Haibun: Overly Concerned

My first real job, between college experiences, was at an electrical transformer factory in New Jersey. Grabbing my food from the cafeteria line and not sure where to eat, I sat down with a bunch of old engineers and guys who put these big boxes together. I was 19 and sat at the old white guy table. I’d talk to them and pass the lunch days with them my first few months. Then one day, I think Margarita, sort of the glue to the Puerto Rican table, may have offered me some food she made and I sat with them. I was always up for authentic Puerto Rican food, I still am. 

Frank — thin strands of white hair that covered his bald head, and as I remember, always had either just his short sleeve white dress shirt on or a gray sweater that he would wear over it — became so angry I sat at another table that he stopped talking to me. It was like high school, but I don’t think anyone was upset when I didn’t sit at their table in high school.

I would say “hi” to Frank over the next few months, ask how he’s doing, and he wouldn’t even look at me. I’d see him in the hall and smile, say something nice, he’d turn his head the other way, lips pursed. Another guy who always sat with Frank told me Frank hated me and Frank never dropped a grudge. I was devastated. 

Finally accepted into college, on my last day, I walked up to his desk and said, “I’m leaving for college and today is my last day, I wish you well.” He looked at me and said, “Goodbye,” and gave me a soft look. 

I felt like a champion, I felt like my kindness broke him. Now I have to laugh. I have compassion on who I was in those days for having so much anxiety and being so concerned with what Frank thought of me. Now I lose friends like I lose track of what I spent $6.61 on and why is it now hitting my bank account, “…was I hacked?” I believe it was my need for approval that made me want Frank to break his grudge and it was ego that made me feel like a champion when he did, but that’s who I was.

puffy pads harden 

by all that has come up 

against it each year