WHAT HURTS YOU TODAY?

You never forget some lines. You even remember where you heard them. 

Years ago, we were at a holiday party at our friend’s law office with our three children in tow. While comfortably seated in our friend’s private office in the suite, joking around and catching up, our elder son Judd, a high school junior at the time, went off chitchatting with a man we didn’t know. Heads turned to figure out what was happening.

The man chatting with Judd worked evenings as an attorney at our friend’s office, about a half-hour drive away. We were surprised to learn that his day job was as a teacher in our school district at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. The mystery was solved when we discovered that Judd was a student in his AP Government/Politics class.

Soon enough, Judd rejoined our contingent, and the teacher and his wife followed. In conversation, his wife humorously yet halfheartedly remarked that when she and her aging husband wake up each morning, she questions him, “What hurts you today?” The adults in the room laughed while commiserating. 

While her deadpan line, “What hurts you today?” has always stuck with me, it brings me to the thought of my aunt Fannie insisting that no one wants to hear your troubles. For example, I underwent gallbladder surgery when Judd was a baby of merely three months. Days later, Aunt Fannie came to visit. Casually, she mentioned that she had spoken with our cousins in California.

My aunt piqued my curiosity by surprisingly not expressing well wishes from those beloved west coast cousins. In response to my questioning about their acknowledgment of my surgery, she callously responded, “I didn’t tell them about it.” She insisted that no one wants to hear about someone else’s troubles; they don’t care.

That brings me full circle from my comments in former blog posts, such as You Think Everyone is Like You, dated January 3, 2023, and When Your Finger Hurts, Your Finger Hurts, dated January 24, 2023. 

The bottom line is there are those of us who care too much and others who don’t care enough. Wrapped in the middle, you find those who don’t allow us to determine our level of concern and those who prevent us from expressing our feelings. That hurts.