palatable exercise than conversing with Joan on the telephone.

Be that as it may, I am of the mind to re-assess my approach to one Miss Joan.