I know my blogs have been all over the place lately and I guess they are a reflection of my life...all the change and uncertainty have left me reeling at times. During the course of the last few weeks...months....I've found myself playing the "what if..." game. Admit it...you all do it too. You look back on things you've done or not done and said what if I had done this or that. Yes, I know...hindsight is 20/20 and this game tends to be somewhat self-destructive. It keeps us going over decisions that we can do absolutely nothing about. On some level though, I think this game can be a healthy reflection on history and we all know what they say about history...if you don't learn from it you are bound to repeat it. While I find myself doing this "what if..." game with respect to many aspects of my life right now...work, mom, "T"...the one I want to focus on in this blog is "T" simply because I am working really hard to put this behind me and move forward and that was why I started blogging to begin with. It also goes with a promise I made and the previous few blogs. So...here goes...."T" was a colleague...someone I thought was a friend. I didn't set out to trust "T" but, over time, and circumstance of being forced to work with him and deal with him on a day in and day out basis to get the job done, that trust naturally grew. Telecommuting is a very odd position to work from so you get used to spending a lot of time in other people's offices, meeting in restaurants, or as luck would have it since I don't drink coffee - Starbucks. It was a running joke amongst my colleagues that a particular Starbucks was my "north" office. So, it wasn't odd for me to find myself having a working lunch with "T". But, what was odd was over time, I didn't take note of the locations for the lunches. Okay, well, I did take note and while I thought some of the venues were just odd (lunch at a restaurant that has candles on the tables?), I chalked it up to me looking for things and dismissed my own "gut" instincts. So, I looked the other way and made nothing of it...that should have been a huge red flag but, I didn't listen so now I ask myself...what if...what if I had just put him on the spot and asked what the hell was up with that? Would I have seen it coming?
Moving along..Public Meeting venues...."T" had a nasty habit of picking up my phone whenever I would leave it laying somewhere. I would be up giving presentations to a crowd of our peers/colleagues and he would disappear out the back of the room with my phone. I keep a lot of personal things on my phone and while I found this exceptionally odd and even questioned him about it, he would say he forgot his and just needed to make a call or check email or something and I would shrug it off even though it bothered the hell out of me. (BTW - for those of you who know me you now know why I can't stand any else touching my phone without at least asking.) "T" would also isolate me at public venues. It wasn't uncommon for him to walk up when I was in a group of people and grab my arm with the "Hey, I need to talk to you about X." I didn't see it...but now I do...he had no respect for personal boundaries. But, what really gets me about this one is that people at work who know what happened have made comment that they always thought it was weird how possessive he was of my time and how he always isolated me in public venues. If they saw it and thought it odd enough to make note of it and remember it now...then why didn't they say something? What if just one of them had pulled me aside and said something about it...would I have started putting two and two together and getting four?
The people I work with are a touchy feely group...they can't help it. Apparently people in public health have some of the worst fashion sense and are the biggest huggers around. It has never been uncommon for people to do things like touch my shoulder when they are talking to me, or to greet me with a hug or send me on my way with a hug (now, I'm very closed off to that except from very specific people). What if...we had a more "traditional" work place...would I have finally picked up on all the cues that I just didn't see? What if I hadn't been married for an eternity and off the "market" so to speak...would I have been more aware that when a guy touches your foot under the table you should pick up that he's hitting on you? I actually had to be told that and still laughed it off. Again, I thought it was odd but dismissed my instincts and thought no younger man who is in a live-in relationship, divorced and has a child would be hitting on an older married woman.
....okay...there's more of this blog to come but...the "real" world is calling and I need to head out...
stay tuned...
Pandora
1 comment:
Why do you take so much blame onto yourself. He is the monster. He is the one who is responsible. You should not have had to read between the lines. You never suggested or hinted that you wanted anything more than a business relationship. Why should you be able to read every situation perfectly? It is that whole God complex thing you keep saying that I have, maybe it is something that we share. As much as we want to be right all the time, we can't be. We are going to make mistakes! Some are going to be big.
I do agree, the "what if" game has some benefits, but if you take it too far, you will get stuck in the past. Learn from what the "what if" game has to teach you and then look for ways to practice what you have learned.
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