I was at Walmart yesterday and the
lady checking my groceries asked, “How are you?”
“Fine,” I answered, “And how are you?”
Thank goodness, neither of us
answered the question with great thought as to how things were really going. What
if she had launched into a story about her husband’s cousin’s wife’s surgery
with complete gory details while the person in line behind me tried to run over
me with his cart?
About 99.9 percent of the time, if
I ask how someone is, they reply, “Fine.” I noticed that Jim retained this “polite”
conversational tool when his dementia was so advanced he could barely speak. If
someone said, “How are you?” he would answer, “Fine.” He wasn’t able to
verbalize just how awful his diagnosis was even if he’d wanted to share his
state of being.
During the dark days when I
was his caregiver, I never once answered a stranger’s polite inquiry with the
truth. It was always the stock, and expected, answer.
Occasionally, you will get a more
personal question, “How are you holding up,” from someone that knows the
circumstances of your life. In that case, we might answer something like, “Things
have been better.” Even with that hint of a problem, you might still go on
your un-merry way to avoid sharing your problems.
I just saw a Wisdom Quote on
Facebook that said, “The worst part about being strong is that no one ever asks
if you’re okay. It is true that when someone is caring for a loved one with a
serious illness, often people only ask about the person with the health problem.
They don’t stop to consider that often the caregiver is exhausted
physically and drained emotionally.
Most of us don’t like to be
whiners. Plain and simple. Yet, there are those among us who love to whine. I
do know certain people that I’ve learned the hard way to avoid the simple “How
are you” question. These are the people who suffer the woe-is-me attitude if
they have a hangnail. They will go on and on and on and on…then, when they have
to “run” they throw off a casual “How are you” and walk away without waiting
for an answer.
Even honest people tell this little
white lie. I guess if you’re having a really bad day, it’s better than bursting
into tears in the middle of the grocery store. No one wants to have a complete
meltdown in public. Well, almost no
one. Once again, there are those who try to get sympathy, or maybe a handout,
from strangers.
It isn’t easy to avoid the
pleasantries either. One day at a checkout, the young woman asked, “How are
you?” I replied “Fine” as I tried to get the card to swipe. “I’m fine too,” she
said. “Thanks for asking.” It sounded a whole lot like a rebuke to me for not
continuing a pointless exchange. Or did she simply hear what she expected?
I plan to continue with social pleasantries, even when it’s a big fat fib—at least with strangers. With
whiners, I might just say “hello” and avoid eye contact.
Copyright © October 2015 by L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
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