Let It Suck In Slippers

I think we all expected that by this year, the working from home struggle would be over, and yet here it is, persisting well into 2021. At our home we’ve toggled between this being a “quarantine vacation” and this being something that is “happening to us”, neither of which feels healthy, while at the same time, neither of which feels disputable. 

 My husband, Jude, is an engineer who thrives off of routine. While recently staying up later than our pre-pandemic bedtime, he suggested that maybe he should start putting on his work slacks and shoes in the morning. My reaction was visceral, as I watched a very successful and disciplined man, dedicated to his career, suddenly questioning himself because his new normal didn’t align with what he’d always known. For a man whose waredrobe consists of 2 Costco flannels and a few pairs of jeans, I found it profound that he was suddenly placing value on his attire. Perhaps it felt like the last tangible shred of the life he left behind in March. 

 I too was holding myself to unnecessary standards as some type of overcompensation I imagine. I’d wake up, move ten feet away to my desk and then stay there for the remainder of the day. I’d traded in lunch with coworkers and clients for lunch over zoom at my desk while hammering away at the keyboard. I’d often lose all sense of time and forego my plans of making dinner for take-out because I had become consumed by what I was working on.

 Enough things already suck about our quarantine circumstances, why shouldn’t we afford ourselves the opportunity to embrace the unsuck? I reminded Jude that there will be plenty of days in his future when he’ll need to wake up at 4:30 to combat his morning commute with crunchy work clothes on. We need to allow ourselves not just to settle into some of the benefits of being home, but we should seek opportunities to celebrate all that our homes have to offer beyond being our current workplace. Maybe I could deliberately carve out a lunch hour, once a week, to spend with my kids so I could cherish those memories rather than looking back on quarantine as a fog. We felt like we were maybe onto something, and then winter break (or dare I say my winter breakTHROUGH) happened.

 I had a whole week off for winter break. A lot took place during that time, most notably, I mended a relationship that had become quite fractured during quarantine…my relationship with my home. 

 In 2020 “working where I live” slowly progressed into “living where I work”. It takes me back to living in the college dorms. I couldn’t wait to move off of campus, not only because the dorms were like dungeons, but more so because I felt like I never got to leave school since I was living there. Somewhere along the way, working from home started giving me that same, familiar, uninspired feeling of living on campus.

 During the break, the desk in the corner of my bedroom dropped into the background while the fire in the fireplace took center stage. I became obsessed with all thing sourdough. I was cranking out sourdough bread, pizzas, and pancakes. I reacquainted myself with the pleasure of taking a bath. I cleaned our house top to bottom, and I found a drawing book which reconnected me to the therapeutics of sketching. Thanks to Santa, I hopped on a mountain bike for the first time in decades which reignited my love for riding.

 By the end of the week, I wasn’t sighing as I got into bed and looked at my desk. I had reclaimed my home and recognized the importance of keeping that relationship healthy.

 I now have a few months under my belt after the great reset that winter break afforded me. I still fight the feeling of the dorm room and the lack of human connection, but I am deliberately taking my calls outside while I soak up the sun, carving out a periodic lunch hour where I can, and staying up a little later than usual to finish my Netflix binge. I look forward to waking up early with somewhere important to be, but in the meantime, I’ve vowed at least to let it suck with slippers on.