Friday, October 18, 2013

work-related injury

Work's Intimacy, a book by Mel Gregg, has been sitting on my shelf at work for many months. I haven't had time to read it. I'm writing about intimacy, but the intimacy of young people's sex and friendships, so while the title initially piqued my interest, I put it aside because the content was not relevant to my current need. But I was keen to read it, so added it to the 'for later' pile. I have been rationalising my reading habits for the good part of a decade now (i.e. forever). When I picked it up this morning and read the introduction, it was a confronting read. This is my life.

Before I went there:
I've been having gut issues again, so last night at R's house I didn't drink, I didn't have chocolate, I sipped mineral water as we watched a film. I felt my stomach grow tense. I'm thinking that my fear of being sick is generative of sickness, because there's no other explainable reason. Other than stress. My to-do list is not shrinking, but growing, and I'm juggling too many roles which I've never been good at. I'm struggling to retain a hold of 'responsible-me'. I'm lying in bed this morning, being held and caressed in ways that should have comforted me, but instead I feel ashamed, embarrassed, pathetic; "I've got to go home." I walk up the hill and my reflection in windows tells me I should have fixed my bed-hair. Everyone is walking to work and nobody is happy. I feel weak and hideous. I make it home and I breathe easier. I run a bath. I make a cup of tea. I say "fuck work" (for now), and take this book to the bath.

It unsettles me more, of course. What I'm reading here is my story and the story of many like me: the 24/7 worker. I'm paid to work 21 hours a week, and often take on other roles/jobs to supplement this. The rest of my week I work on my thesis. Lately, I don't really partition these roles from each other. My to-do list is a mish-mash of all things that I "do", including non work things, like sending birthday cards, or phoning a friend I promised to call weeks ago.

I use social media at work and feel bad for doing so, for communicating 'off topic' with friends. Yet all the list making and emailing I do for work while I'm at home is just par for the course and I don't count those minutes. I can't count those minutes. Minutes thinking about work and what I need to do tomorrow or next week are countless. I would need some brain meter to calculate this, because my mind just goes there, and then it seems necessary to make a note of something or send that email, because otherwise I'd forget, again. So I do what I feel like I have to before going back to the things I'm doing, and it doesn't make sense to calculate time spent thinking, acting, noting, what I should confine to my work life. Besides, who's got time to count minutes. Doing so would mean attempting to divide my practices into many separate strands. But this is not how work is done. If I'm 'working' I'll often find some material useful for studies. If I'm talking about my thesis I'll invariably end up talking about work. If I'm tackling my inbox, then I'm reading and responding to all things, in no distinctive order. My mind wonders between my roles in no logical fashion, but in response to the stimulus I'm getting from colleagues, friends, peers, emails, readings, etc.

I just want to get by. I want to enjoy my work and I want to enjoy time with friends. I do all of this, but I guess at this particular moment, this morning, I'm looking for sanctuary. But instead, I take downtime to look into an uncomfortable mirror. I see myself clearly as that person who struggles to be efficient, competent, and hardworking so that I might forge a position for myself in which I can pay my rent and enjoy my friends, work, family, travels, etc. I'm doing exactly what I never wanted to. I'm working for a living, but I've failed, because I feel more insecure and unsure than when I began this journey.

And I guess this is a blip of a minor existential crisis and it will pass. And I want it to. I feel safer knowing that I will not see these things tomorrow. I feel angry about this system, and enlightened by this book, but hopeful that I can continue to feel connected to the world through my work, which is how it often is. It saddens me that my vision of self-worth looks to my work/study-related outputs, but it does. And so I need to keep going and publishing and progressing so that I can feel good about myself in years to come. And to ensure that my rent is covered. I defer thinking up an escape plan until next year. Because I don't have time for planning right now. My to-do list is already too long.

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