not sure what

Sometimes, I see something, and I am just not sure what to think about it.

* Apparently (this is seen elsewhere) the phrase "I wish you many happy hours of making beautiful things" is the knitter-version of "bless your heart" (For those unacquainted with the American South, "Bless your heart" can mean one of two things. The simplest, and face-value meaning, when said by someone who loves you, is "I feel sorry for you" or "I sympathize." However, there's a second more-secret meaning, and that's, well....the polite way of saying it would be "forget you." (But sub in another word starting with f for the real meaning). It's used, best I can determine, by women who would like to say "forget you" but (a) were "raised not to talk that way" and (b) want plausible deniability if the person they said it to comes back at them)

I haven't had it said to me, much (I try hard not to be that person), but I do remember hearing a variant of it - "I'll pray for you" - on a day at the post office when it was very crowded and some woman was letting her kids run amok and they first tried to bar the door so I couldn't get in, and then ran into me as I was standing there and I sighed heavily.

And yes, after I walked out of there, after she said that - in response to my sigh - and she said it very cattily, so even if I didn't know the subtext from context I'd get it - I went back to my car and cried a little.

Show people a little freaking grace. You don't know how hard of a day someone has had (I was coming off an otherwise-difficult day). You don't have to say that. Or, even better, call your kids to your side and say "I know you're bored and this place is really busy but stop bothering other people" which is exactly what my mom would have done when my brother and I were kids.

But anyway. I've never felt the inclination to say anything like that to a stranger. (To a friend, I MIGHT say "bless your heart" jokingly, but more in the "I feel sorry for you" sense, if they're going through an exaggerated list of how the world has wronged them lately). Again, my MO is "don't make someone else's life harder" and snarking at someone even when you want to falls under that category.

So anyway. I don't love that new phrase and I don't love that I know it now (It was not said to me, it was part of a discussion I was merely lurking on)

* We're getting a "Holiday Bonus" this year. $250, which is not a LOT but it's something. (In past years it was $600). BUT: we were explicitly told the money was coming out of "unfilled positions" and as someone whose workload has increased by at least one class per semester thanks to this....well, I'd rather have my time but not have the bonus.

* Somewhere else I read someone posit "Your love language is what you didn't get enough of as a child" and at first I stopped and thought about that but now I'm not so sure. (And yes, I get that the whole love-language thing is pop-psych largely designed to sell books)

Because: we were not a touchy-feely family; we didn't hug much, my mother tells me I was not a "cuddly" baby (I guess I was squirmy and did not like being held, and once I could crawl or walk, I preferred being down on the floor to move around). And it's only been in recent years that I've been comfortable with people hugging me, and I almost never initiate hugs myself.

So I don't think so. (I don't know if they meant the way you show love to others, or what you want most as a symbol that someone loves you).

I admit for me, the biggest way I like to show people I love them is with small gifts, especially surprises. Or cards; I like sending out greeting cards.  (In the internet age, this may even include .gifs, ha ha.....I will see something funny that makes me think of a person and I will tweet it at them or e-mail it to them). Or quality time; I feel like spending time with people, even if you're not really doing anything big, as an overlooked thing in our culture.

And what do I want? Honestly, I think "words of affirmation" is probably the biggest one. How often have I complained that adulthood is fundamentally having to assume that if someone isn't screaming at you about how you screwed something up, you're probably doing OK? It would be nice once in a while to HEAR that I was doing OK. And I admit it: one of the ways in which I am fundamentally insecure is that I don't always have an easy time believing I'm a good person or that I'm smart or pretty or any of the good things, and hearing someone else say it helps.

But small gifts are nice too. (I remember out shopping this weekend, overhearing an older woman telling her young-teen grandson, "When you get older presents at Christmas aren't important any more" and I was kind of like "wait, no, I am 50 and I still like getting small presents" and while I also understand that when you have your own money and can buy your own stuff, it's different than when you're a kid and totally dependent on family even for the toys you play with, but I STILL find it nice to get some small surprise item, either at Christmas or on my birthday from someone. Partly because I do think of small presents (they do not have to be expensive! A candy bar would count) as a way of showing love for people.

(And yes, I totally own that I am fundamentally insecure in that I need very obvious reminders that I matter to people - like being told - because I am not good at 'remembering' it myself. It is exactly the "if no one is yelling at you for screwing up, that means you are doing fine" conundrum; I would much prefer to periodically be told I'm doing fine rather than having to assume it. It's probably in part a legacy of having been a kid who got a lot of praise from teachers, and I understand the child-development experts who say 'don't praise your children very much' because it does tend to generate a need for outside approval, and you don't get that as an adult)

* In one of those moods where the outside world seems deeply stupid and that lots of people are giving in to baser impulses. Watching the news does not help. (Not even the local news. Here we've been warned to look out for some guy named George Foreman - no, not the retired boxer but a stringy-looking white guy - who has been breaking into houses, and that makes me nervous. Not that I have anything so very worth stealing, but then sometimes people steal just for spite* and the feeling of violation is even worse).

(* A food bank a couple towns over was broken into. Food was stolen, and a catalytic converter (?) was stolen off their pickup truck they use for picking up food. I had no idea catalytic converters were valuable and I wonder if it was done to disable the truck for some reason. But yeah, stealing from a food bank seems pretty low to me; if you were hungry, you could go to them when they were open and they'd probably GIVE you food.)

* And yeah. I'm still not really happy in my anticipation of events of next week. Monday is just going to be hard; Tuesday may also be hard if much of the family/other people who come in for the memorial decide to stay another day and hang around. (I hope they're not expecting my mom to feed them but people are sometimes like that. If it comes to it I will drive out and get carry out food to bring in, or sandwich makings, or something)

* Something making the rounds about some "thought leader" suggesting that "knowledge workers" be rebranded as "wisdom workers" and my initial reaction was THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Look, I work on a college campus. I am surrounded by a lot of smart people and a lot of people with a lot of knowledge. But I have also found that a lot of those people are kind of lacking in wisdom, in the sense of either being able to make good judgments (we now get all external e-mails with a warning appended to them about opening stuff, because someone fell for the Cryptolocker scam) or being able to consider the feelings of others* (oh my bob, that one so much. So many smart people, so little emotional intelligence). You can be wise without being "smart" or "learnèd" and the opposite is also very true.

And the older I get? The more I value wisdom - discernment, and sensitivity, and knowing what's appropriate when - over mere "smarts." (It's best to have both, of course, but if I could have only one I'd pick wisdom)

(*and yes, I consider being sensitive to and knowing how to avoid hurting the feelings of others as a form of wisdom)

Also "wisdom worker" in the context it would be used in is just...cringe. It makes the individual seem much more important than they actually are.

* I also realized that there's a funny-in-a-horrible-cosmic-way coincidence about impeachment hearings going on these weeks; the LAST impeachment* happened during another big family gathering (my brother's wedding) and most of the relatives there will also be around for my dad's memorial service and it just feels really weirdly symbolic to me and I don't know. I mean, I wish I could kind of laugh at the coincidence but I also kind of can't.


(*Sigh. Two of the three impeachments that have happened in the history of the US have happened during my lifetime - my ADULT lifetime - and I am not even all THAT old. What has happened to us? Has politics got uglier, politicians more messed up, or have people felt freer about doing this?)