notes on working from home

I am starting to understand how Jack felt in the lodge… red rum, etc

Hey, stranger.

This morning I went to my usual 7am pilates class, the air sharp and awash in the blueness of winter. I’ve been going to pilates early before the workday, otherwise I’ll go insane working from home. There are a lot of things I do to keep myself from going insane: having an uninterrupted hour each morning to have my coffee, working out, washing my hair daily, eating enough vegetables, leaving the house. The list goes on.

There are advantages and disadvantages to working remotely and those can be pros-and-cons’d to the ends of the earth. But as of right now I work from home and do my best not to go insane and ignore the fact that the scales tip, in my case, slightly towards cons. When 3pm hits and I have a headache from my alone-ness, I shut my eyes tightly and wait for the hour to pass. I’ve read 87 books so far this year, I’ve listened to Fiona Apple’s discography 15 times through. I’ve written things and made things and went for 2 hour walks. I’ve gone to jazz nights and wine bars and line dancing and random events to feed the beast that is my annoyingly ever present mind. But winter is approaching and although I may be a December baby and a Capricorn down to my very toes, hell hath no fury like a girl with seasonal affective disorder on the first day of fall.

It’s become glaringly obvious to me that the world likes to place cocktails of challenging circumstances in your hands every once in a while that are perfectly tailored to test you. For me currently, it’s remote work when I am so desperate to be a part of the world. Remote work when I am notoriously skilled at ruminating and daydreaming. Remote work when the season where everyone is less inclined to be out is quickly approaching. I need the physical reminders that I am a person, that I am here and this is happening and this is life, right now.

For a long time, I came back to this poem by Alduos Huxley anytime spiders came crawling into my brain.

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.”

Alduos Huxley, Island

I found the idea of walking lightly along the waters of my life, stoic, intriguing. That it might solve my too-in-my-head-ness or my anxiety over never getting to experience what life is like without a screen or my repulsion to boredom, seems too good to be true. The concept is so other to me, so unlike my normal wiring, that I tried my hand at it for months. The fact is, when I repeated Huxley’s words to myself and moved through life untethered, unmoored, I am indeed less bothered but feel less myself. After all, it is my complete devotion to thinking about everything, everywhere, all the time that has shaped my identity so absolutely in my mind. I know who I am because I’ve thought by about it, intensely. Obviously.

A few years ago, sitting at the park eating croissants, my friend Rachel listened to this same rant right after I had moved to Seattle and was drowning in programming assignments, glued to my computer all day. She listened with slight crinkle in her brow that deepened as I kept going. She looked at me and said, “Evie, I love you but I think you spend too much time in your head.” I had laughed and laughed and laughed because it was true and because it scared me and because I didn’t know how to change.

This idea of untethering yourself, floating above the detritus that collects and swirls below you, seems like the smart thing to do. To follow your instinct, to not over analyze, to stop thinking about yourself and your experience so goddamn much— what a lovely thing that would be. When I try, my stomach lurches in the same way it does when a rollercoaster drops, the weightlessness. I am afraid to be buoyant and unseen. The heaviness of how intense I take life grounds me, is the only thing that makes me feel present. Taking things lightly feels too dangerous, like big moments might pass me by without truly feeling all of it. I often wonder if I was around people all day, in a city big enough that we’re all slightly on top of each other, would that moor me? Would I then be able to let my mind tread lightly while my body anchored, is seen and recognized by people who know me?

I try not to write about things that are negative because I consider myself to be one of the luckiest girls in the world. There was a period where I would have given anything to have the job, the life, that I have now. But, dear reader, the fact is that I never wanted to become a writer because I was terrified of such a lonely job. But here I am, an engineer, working a lonely job. I ran down a path I thought was opposite just to end up at the same end. My job is creative and it’s fun and I adore the work but when I see my friends and they ask how work is, I can only think of whatever obsession my brain has latched onto that week. Each week I feel like I’ve ran a marathon in my mind and yet can count on one hand the people who’ve actually seen me. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did it ever fall? If a girl works alone and no one is there to witness her, does she matter? I’ve read 17 books this month trying to keep my mind occupied. 17! I’ve worked upside down, hanging off the couch. I’ve worked at my desk and at coffee shops and laying on the floor and on the treadmill and with my feet in the air. I’ve read Island a million times and tried to remind myself not to think so damn much. I’ve tried to keep myself busy. But in the end I’m writing to you with the truth. I do not know what will make me feel like a real, living person. I don’t know how a person should be. Am I doing it wrong?

So anyway, I’m writing this with my feet near my pillow and my head hanging off the bed for some scenic variety. I will continue to try and tread lightly and get out of the house with the same resigned energy I have when taking my dog out to pee, and maybe I’ll figure it out soon.

xoxo,

Evie