Escaping the storm
I have been a working adult for the last 10 years, beginning with the military, then background investigator, then on to my current job. While I haven’t yet fully experienced my “dream job,” work has always been something I enjoyed. An escape from my home life. A place that I could find 8 hours of peace in the chaos that is my life. That is until recently.
When I joined the military, I was going through a massive depression stage brought on primarily by my abortion. It was my first real bout of depression, and while joining the military served as an escape just in itself, going to work provided me with a daily distraction that helped to get me through. I lived in the dorms, hundreds of miles from my family and friends, so when I wasn’t at work, I was alone…not really a great thing for me. So work was my escape.
When I married my first husband, and the problems started, work became my escape from the stress of my home-life. I could be me at work, something that was cause for conflict at home. I could have adult conversations without fights. I was important. I was doing something. This continued through my second marriage, with the added escape from my children and the massive responsibility of being a mom. Don’t get me wrong, I love my children, and I love my time with them. But I could never be a SAHM. I need adult interaction. I need logic and reason in my life. I need things that fulfill the other parts of me not connected to being a mom in order to feel like a whole person. Not that SAHMs aren’t whole people, this is just me I’m referring to here. I have the utmost respect for SAHMs. I envy their patience and overall mothering skills. I just couldn’t handle it.
Towards the end of my second marriage, I landed my current job. It was the intense distraction I so sorely needed in that end. I was training. I was working. I had multiple adults around to talk to who liked to talk. (something that was missing from my investigator job) And when that marriage ended, it was the escape from my failures. It was the escape from the pain of possibly losing my son. It was the escape from the pain of being alone once again when the kids were with their fathers. It was the greatest escape. Then Mr. W came into my life.
Mr. W became my escape, and the scales began to tip. I began enjoying my time at home almost as much as my time at work. Sure there was still a lot of stress and drama in my life, but he was making it seem less difficult. He gave me a distraction, something to be happy about, thankful for. I didn’t need work as fervently as I had for the last 8 years. Then the on-again-off-again started with him and work became a less desirable place to be. We worked together, our desks literally next to each other, so in the times we were split up work became the last place in the world I wanted to be. The tides were turning.
Finally, we sorted it all out, and were happy again and work became more of a nuisance. The assholes began to rear their ugly heads. All I wanted was the peace of home. The peace of being with him…but then he left for Iraq. Once again, work was my escape despite the assholes and the frustrations involved with it. Work wasn’t the big empty house I was now living in. His house. The house that so easily allowed me to wallow in my sadness of his departure.
But now Mr. W’s back. The boy is home almost full time. We have a family. We have a home. We are whole again and work, well, work sucks! The assholes are being worse than ever. There is a giant cloud of negative energy that is parked in my office, fed by my co-workers, growing, pulsing, and raining down more negativity on us all. None of us enjoy coming here anymore. There is little conversation. There is little laughter. There are few smiles. The office is filled with hate and discontent, and the cloud keeps growing.
My friend, Y, and I were talking about it the other day, and we find ourselves physically tired from all the negativity. It’s draining. It’s painful. It’s toxic. We joked about getting some sage and smudging the space, but of course we have smoke detectors…so maybe not. I want to help change the energy. I want to bring peace back to our little group, but I often find myself caught up in the cloud and actually feeding it more. It’s like a sickness we can’t escape. It’s like a fast-moving plague overcoming us, ever worsening, ever growing, ever spreading. I see a major storm coming. I see myself being involved. I have had to bite my tongue too often lately for fear of saying something I shouldn’t. I’m worried about those who won’t bite their tongue. What will come spilling out of their mouths, fueled by anger. What the resulting backlash will be. I see it coming, and I feel helpless to stop it, and all I want to do is crawl back in bed, at home, until the impending storm passes…
…at least I hope it passes…
