Did I Say That?

I have this Groundhog Day kind of thing going. Not the kind where I see my shadow and it’s 6 more weeks of winter, the kind where something keeps getting repeated. September 2008 through December 2008 I worked 3 days a week due to a strike at Boeing. They buy the majority of our product, so their strike impacted my employer in a big way. In January of 2009 I went back to work 5 days a week. Yesterday at church I got asked if I was working full time yet. The first 2 times she asked me last year I thought she cared and was being thoughtful. The next 3 were mildly amusing. The last two, I’m thinking alzheimer’s.
I’m not insulted or offended, I don’t even take this personally. The world doesn’t revolve around me. My world doesn’t even revolve around me. I just thought about the messages that are sent in conversations that might be offensive, but really are just thoughtlessness or tactlessness.
Like the other night at dinner when my friend asked me if I had eaten something and I told her I wasn’t built like her, I never got to eat that way. That’s insulting. And I will apologize for it. It’s one of the inequalities of life that some people can eat and get skinnier and some of us can’t.EAT.AT.All.
Or the lady that walked by my desk and asked if the picture on my desk came with the frame. And who was it. Like he’s too hot for me?
Or the close family member who told me at least I didn’t have the same problems with my kids that so-and-so has with theirs. Their son is working as a bartender. (Very strictly religious person, dare I say bordering on legalism). Needless to say, this is minor compared to what two of my stepdaughters are up to.
Or when I asked a friend at church the other day how she was doing and she told me how she was feeling and it took me a minute to catch up to what she was talking about because she has a major health issue. She deals with it remarkably, she is a beautiful woman, and sometimes it’s easy to forget she has this problem. I may have seemed like I didn’t care, when it reality it’s a compliment to her that I forget.
I like people. I honestly care how they are doing. But so many times I think I don’t come across that way. Steve and I went and saw The Blind Side movie the other night. The one thing I related to the most was when the mom asked her husband if she was a good person. I understand that so well. No one knows your motives except for you. No one knows that what appears selfish really isn’t the way you feel, and you didn’t mean for it to come out that way. You are not insensitive, you are just overloaded and stressed to the point you can’t remember where your car keys are, what the one thing you needed to pick up at the grocery store on the way home is, or even what you named your second child. (Wait, do I only have two children? Dang, what did I do with that third kid?)