Reconciling with my office

I had a really dumb moment yesterday.

For a decently intelligent person, this happens more often than I wish. One of the ones my mom likes to giggle about was two years ago when my mom was teaching me how to play backgammon. I was kicking around her house just after Christmas and my brother, mom, and I had all been snowed in and were a little stir crazy. For my bro this manifested as retreating to a TV and monosyllabic communication. For me this brought out my silly version of cabin fever, and for my mom she was bustling around the kitchen. All of a sudden I had a memory of a similar night years ago, and my parents sitting at the kitchen table of the house I grew up in playfully baiting each other in a game of backgammon.

I realized I had never learned. This seemed ridiculous since my parents used to play all the time. So, on a whim I went into the kitchen and said, "Mom, do you have a backgammon board? Would you be willing to teach me?" This, in case you were wondering, was my "smart" moment. As she almost skipped to the basement to get the backgammon set up, I put together a snack. Within about 10 minutes of her teaching me, my brother had come into the kitchen and said, "Can I play you once you learn?" It was great. We went from all being antsy and separate to doing something together in about 10 minutes.

My mom explained to me that at the beginning of a game each player rolls one die and whoever gets the higher roll uses the combined roll as their first turn. Now, this is a "fancy" backgammon set with the leather cups for rolling the dice. So, she handed me the cup and the two die. I looked at her bewildered and said, "How do you roll only one?"

Pause. And she looked at me like, Are you kidding me?! And then pointedly picked up one of her die, put it to the side, and put the second die in the cup and then gave me the "Ta-da!" face.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. (Duh)

Now, whenever we play backgammon she says, "How do you roll only one?" in a mocking tone and sometimes if she thinks I'm being particularly flaky in some other situation I hear this phrase mumbled under her breath in the, I'm purposely making it so you can hear it volume.

That's ok, I deserve it.

I have these moments. We all do. Secretly, it's actually great for me when my family ribs me about these things since I am often a little more sharp-tongued than I should be and quick to tease them. It balances things out.

Yesterday, I had a dumb moment that revealed something interesting to me though.

Here is the scenario. A very interested company wanted to do an initial interview with me via Skype. I am tres interested in the company, and let me just say it is a name that would not be too shabby to be associated with, but was pleased to have an opportunity to learn more about the job itself.

I am new to Skype in the last couple of weeks but it seems like a pretty sweet deal. However, for this Skype meeting, I wanted to be very prepared. I thought about what questions might be asked, I prepared my questions, and had paper and pen on hand in order to take notes. I even got up early and put on makeup and an interview outfit so that I would appear professional.

About 30 minutes before the interview, I set my computer down on the kitchen table and turned on the camera on my laptop so I could check and make sure I looked ok. I looked fine, but saw a few distracting things in the background behind me. One of them is a very hilarious book, but, well, let's just say, not one I leave out if children are visiting me. (Smile). So, I scrambled around trying to move things. As I did, it occurred to me that the blank yellow wall behind me was a little overwhelming visually. Then I started to fret thinking, "Well, I could sit on the couch, but then he's seeing the back of my couch. The bedroom, but then that's unprofessional." After a few minutes more of pondering what to move and where to be . . . it hit me.

There is ANOTHER room in my house. In fact it is a room that is white walled, and basically empty. It even has decent lighting and a desk. Imagine that. That's right, my office still stands empty.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. (Duh)

This is to say, I have not yet re-established that room. I do ALL of my job hunting and applying in the arm chair in my living room or from my kitchen table. If I'm writing this blog, or messing around on Facebook I can probably be found sprawled on my bed (as I am now) or on my couch (and on one emotional occasion, standing up at my kitchen counter).

I go into the office once a week to copy something for my (awesome) trainer and/or print something for a job interview. Other than that I treat it much as I did before. It's a separate land, not intersecting with my home. Think of it as Middle Earth or something.

When it was literally my office it was as if it was a nearly completely indepenedent sphere from anything else my house touched. Once a year I would go in there on personal time to do my taxes. The rest of the time, I was only in there if actually working. And it felt like I was sequestering myself and entering a different place. I realized in my last year of work how profound this conception of my office was in a couple of different ways. If I "cleaned the house" I would sweep and mop the kitchen, living room and dining room. As I headed down the hall I would get the laundry room and bathroom on the right, but sail right past the office on the left and head directly into the master bedroom. I also discovered that I would give tours of my house to people visiting and skip over that room. People would be like, "Ummm, what's in there??" (is it a murder room?!) And I would respond, ""Oh, that's my office." and keep walking.

So, in my mind, it is STILL my office, and why would I go in there unless I'm working.

Which of course I am NOT. Sooooooooooo, yeah.

Basically this means I haven't been in there or considered that room as having a place in my life since a month ago when it was cleaned out.

Partially, this is because unemployment has been unexpectedly busy for me. There are certainly days I don't get up until after 8. And there are days I watch TV at 2pm, to be sure. But, I have been blessed with a lot to do. I've caught up with friends, and while that doesn't, perhaps, have significance in terms of landing a job, it has been instrumental in my healing from all of this sudden change. I had a real awakening right after I lost my job when so, so many friends contacted me to offer me support and then worked into the conversation, "So, if you're not working when you return from the holidays, do you have time to hang out?" It was an epiphany for me how much the last job had restricted me from being the friend I wanted to be, hell, from having a life.

I also got my car fixed from an accident that happened, literally, a week before my position was eliminated, an with the very supervisor, in my very car,  who let me go. Luckily, the accident was the fault of the person who hit me and was thus completely covered. The cost to me was only time.

And, yes, I have, been applying a lot, and I have been very encouraged to have response to a job I've applied for EVERY week since my unemployment commenced, and an interview on each week except the first. So, I've been busy.

Still, it seems a little silly that in the last four weeks I haven't put any time into re-acquainting myself with that room, going through the things in it, re-organizing, or even putting realistic thought into what I'd like that room to be. (Having said that, of course in the last day I've thought about it. The words of my cool, hilarious chicca friend on the very night I lost my job ring in my ears, "That is the room your foster baby will sleep in." But, that's a little bit cart before the horse at this point. Exercise room? If I get a well paying job I'd be happy to put an elliptical in there. Guest room? Upgrade my bed, and get a futon couch set up going in there? Hmmmmm)

This is a little like when my fiance and I broke up. During the conversation about done-ness he was indicating that maybe he'd come back for his things. I wanted to be smart and realized he had never paid a single cent of rent on this place, and was secondary on the lease so I wanted to reduce ambiguity and suggested he get his things right then, many of which were still in boxes. It seemed to make sense. I started hauling his stuff out, and eventually he (grudgingly) joined me. Of course, in our haste, things got left behind. Months later I found myself in various conversations about my need for him to get his things or give me permission to get rid of them.

A lot of things happened, and he didn't seem to understand that he could divorce himself from his stuff if he needed to, but that given some of his actions and threats, I wouldn't remove those things unless I had written permission. He was stubborn and stupid (and of course, I wasn't stubborn at ALL!), so this went on for a ridiculous amount of time. The result was that 6 months after our break up he was still cycling through "I'll be nice, get her to do what I need, and then disassociate myself as soon as she mentions anything she needs . . . even if it's as simple as sending her permission to dump my stuff."

I finally got the permission I needed, and felt I was really, truly DONE (I mean, other things happened. In fact it got really complicated and, regrettably, bitter.) about 9 months after the break up.

But somehow it took awhile for me to actually throw his shit OUT. And when I did, it felt incredibly good, momentous, even. And nothing could have been simpler than taking 45 minutes to gather it all up, check through the house, and carry the boxes out. I wondered why I had waited so long. But I did.

In that case, it was definitely hard for me to completely let go and move on. It took a lot of work and tears, and hard conversations with people who loved me. I wanted things to go differently than they did, even once I had accepted that we weren't right for each other. I wanted more closure than walking his stuff to a dumpster. And I had to take my time to reconcile myself with the fact that what I got was a watermelon story (ask if you want to know!), some really inexplicable emails, a court date to keep him out of my life, and a quiet Sunday where I enjoyed the sun and the feeling of releasing the last vestiges of our relationship into the dumpster. I couldn't change the hand dealt to me, just how I played it. It just took me a beat (or you know, however many beats fit into that number of months) to re-strategize and resolve to play it out.

I process slowly sometimes. This is, I think, not related to my occasional brain dead moment. It's more related to things I've mentioned before. Somehow my emotional path, and the roles I played in my family have lead me to a . . . hmm, strategy sounds too contrived and planned and it's not . . . I'd say, it's lead me to a HABIT of processing things all on my lonesome, off in a corner, and often disconnected from whatever event first gave rise to those feelings. There are benefits to this - it means it is RARE for me to have a sudden passionate bad reaction. It happens more than it used to, and more with people who I know really deeply and trust more. In a weird way, if I'm reacting to something in the moment badly, it's a compliment to that person because I can't do it unless I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I'm fully loved. as a result, it's only happened with my mom, sister, and best best bestbestbest friend in recent years.

On the flip side, those same people (and others!) would tell you that I sometimes baffle them by reacting to something that happened days (or weeks, or months) ago. They feel lost and . . . betrayed? I don't want to speak for them, but know this is the liability of my peculiarity of appearing to be emotive and open, but actually packing up emotions, putting them in boxes, and taking my time getting around to unpacking them and actually DEALING WITH the stuff inside.

People like me often have ulcers and migraines. And all of this emotional delay mirrors what I do with ACTUAL STUFF. I took almost a year to throw his crappy shit out! Almost 3 months after he gave me the permission to do so! I put it in boxes and then put it away, where I couldn't see it, but where it still took up space in my house.If that's not the outward picture of what I do inwardly, I don't know what is.

I know I have to take my time with that room. Not because I miss my job like I miss relationships once they end. Mostly, I feel relief when I think about NOT working for that company. I don't miss the tasks, the lifestyle, or the stress. The gratitude to be released from that is so immense that it eclipses the real missing of 5 of the people I worked with. I miss the certainty of a paycheck, that's it.

But I had a dysfunctional relationship with that job, and as a result, I had a dysfunctional relationship with that room. It will take some time for the room and I to receive each other differently.

If I was a person with more means, it would be great to go out, get some furniture and paint and posters and just go to town on that room. But I'm not, so it will take some time for me to re-friend that room. I, however, aspire for it to take less than a year. And so it starts with just going in there more to remember that that is space that belongs to me, not to my former company. It's MINES!!! (hahahah)