The Return...

The Return to work


5.10
5.17
5.23
5.29
5.31......Fuck! Need to be up and showered, dressed, let the dog out, make lunches and leave for 6 so I can go lift cash to pay for my weekly work wagon ticket.

I run through the routine for the first time in two weeks, wishing under my breath I was going to a better, more fun job.  The last few days have felt like being on holiday from a prison sentence.  I'm kind of looking forward to getting to work though on second thoughts, mainly for the YouTube time, the coffee and Yorkie biscuit before work starts.  Mornings rarely get more exciting than this, especially Mondays.  However! Today I feel like I am wide awake, I have that feeling of being well rested, being switched on to the day.  Weird considering I only slept 4 hours the night before.

I let Bailey out for his morning pee & Two’s, he is an awesome dog, like a little ball of fun every time I see him or let him out, never fails to amuse me.  I feel bad, I am in too much of a rush to run through his usual training regime today, but he won't mind that he doesn’t have to jump through hoops to get his breakfast this morning.  Rushing about again, I realise I have left the wallet in the car and its half way up the road.  Running like a loony, I throw myself up the garden stairs and thud my way to the car.  The street is empty and quiet, only accented by the sound of my size 10 flat feet in Batman converse. 

"I'm nearly 30" I tell myself.

Nearly 30 and rocking a pair of busted, limited edition Converse Batman sneaks, I fucking love myself sometimes. 

"It doesn’t get much better than this" I say to myself with a slight chuckle.

Wallet in my pocket, I plug in my headphones and listen to some Chimp Spanner, catch up on Gizmodo, jump on the bus and next thing I know it I am at work an hour before most are due to start arriving.  As I cross the road I nearly bump into one of the lecturers I sometimes speak to, reminding myself that I don’t like speaking to anyone first thing in the mornings.  I quickly trod past while crossing with my headphones still in and stroll on in to work. 

As I walk into the derelict reception area, a slow neoclassical chord progression swells into my ears like warm silky caramel.  For a moment, my perception of the long and empty corridor stretched out before me, is transported to another place.  Feelings of positivity laced with an awareness of being, fills my chest and flows through me.  I feel able to take on anything.  I sidestep old thought patterns that lay in wait like wisps of smoke as I walked the worn and trodden path of carpet tiles that lead straight to my desk.  My alertness is a catalyst for the positivity I am currently feeling.  I am all too aware of the greyness that hovers around my peripheral vision.  It succeeds in frightening me to my core.  In my absence I have forgotten its existence, awareness of it is it’s only weakness.  It feels like a snake being ushered back into the skin it has just shed.  My eyes begin to feel like they are being slowly forced shut from someone way off in the distance.

I don’t want to be here.  This is not what I want from my work/career life.  I MUST NOT let the greyness consume me again.

As my colleagues slowly emerge one by one, I avoid the familiar wisps that slowly trail in behind them as they try to creep into my bubble of fresh awareness that surrounds me.  Abraham, a silly man.  A man who would test the patience of a saint.  So consumed by his own misery that he permeates an odour of confusion and awkwardness around his little corner of disdain at the back of the office.  I am utterly frustrated by the affect he has on me.  I recognise this now, aiming to detach myself from any frustration or annoyance caused by him, I greet him with a friendly “good morning” and smile & nod as he tells me some pointless story I can’t help but find utterly boring. 

Deborah, my supervisor.  Harmless and neutral to my current state of being.  Genuine in her enquiry of how my time off was, I skirt round any in depth detail and just give the highlights, just stopping myself short of confessing how I plan on conquering this office. 

Leanne, a person prone to over exaggeration.  The one person in your office that has been and done it all before and ten times better than everyone else.  She also asks with a hint sincerity.  Again I give the highlighted version and continue on with the daily drudge of the mail routine.
 
This is the part of the job I enjoy.  I am free to wander as I deliver to all my locations, a great setting for thinking and discovering ideas and bumping into the more desirable minds of my working life.  I can also flesh out ideas, transferring them to my phone when I am out of sight of prying eyes.

Again, I try and avoid the old mind set patterns as I relive the route of my daily deliveries after being set free from them for 2 weeks. 

I am nearing the end of my day.  I’ve been buzzing from the thought of finally moving towards the goal I have long talked myself out of.  Running through the scenarios I may have the chance to face with a creative programming mind after getting balls deep in the world of software development.  I crave the challenge and for today I have been travelling back to old memories of high school and college when I first got the itch but never really scratched.  Again resurfacing the slight regret of not going into the 4 years of computer game software development, I could now be sitting on that degree, or at least at the level I wish to be at as opposed to now.

As it nears 4 o’clock, I feel the day catching up with me.  I’m almost asleep at my keyboard and looking forward to a kip on the bus home. 

I feel this stream of creativity coming to an end, so I shall end on very important note.

I will not let the greyness consume me, I am the master of my own destiny and will not let my spirit rest until I am where I want to be.