Suddenly someone shows up at your desk. Informs you that you've been asked to leave, and escorts you to the door. This is to prevent any damage to the work you've done it seems. Not to give you time to sabotage anything. Hence, no warnings, no goodbyes and best of luck, no moments of closure or to wrap up the work you've been pouring a large quantity of your existence into. You're just removed.
I relate somewhat to this feeling. I was working with a particular boy who was a foster kid around the age of 5. He didn't speak much. Couldn't bear to be around toilets and went into terror if he heard one flushing. One day his foster parents abruptly informed my agency that they didn't want me to come to work that day. That he was asking for me too often and they planned to adopt him so it wasn't useful to have him bonding to me.
It felt awful. I couldn't even say goodbye. I just never showed up again. And that was that. Abandoned him when trust had started to form.
I wondered if this is somewhat of the feeling of being rooted out of your cubical and moved to the door. Knowing that it had nothing to do with your quality of service. There is no lesson to be learned. There is nothing you could have done to prevent it. Just a lesson that unfairness wins.
Except there is so much more - there is the uprooting of the whole family, the stress of no income, the pressure to sell your house after school just began, the endless unknown with a current emphasis on your inability to control anything.
But if I could say goodbye to that boy, it would have been something. A degree of healthy in the mess of life. And perhaps some dignity to a job termination would be something too.
I thought about connections today.
What it means to have emotional intelligence.
How that looks.
What came to mind was a trip to the hardware store. I was nine months pregnant, my belly like a grape ready to burst, and a herniated belly button that made a funny knob on my taunt skin. I walked through the long isles in a waddle I suppose. And then I was stopped by a very large man. Broad shoulders, tall, strong, good looking in an intimidating way, bearded and vividly blue eyes.
I was used to being stopped - it was my fourth child - but generally by older women who may or may not ask to touch my belly and smile at their own fond memories of motherhood. I was slightly surprised by this burly guy.
"My baby is two weeks old," he told me - as if totally shared experience in the pregnancy thing, and thus obviously comparing notes. Then his blue eyes turned an intense color of aqua as they filled with tears.
He talked for a few minutes. Bursting with pride. His body shaking with love. Uncontrollably protective and helpless. I didn't know if I should hug him, but my body was an awfully awkward shape to be patting anyone's back.
His voice was choked and his words were all tangled and he just told me about the birth and holding this infant and how little it was and how he will fight the universe to just let it grow in sunshine and goodness.
The combination of his crazy blue eyes and thick muscles and weepy voice and heartfelt passion all left me moved. The deep contrasts emphasized the core connections and values - his utter adoration for his child and the ability to see a hefty pregnant woman and know that she would relate to the passion he was overflowing with. And to share the moment with me because we must hold the most important thing in common.
I guess that moment of shared passion among the power drills and jig saws left me keenly aware that humankind does connect. We do understand. We do share common themes.
We have the ability to give each other grace and respect and understanding. Because we really can relate to each other. It gets lost somewhere... we are impatient with our children for admiring a butterfly when we want to hurry. We snap at our husband when he doesn't know where we left our own purse. We glare at the cashier as if it's her fault that she's working a crappy low paid job with long lines and not enough other checkouts. We just do this thing where we pamper our self pity at the expense of others. Or shrug at the way corporate business is done. Or forget that a big manly handsome dude is of course totally connected to a random exhausted pregnant frumpy woman.
All these thoughts ended at this one conclusion - when we live from our core values, we connect.
