Things are changing. Yesterday was the first snow of the season. My grandmother is now on Facebook (hi, Grandma!) It’s almost 20-freaking-11.
On the one hand, work has been changing in a good way. I finally feel settled, and I’m being given actual work to do. On the slow days I take on the additional role of unofficial DJ in the lab, choosing Pandora stations such as “Radar” by Britney Spears or the incredibly inappropriate “Walk that Walk” by Durrough to rock out to. AKA pipette to. I feel like I’m making friends at work. Three months into the job and I feel like I belong.
It’s the time after work that has been difficult.
I thought coming home to Chicago (err, the suburbs) would be enough. When I was at school I always counted the days until break, feeling that sense of relief when I got off the plane at O’Hare. It was friggin’ cold, but I was home. And therefore I was happy. The simple reason for this was relativity. At home, I had absolutely nothing to do. At school, I was under a constant and extreme amount of pressure that never let up. The only way to rid myself of it was to push through it. Study harder. Stay in on the weekends. Literally never sleep.
But things are different now. Regardless of my love for the windy city, I’m still at this loss for something to work towards, for something to feel connected to and to keep me motivated.
Two Fridays ago I arrived at work at my usual 7:15 AM. The first thing I noticed was a muffin sitting on my desk from my co-worker with a note, “Thanks for all your help these few weeks!” I was touched, and because I was surprised that she was already there, I joined her in the lab. Two hours later and without a break to sit down, our team met for our daily morning meeting. As the meeting progressed at a snail’s pace, I began to feel nauseous, overheated. I tried to shake out my legs and, not quite intelligently, do a wall-sit, but nothing was helping. I was blacking out. I turned to my coworker and blurted, “I’mdizzyIhavetoleave” and ran into the office to my desk. Not even relieving my legs worked, and as the lights grew dimmer I put my hands on my desk and my face on my keyboard and
Passed the F out.
Everything was black and my head was spinning. I couldn’t make out anything except blaring Lady Gaga, which was definitely not playing in our office. My head was throbbing when I came to, and lifting my head from the pool of drool on my keyboard I had to remind myself where I was: at work. And that I had just passed out. The thought that came next? I feel like shit, and I need food. So like a champ I scarfed the muffin still sitting on my desk in under 30 seconds.
I know fainting isn’t the biggest deal, and I’ve fainted before, but in those circumstances I had either been extremely dehydrated or had just had a nasty bout of food poisoning. This was different- I felt perfectly fine that morning and the dizziness came so instantaneously that it worried me.
I act like I don’t know why it happened, but I do. And I know I’m not alone in my actions. I’ve talked to countless friends who are doing exactly what I’m doing, and that’s a whole hell of a lot. When I started to really, truly realize that after work I was more or less alone and had nothing to do, I started to fill my time with anything and everything: gutting and cleaning out my room, running upwards of 7 miles, hauling ass an hour into the city for maybe a 45 minute get together. I’m moving. I’m running myself into the ground. Because if I don’t, I’ll face being alone and what comes along with that. That silence can be deafening.
Thanksgiving could not have come at a more perfect time. I saw friends (let’s call them family) who I haven’t seen since the summer, and it was the first time in months that I’ve felt deeply satisfied. I didn’t realize how much I needed that. I didn’t realize how much I missed Coop muffins and thesis-ing, putting up pictures in tandem, sitting in Lincoln Edmunds until 3 AM on a Friday with periodic 20 minute breaks to go to Walker. I missed diet cokes and the OO’s. I missed photobooth. It’s not what I was doing, but who I was with.
And just like that they were gone, and the work-week returned. This past week, however, when I again started to think (and worry) about that little thing called my future, I didn’t respond immediately. This time I sat with the feeling. I didn’t make excuses for it, didn’t silence it with television or music or running. I sat with that cacophonous, out of control feeling until it passed. Which, granted, took a G.D. three hours, but it finally did. And I’m glad I didn’t try a quick-fix remedy. I’m not about to put my body in jeopardy just because at the moment I’m in transition. Aren’t we all? This isn’t supposed to be easy, and neither is building a career or going to graduate school. I’ll never get anywhere if I run from every temporary moment of anxiety.
So now I think I’ll take it one step at a time. Maybe I shouldn’t attempt to figure out my entire future in one sitting. Maybe I should just be thankful that I’ve at least, once, stopped running and instead met the stillness head-on.
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