Special

I’ll have the special, used when ordering food from the menu, means I want the item the chef has made particularly for today. The midnight special can refer to a train that leaves around midnight. To be special is to be different in a good way, to be separated, unique and extra, beyond the usual. McDonalds tell us they use a special sauce on their big Mac burger. Nice taste.

A special moment is one where time seems to slow down or even stop, that feels magic and like a true gift. All of the attributes of a special moment need my permission to be so which makes me wonder why I don’t allow more of them into my day. Feels like a great plan. What about you? This relates to tagging some things as special and other things as not. Is it not that all things could be special in some way?

Special treatment may mean that something, or, oh gawd, someone, gets an extra dose of effort. I like to keep my car and motorcycle clean and waxed. Once a year I apply an extra coat of wax, paste not liquid. More effort to apply with a harder, longer lasting and deeper finish. That special effort provides an exceptional result. So is special is a cousin to rare? People who seek special attention, I’m not so much of a fan.

Then we have people who deserve special attention, as opposed to those who seek it. When I choose to give special attention to someone it is often because they intrigue me, I’m curious, there is ‘something’ about them, in a good way. Wait. Sometimes I pay attention to someone who has something not so good about them. So I get hooked into paying special attention, but it does not last long.

One thing about special relationships is that they can sometimes create a ‘must, should, have to’ dynamic. If one of the people expects special treatment of some kind and the other, even inadvertently, does not provide, kabooom can happen. “You should have known” kind of thinking can show up and make a mess of things. So being special without demanding to be special seems to be the trick.