“Do you know how to get me to love you forever,” he asked after staring down over his smudged glasses at a pile of unsigned documents.

I glanced at the pile, and smiled, expecting the inevitable request for clerical assistance.

“No,” I answered, still smiling pleasantly, “how’s that?”

“It’s really very simple,” he replied. “Don’t add anything after I’ve closed the meeting, even if it’s very good – like your last comment at the end. It was really good. Just don’t do it.”

My verbal response was quick witted, conciliatory and showed a willingness to be corrected, to learn. A response born of years of pulling punches, deferring to weak men who have achieved positions of authority and ultimately, and more frustratingly, it was in marked contrast to my inner response that was holding it’s breath and blinking rapidly so as to keep the tears at bay.

These moments floor me. This interaction, albeit brief, colored the rest of my afternoon. He sat across the office perfectly content and at ease responding to email and other office chatter. While I, sat holding my bruised ego in my hands wondering how the hell it can still be so fragile. I’m a grown-up. I live in a tough place. How is it possible that I’m still not tough?

The first two strained interactions I brushed off, but now my inner child cringes upon his approach. It feigns bravado and raises it’s impotent fists in defiance. Striking out at the unjust, unfounded accusation, the subtle accusations, its fists fall on shadows, its brave cries swallowed before they reach my tongue. I once again defeat this fraglie impulse, this inner child.