friends don't let friends go to bad christmas parties...

Sometimes I wonder if people actually think about what they say before it comes out of their mouths. Many times I say things without thinking about the consequences and sometimes it comes back to haunt me…

But this entry isn’t about an oops moment that I had… trust me, I’ve had my fair share… but this time it’s about something else...

Tonight we had our staff Christmas party… it was a low-key Christmas thing… get there, eat, play a game or two, sing Christmas songs and hear a devotional… and they usually do presentations that need to be done at the time…

So usually, when someone is leaving the convention, the staff (exec. dir.) will present them with something, say something nice about the person leaving and open it up for others to say something… I am leaving soon, but didn’t know whether to expect anything because I’ve just been working for the convention for a year...

Right before we started singing, my “big boss” called me and another lady up to the front. She retired from working with the seminary and today was her last day. He had us both stand at the front and he said he wanted to talk about me first… so he goes on to say that he jokes around with me at the office… the truth of the matter is, he usually “jokes” around and it just gets on my nerves… he’ll come past my office and turn off the lights or try to sneak my food away from in front of me when I’m reading the newspaper at lunch… but from time to time he will say that I need to find a husband…

I never find that “joke” funny… I don’t know if I’m too uptight about the single issue, but it’s just not something that seems funny to me… maybe because it’s not something I can really “do” or maybe because I really wanted to be married for a long time (until a few months ago)… and besides, it’s not really funny… I laugh at things that are funny… I don’t laugh at that joke…

So, tonight, after he says that we joke around with each other, he said, “I usually say she needs to find a husband…” and then says, “When you go to Nashville, keep walking with God and find a husband. I know God will provide not only a man, but a Godly man.” and I guess that should be comforting or encouraging, but instead it just stung… I assure you that no one has ever heard me say that I’m moving to Nashville to find a husband or that I’m expecting to find a husband in Nashville – because I’m not and I don’t. To be honest, it’s about the last thing on my mind… but I stood there, in front of all my coworkers and their spouses and listened to him not talk about my work qualities or character qualities, but my marital state… and it made me feel small… not size small… but inadequate small… and that isn’t a good feeling to me…

I hate that people can make me feel that way, but many times, people do…

I pretty much cried off and on throughout all the singing and through part of the devotional… and immediately following the party, someone came up and asked if it bothered me that he said that, and the tears started flowing again… we stood and talked about it for a while… she encouraged me to say something to him, but I’m not sure I’ll take that advice…

Then, my supervisor (my boss, but not my “big boss”) comes over, puts his arm around my neck, and says (so that no one else can hear), “I know it’s not mine to say, but I’m sorry…” which makes me cry harder than any of the rest of it… I don’t know why that hit so hard, but it did… maybe because it was in such contrast to the earlier statements… or the manner of it was…

And then, the kicker of it all… someone else said something about me finding a husband in Nashville right before I left… and I said, “you know, I am not really looking for a husband…” and she replied with, “well, that’s when God will give you one.” And if you know anything about me, it was all I could do to stand there and not say anything… (because I HATE that fallacy!) and she went on to talk about how amazed she was at women who could be involved in ministry and be single – but it didn’t really sound like a positive statement… it definitely sounded condescending… but I could be wrong… it was just definitely rubbing the wrong way…

So I made some comment about how much life I had to live, and all the places I had to go and not wanting some man tagging along… because that would be mildly acceptable to her and it would also get her off my back about finding “the one.”

I thought parties were supposed to be fun.