Thinking of You
Yesterday evening, as my day was winding down, I thought briefly about calling a friend. But I realized the hour was late and the call could wait. As I had that thought, I had another. It occurred to me, how unlikely it was the friend in question was ending their day wishing I would call, which then got me to thinking about the probability that anyone, anywhere was thinking about me at that particular moment. It wasn’t a lonely feeling; it was just a weird thought about probabilities and what it meant to be thought about and how you never know unless someone tells you.
I know that when I worked, I had people thinking about me, because we did things together, and sometimes, I was the boss. It’s the same for friends. We do things together. As the circles get closer to the center, we run into family. Yesterday, for example, I talked to two of my children, and they called me. As for marriage, that’s pretty much the key. You think about each other. There are random calls, check ins, that sort of thing. Nothing really consequential, just an I-want-to-hear-the-sound-of-your-voice type call. It’s easy to see that the closer the relationship, the higher the probability that any one person is thinking about any other person.
None of this speaks to the quality of the thoughts. Are they good or bad? Are they reciprocated? Because we’ve all had bad bosses and I know how those thoughts run. It’s the same for friends and acquaintances, where you can run into a please-don’t-think-about-me situation. And family is the same way. I can imagine there were plenty of times when the kids wished I wasn’t thinking about them. But that’s life, all you can do is think about the ones you love and like, tell them, and then it’s up to them to figure out what to do next.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale