Hi You,
Tomorrow I go back to work, and honestly, I’m not ready. I have those Sunday feels. I rarely write about work, as I do my best to keep my work and personal life separate. But when one starts to bleed into the other, something needs to give. I love my job, the role that I have. I love the team I get to see every day. The families that I’ve met and have the opportunity to get know. I truly couldn’t be more grateful. How many people get to say that? That they love what they do, and the people they work with? It’s rare. But that isn’t to say that every day is perfect. That every day is easy. It’s not. It’s hard. It’s hard because I put my whole self into it. I haven’t quite mastered that work life balance everyone talks about. It’s more like an integration, and I use that term loosely. Lately, it feels more like I’m trying to mix water and oil.
On Monday it all came to a head. My body said, yet again, “Nope, no more. I need a break.” It started that morning. I was just about to do my final yoga stretches and prepare for Shavasana, the one time during the day that I take for myself. When I heard an alert come through on my phone. A text. At first I thought, no, I’ll look at it when I’m done. But something just didn’t sit right with me. I had to check. And just as I suspected, the morning Concierge was calling out. Not two hours before her shift but a solid 10 minutes before she was supposed to be there. My stomach sank. Now what? After what seemed like an unusually long week, this was the icing on the cake. My practice came to an immediate halt, and I hopped in the shower, quickly changed, packed my stuff, and ran out the door with a sopping wet head. Tears were streaming down my face. I couldn’t control it. On my way in I called T, our Food and Beverage Manager, and asked if he could please sit at the Concierge desk until the next shift came in, as I was in no place to speak to an owner. I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t let owners see me like this. T said, “of course, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I set up my laptop, and immediately requested a Personal Day for the next day. Hoping with every ounce of me that it would be approved. After a short while, T showed up and took the desk, he intercepted all calls, and protected my office from anyone coming back there. Eventually I was able to open my mouth without crying and started moving through my to do list. I had to call the grocery delivery service we use and work through a few recent issues. After making it through all of the automated, selections, “press one, if…, press 5, if…” I reached a human. C. C was very pleasant to work with. He asked, “How can I be of service today?”
“Well C, I’m not sure if you are the person I need to be speaking with, but we are experiencing a few strange things on our orders lately, mainly with the shoppers.”
“I am exactly the person, to talk to.” He replied. “Let me just pull up your account. Can you confirm the phone number attached to your account?”
“Of course,” I replied, and provided him with the information he needed.
“While I’m waiting for your account to pull up, how has your day been?” he asked.
Oh, there it was, the small talk. The question that everyone asks to be polite, but no one really wants the answer to. Usually I respond with the standard, “it’s been really nice, thank you for asking. How about you?” But not that day. Nope, without hesitation I replied, “See, C, that’s a loaded question today, one that I don’t think you really want the answer to, so I’m just going to say, it’s been ok. And then ask you how your day is going.”
“Ah hmm, ok.” You could hear in his voice he wasn’t really expecting that response. “My day has been good so far, but it’s only just started.” He replied.
“Good. I hope I don’t negatively impact it in anyway.”
“No, you’re good. I don’t take much personally, not in my line of work.”
It was in that moment, that very brief but very real conversation with a stranger I knew, approved or not, I needed to stay home the next day. Because in my line of work, sometimes you need to smile when you don’t want to. And I didn’t have the energy to do it anymore. Not that day.
xoxo
Letters to You 