I'm still at work as the sun goes down and Chanukah begins... My body is weak and tired and I feel a cold coming on... I lay down on the floor of the office and shut my eyes... The manager asks if I'm okay, and I tell him I'm fine... There's a big box of chocolate that someone donated, and suddenly I want chocolate... But all the chocolate in the world will not help me feel better... It will make me feel worse.
I walk over to L's desk and just sit down. He asks me what I want. I tell him I'm sick, and honestly I just want some sympathy. His wife was in the office today. He acts uptight around her, as if he never makes inappropriate comments or flirts with anyone when she is not around. He comes from an extremely Chassidish world. People have many sides to them...
I ask him for a ride home. He makes me sit in the back. I live out of his way, but he takes me anyway. I plan to ignore him and listen to music the whole way home. But he talks to me. I tell him how hard it is to be alone on a holiday like Chanukah, where everything is about family. Shidduchim comes up, as it always does. I find myself confiding in him, telling him about a date I had recently. I want him to make it all better. At work, he can be a pain, he ignores me when I make a request that he doesn't like, he blames me for miscommunications, and he is hard to deal with. But when I sit down at his desk to talk, suddenly he is a real person, listening and giving advice.
His phone rings and I see it says 'Home'. He puts his finger to his lips in a shushing motion. After all, his wife can't know that he drove me home, cuz what might that mean...?
We come from two different worlds. I'm not saying I think it's okay to be friendly with a married coworker, and it is definitely a slippery slope. I guess he doesn't want his wife making any insinuations.
I call my mom and tell her how sad it is that I'm alone on Chanukah and lighting candles by myself. I realize how pathetic I sound. I tell Anthony that it is like him being alone on Christmas, to which he responds "I will be alone on Christmas".
I guess it is all about perspective. I don't have it that bad, and I have to remember that.
I hope to bake tonight, and baking always cheers me up.
A freilechin Chanukah to all, and I hope you can see true revealed light in your life.
Just to make you feel better with the whole fist-bump thing, it is halachically okay to shake hands.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of "shomer negiyah" is a new thing. Halachically, men and women shouldn't get seriously touchy-feely because of the connotations. Shaking hands in the business world which means business, not anything else, is fine. Fist bumps, which actually involve less contact than a handshake, also falls into the same category, I would say.
Why did the phrase "shomer negiyah" take off but not "shomer kosher" or "shomer davening" or "shomer not stealing"? If you are "shomer torah u'mitzvos," it is understood one keeps everything else, including negiyah.
Feel better.