The One Person

I had a variety of different titles with which I could have gone for this entry.

Compare And Contrast.

From Zero Expectations To?

From Out Of Left Field.

I had options, but I went with the title you see above.

Anyway, enough about titles though. Let me get into this entry.

Today was a typical day at work. I managed to stay busy enough. I know that some people were busier than others. Some people frolicked around the office as though they didn’t have a care in the world. I was somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. I had enough to do, but I wasn’t sleeping at my desk either.

I again struggled into the afternoon, being that my desk was again 83 degrees, which I have spent much of this week and last week complaining about. No one cares. The rest of the office was much cooler, but no, I have to work in the dry and arid conditions at my cubicle. Normally, I leave for the day at 5:30pm, or as close to it as I possibly can. Today, I left the office at 5:21pm. I would have left sooner, but someone who I didn’t anticipate talking to me actually did and it caught me off guard.

I’ve worked with Vanessa for about five months. She is the latest worker to have joined my workgroup. She’s competent enough and for the most part, she’s pleasant. We talk sporadically, though we haven’t spoken much of late.

Closer to 5pm, which was around the time that I was planning my escape, she happened to walk up to me as I languished at my cubicle. She snuck up on me, being that I had my headphones in and I was watching something about video gaming on YouTube. My attention was diverted, so it was by chance that I happened to see her. She apologized for interrupting me, which I didn’t think anything of. After all, I was trying to leave so my headphones were going to have to come off at some point anyway. She had mentioned to me that she was going to be really busy into the afternoon, to where she probably wasn’t going to leave until it got dark outside. Then she hits me with…

“Is there any way that you can stay with me, so that I’m not alone here?”

Had it not been for the hot and uncomfortable conditions at my desk and, oh yeah, that I had been at work since 4:35am this morning, I might have considered it. I told Vanessa that I would have, but because of those two reasons, I was looking to leave within the next few minutes because it was just way too uncomfortable to stay any longer. She seemed to take it in stride, my veiled “no”, being that this was a long shot anyway. Still, the fact that she asked me this was very unexpected, though it made me feel good that she had asked in the first place. I figure she had a 50-50 shot and she knew it. I give her credit for trying. Again, I left at 5:21pm.

I texted Serena as I walked out the door.

Heading out…see you/talk to you whenever.

I didn’t see her all day, which I anticipated, being that she was busy. Especially busy apparently. Prior to that 5:21pm text, we exchanged a total of four text messages during the day. Those four text messages came between 6:55am and 9:04am. I sent that 9:04am text message, which was…

Ok.

Serena was apparently way too busy to text me during the day, though she would call me at 5:32pm. I gave her credit for being busy today, for which she thanked me. I guess I was too tired or fed up for the sarcasm to come out more cleanly. This wasn’t worth arguing over at the time because we have had this argument many times before and I didn’t feel like getting into it again. Of course, we’re all busy.

But as Mom used to tell me and I still believe this to this day.

“If someone is important enough to you, you’ll make time for them”.

Indeed, Mom’s wisdom lives on. So, maybe it was wrong of me to anticipate some kind of correspondence from Serena during the day, but I know that if I had better success in getting text message responses from her in general, I would have exerted myself. But as is Serena’s typical pattern, she is terrible at responding to text messages. I can understand minutes going by, but not for Serena. She will let hours go by. In acknowledging that she was busy, I know that there had to be periods of down time where she could have dropped me a “hello”, “what are you doing”, or frankly, she could have said anything. I imagine that I was truly a victim of “out of sight, out of mind” today, which sucks. I want to say that I get it, but the reality is, this happens to me all the time. You’d think I’d be used to it. Actually, I’m getting there.

The one person, my best friend, whose messages I would have (and always entertain and look forward to) wanted to have received, couldn’t be bothered to talk to me today, until the day was already over and I was already frustrated with her.

That one person was much too busy for me today.

That one person probably doesn’t think anything of this, and would probably tell me that I’m overreacting, and that I’m making a big deal over nothing.

That one person will probably tell me that I’m being dramatic.

That one person hurt me again.

The one person who I always want to talk to and stay in close contact with, disregarded me today.

“It is what it is”.

That is the most useless sentence in the English language, but that was all I could muster during my brief five-minute phone call with her. I would send her a subsequent text message after we hung up.

Thanks for the pity call. I mean that.

Again and not surprisingly, she didn’t respond.  It really did feel like she called me out of pity.  I’ve accused her of making those pity phone calls to me before.

I saw zero point in telling her everything that I just wrote in this entry. She doesn’t care. I’ve “complained” to her about this all before. Why continue to beat a dead horse? She didn’t make the time for me. That’s fine. It’s out of my control anyway. All I can do is vent in this forum and get out all my anger this way.

Vanessa kind of made my day and she’ll never know this.

In some lousy capacity, Serena, my best friend, ruined mine. She could have known this, but I didn’t feel like telling her about it yet again.  It would have just been disregarded anyway.

Again, the one person…