Honest Reflections
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Work Husbands (Or Work Wives)

6/4/2014

0 Comments

 
I haven’t had a work wife yet.  But I’ve had a work husband.  Who was this husband?  A man who I never thought in a million years would have turned out to be my office friend and spouse.  We met abroad while we were both working in the Netherlands.  When I found out where he was from, I started to say good morning to him in his language.  He said that he found me curious.  He came up with an exchange.  I would teach him English, and he would teach me his language.  I agreed.  As a way to say thank you, he started cooking lunch for me, and boy was it good.

We started having lunch together on most days. During work he would come to my office for coffee breaks, even on demand!  If I wanted to do so much as walk down the hall to the coffee vending machine (which I wish to God we’d get here in the States somewhere), he would leave his office, come to mine, and walk me down the hallway.  On one of our trips to the coffee machine, I was making fun of him for some reason.  Out of nowhere he blurted rather calmly, “I hate you, Sabrina.”  I busted out laughing so hard I nearly peed in my pants.  I went straight to the bathroom in a fit of laughter, did my deed and came out.  He was still standing where I left him, wondering how what he said could have been so funny.  He was laughing with me (or at me). 

One night I stayed at work while I was working late on a paper that I needed to finish. It was due by midnight Eastern standard time, and thank goodness I had the six-hour time difference, because I took it to mean that I had until 6 a.m. Netherlands time.  Needless to say, I knew it was going to be a long night.  I think it was a Friday.  Naturally, all the other interns had plans to go out and spend the night on the town.  I asked my work husband if he could come back after he was done to “pick me up” (on his bike that is) around midnight or 2 a.m. when I thought I’d be done with my paper.  I knew it was a stretch of a request, and in the end he said that he couldn’t come back to get me.  But to my surprise and non-surprise he had actually considered it and had wanted to make it work.

I was so lucky to have him.  Before meeting him, I had never laughed so much or so hard.  We went out to dinner and bars on the weekends.  We caught a live concert before Obama’s first election and he reveled with me in my joy when the singer started free-styling after I shouted Obama’s name from the audience.  We cooked together for dinner parties at a co-worker’s house (ok, he cooked; I cut the cheese).  At work I could call him whenever I needed him or wanted to hang, and the only words he’d say when he answered the phone were: “I’m coming.” 

I left three months later.  My internship was over and he stayed on at work.  On my last day of running errands before I left, he came by my place to help me finish doing the things that I didn’t have time to do before leaving. 

That was six years ago.  Today, he lives across the ocean in his homeland.  Although we probably will not see each other as often as we used to during that 3-month period that we were both working together, I will never forget the uniqueness of our friendship and the immediate closeness that we shared. He was my work husband.  And the best part of our friendship is that he can still make me laugh.  

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Freedom
    Frustration
    Identity
    Inspiration
    Les Twins
    Loss
    Love
    Music
    Pain
    Race & Racism
    Short Stories
    Travel
    TV

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    January 2013
    August 2008

    JOURNAL ENTRIES

    December 2020
    • Paris

    December 2020
    • Summer Love

    October 2020
    • Picture

    September 2020
    • You are Great. You are Good. You are You.

    August 2020
    • I See You

    July 2020
    • Dreams
    • PTSD

    June 2020
    • Being Black in America

    January 2020
    • Tick Tock

    October 2019
    • The Best Parting Song Goes To...
    • Silent Letter
    • Share the Sunrise with Me
    • Letting Go
    ​​
    July 2019
    • Phone Call
    • Love
    • Sometimes in April
    ​
    April 2019
    • In Search of Butterflies
    • Lake

    February 2019
    • 20 in Paris: Recollection of Life & Adventure
    • I Must Go

    December 2018
    • Commitment

    September 2018
    • I've Loved
    • Muse​

    July 2018​​
    • What a Kindergartner Wrote in Her Journal

    March 2018
    • Moral Compass
    • Growing Pains
    • She Waited; She Left; She's Still Looking

    ​January 2018
    • Goodbye
    • Girl 

    December 2017
    • Beware the Singing Lyon
    • Besting the Bar
    • Oh the Pen Loop
    • Nimble

    November 2017
    • Dancing
    • Paradise in Cabarete

    August 2017
    • Lost​

    July 2017
    • I Write
    • Stop Worrying
    • Why Bogart Fled (and Babylon Fell)

    June 2017​​
    • Hypocrisy Wars​
    • Energy
    • Tuesday
    • Tomorrow I go to Spain
    • Gray Day
    • Red
    • Powder
    ​
    May 2017
    • Nostalgia
    • Inseparable Night

    ​March 2017
    • Rainy Day
    • Joe
    • Master of My Destiny

    February 2017
    • Hopelessness

    January 2017
    • Love Reigns Supreme
    • ​Loner Chronicles

    November 2016
    • The Haunting

    October 2016
    • Love Poem: To Friendship

    September 2016
    • Pillow Talk
    • Love Undecided
    • Inconsummate Obsession
    • She Loved

    August 2016
    • Home Again In Paris: mon retour six ans plus tard (My return six years later)
    • Denver
    • Open Letter to My Ancestors | Reflection in Accra, Ghana
    • Denny

    July 2016
    • Babbling Brook
    • Endless Paralysis

    June 2016
    • Daddy Conquistawhore
    • Family Secrets

    May 2016
    • Peppers in the Sand 
    • Power

    April 2016
    • Child Warrior

    March 2016
    • Light Travels Through the Gift Inside
    • Fade
    ​
    February 2016
    • Sicilia
    • ​Identity
    • ​Embrace

    January 2016
    • Love Story

    December 2015
    • Colorism

    November 2015
    • Frenz
    • ​New Orleans, LA
    • ​"Powerful" by Empire Cast

    October 2015
    • Music That Got Me Through

    September 2015
    • Birmingham
    • ​So Many Reasons Why I Love Cookie from Empire
    • Quotes That I Like

    August 2015
    • How To Make It Through Situations That Make You Feel Scared or Confused You'll Make the Wrong Choice
    • Lessons Learned from Going to Provincetown After Deciding on a Spur of the Moment in July

    July 2015
    • Lonely Hour
    • Weekend

    June 2015
    • Procrastination

    May 2015
    • Release 
    • When Silence Overcomes

    April 2015
    • Jada

    March 2015
    • Ghosts of Riptides Past

    February 2015
    • I Guess I'm A Writer
    • I Just Want to Write...
    • Marie

    January 2015
    • Waiting for Someone to Save Me​ 
    • Stuck

    December 2014
    • Motivators of Success
    • On Rowan
    • Ferguson, 2014

    August 2014
    • Validation
    • Au revoir Paris
    • Circles

    ​July 2014
    • Who are Les Twins?
    • On Being Free

    June 2014
    • Lessons Learned from the Boston Workshop with Les Twins, 6/29/14
    • Guardian Angels
    • Work Husbands (or Work Wives)

    ​May 2014
    • Scandal Review, "The Fluffer" Ep. 3x16
    ​
    January 2013
    • The Way of the Artist

    August 2008
    • I'm Baaaack!!!

    RSS Feed

All contents c. 2020
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Reflections
  • Contact