Just when I think I have heard everything, someone surprises me. Today started, just as any other. Cold. I'm bone weary tired of the cold. It has been a long winter, filled with so much pain and hurt, that I cannot wait for spring to come. Spring is renewal. The rain comes, and washes the earth clean. I feel like I need to stand in that rain, let it wash away the layers of misery that have built up over the past few months. I want to feel new again.
Work was work. There are days when a moment or a special bond with a patient makes every other day worth while in my chosen profession. Today, was unequivocally not one of them or so I thought. Today I sat in my little cubical, working on mounds of paperwork that have fallen behind with the caseload. I hate paperwork. My mind wanders, the hours drag out, painfully. The phone rings. I groan. I truly hope, there is a place we go when we die, that has no cellphones or pagers, or text messaging. Just peace.
The phone number was a marketer. Another groan. For the most part, I can not stand marketers for any job. Whether it is pushing a product or a service, even for a service that provides me employment, it annoys me. With a heavy sigh, I answer. Sound happy Julie. A pause, I repeat "hello?". Damn cellphone connections. I start to hang up and I hear her stumble over her hello. Ah. We'll call her Kay. Kay is the lesser of the annoying marketers. She seems kind. She certainly doesn't give me that used car salesman feeling. That ick feeling. I immediately feel awkward. That feeling when you have to tell someone that they have something hanging out of their nose. That moment that defines you as a true friend. To tell or not to tell.
Kay began with a very shaky hello and a tense 'how are you doing'. Uhm Ok? Kay and I don't know each other well and have had a handful of conversations, that were always work or facility related, we are simply co-workers. I know nothing of her personal life, other then she has a bird she sometimes brings in the car with her to make her rounds. I know. Odd. Anyway, its not my job to judge folks on their choice of pets.
Many uncomfortable short silences later, she finally asks. "Is there something I can do for you?". Confused, I asked her in pertaining to what. She said she didn't exactly know. She informed me that I had been on her mind for several days, she had called me Friday, after hours, and left a rather cryptic message. I ignored it, as I often do, marketers you know. I was somewhat speechless and still trying to figure out exactly what the bloody hell this woman was talking about.
Then, like a flash of light through pitch black darkness, it dawned on me. She meant personally. She continued on, explaining, that she knew this sounded 'totally crazy and strange', but she felt that God had put me on her mind and that she needed to call me. Hmm. I almost said, "nope, nothing going on", as I'm used to doing. I do not share often, with friends (ok ok unless I have the anonymity of the great world wide web) let alone co-workers. Sharing with co-workers you do not know well, is a recipe for disaster later on when you get unsolicited advice from those same co-workers armed with just enough knowledge of the situation to judge and form opinions and unceremoniously remind you of what an absolute idiot you are for being in whatever crappy situation you are in. Politeness and professionalism usually prevents you from telling them to jump off a cliff, after all, you will be sitting next to them in the next monthly meeting and eating bagels with them.
If you know me personally, you know that I have a great distrust of generally anyone who claims to be a Godly person. My mind flipped through the days recently, the days I was sobbing in my bosses office (also a friend), the times I was venting out loud or any other opportunity she had to get a sense of something was not right in Julie's world. I could not remember her ever being present at any of those times. I reminded myself, she did seem like a kind person, she does have a pet bird and honestly, if you can get close to one of those, you must be almost saintly.
I can honestly say I do not remember most of that conversation, I do know that in retrospect I probably shared a bit too much of my personal life, crossed some professional boundaries, but I suppose it was all something I needed to say or I wouldn't have said it. I honestly do not know what or how that whole conversation occurred, what inspired her to call, if it was truly in fact God as she said, or if it was one human passing another in a hallway and realizing, that other person was suffering. I don't know. I do know that I appreciated whatever power or non-power prodded her into calling me. I hung up, and miraculously, I felt...better.
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