gratitude: friends
by Zero
I have come to realize that I don’t generally have a lot of patience for people. They often make me tired. They talk too much; they’re self involved; they listen to the wrong music; they use too many semicolons; they’re self involved; and they’re redundant. There are very very few I talk to on the phone, and only a few that I converse or write to with any kind of frequency. It’s not that I’m antisocial, it’s just that my energy wanes. I’ve made connections to a few people — the ones I’d backpack or travel with — and I hold onto these relationships dearly.
There are worse things that could have happened to me than a couple of extra commitments during the semester. The greatest of these was an extra class that met fives days a week at 7:30 AM that I was supposed to be just substituting for. This turned into an all-semester commitment. It was better than major surgery, but it wasn’t in my plans, and it took a toll on me. I knew this, but I especially realized it after I’d given the final a week ago and since have spent my mornings greeting my family and seeing them off to school before I left the house.
Today, at lunch with great friends, I was handed an envelope and a conspicuously cylindrical gift wrapped in paper sporting integrals, derivatives, and a few transcendental functions. In one was a gift certificate for a total of 240 minutes of massage; in the other was some of the finest single malt Scotch I’ve ever had the pleasure to sip. I’m touched by the generosity, but even more so by the thought put into this. Not only this, but I suppose I am not always as good at covering frustration and fatigue as well I’d like to think, and it would be easy for others to just look the other way, ignore the grumpy guy in the corner. But instead they give me the best gifts imaginable: carefully aged alcohol and the services of someone to ease tensions.
I’d like to be more articulate about this, but the Scotch is perhaps kicking in a little too well.
On my calendar for tomorrow is an appointment to talk to someone at another university about a position they would like me to consider. I’ve never taken this too seriously — it’s not a good fit for me, I don’t think. More importantly, I haven’t seen any startup packages, even at the senior level, that come with single malt and massages. Nor do other places have the people behind such thoughtfulness.
