Take the Time
December 1st, 2005
An interesting thing has happened since I stopped working.
I started living. I had missed my entire life working like that, and I didn’t even know it. I’d missed everything. Dinners. Cooking. Reading good books. Learning about new things. Knitting. Politics. Shortly before I decided to leave, Adam and I were out to dinner and an ‘emergency’ arose and I had to leave the restaurant immediately, before dinner was served, dragging my poor, starving husband with me.
I missed everything. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I worked a lot. 90 hours a week wasn’t uncommon. I would wake up around 7 a.m., get coffee, and check email. Get caught up in massive onslaught of unhappy people and start answering email. Panic around 8 a.m. that I hadn’t showered and needed to leave. Showered. 8:30 a.m., do one final check of email and leave at 8:45.
Commute. Sit in traffic. Make work-related phone calls. Answer email in traffic, including those that were wondering where the hell I was (WORKING, you idiots!). Arrive at work around 9:30 a.m.
Work. Work. Work. Work. Work. Eat lunch hovered over desk if there was time to actually grab it. Work. Answer phone. Work. Explain to disgruntled stockholders why stock was in the toilet. Work. Get yelled at by angry investors. Work. Answer crazy wild goose chase email by president of division who is wondering why our biggest competitor has more lines in a BusinessWeek column than we do. Work. Contemplate crying. Work.
6:45 p.m. Leave. Make leftover phone calls in car. Check email on the road. Work in car. Get yelled at by Adam for not making it home for dinner. For the third time in as many days.
7:45 p.m. Arrive home. Shove food in gullet. Log on to computer. Check email. Answer flurry of IMs from boss. Work. Write miscellaneous press releases that I didn’t have time for during the day because of Angry Investors.
9:30 p.m. Go for run. Shower. Read email in-between the two events.
10:30 p.m. go to bedroom. Answer emails.
Midnight. Proof release and send off. IM with boss one last time.
Sleep fitfully due to vast amount of terrifying work hanging over head, not to mention thinly veiled threat that job was precarious and could be eliminated at any time.
7:00 a.m. Weep at sound of alarm.
THIS IS WHAT I DID FOR EIGHT YEARS. I am not exaggerating. And what’s worse, this was on a normal day. When it got “really busy,” it was worse. I would work straight through the weekend, eating dinner at the office and managing phone calls in my pajamas because there wasn’t time for the luxury of a shower. No fucking WONDER I have anxiety issues, for God’s sake. And it’s a fucking Christmas miracle that I’m married and that my husband didn’t leave me (he considered it more than once, I’m sure).
I’m so lucky to have been given the opportunity (thank you, Adam) to get off and actually live. I’ve been cooking. Interviewing for normal jobs. Working on my book and thinking about what’s next. Exercising in a gym like a normal person. I’m spoiled, I know, and my husband is nothing short of fucking amazing. Amazing for letting me do this, and for putting up with me all of those years. My salary, albeit lovely, was NOT WORTH IT.
If you see any of yourself in the above, please stop. Take out a loan, go back to school, move to an area that’s more affordable. Because you have no idea how little living you’re actually doing until you start.
*The now-defunct but wonderful Freddy Jones Band
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
7 Comments Add your own
1. WinterWheat | December 2nd, 2005 at 9:11 am
EXCELLENT post. Too true. It’s outrageous how much time we spend at work, especially when you consider that most of us don’t get our emotional needs met there and may not even LIKE the people we work with.
I do obesity-related research and am amazed at how the prevailing view of the cause of the American obesity “epidemic” is our laziness and overconsumption. Yes, we overconsume, but that’s only a proximal cause of obesity. The underlying cause of overconsumption isn’t laziness. We live in a culture where we abhor rest. Too little sleep and too much stress raise cortisol and contribute to the accumulation of belly fat. Denying oneself the opportunity to rest and be with loved ones leads to overeating as a way to recharge and refresh (refreshments anyone?) when sleep and quiet reflection are not considered viable options.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people in my field brag about “needing” only 4 hours of sleep a night and seen them raise their eyebrows in theatrical judgment when I “admit” to needing 8 or 9. “Must be nice,” they say, “Some of us have more important things to do.” Well, as your post pointed out, not really. We all have exactly 24 hours in a day. Is it really more important to spend that time pleasing your boss, someone with whom you only have a contractual relationship? I mean, how sad. I long to live in a culture where siestas, 3-hour meals, aimless walks, and 5 weeks of paid vacation yearly are the norm. Americans aren’t sick and fat because we’re lazy and undisciplined; we’re sick and fat because we demand inhumane things of ourselves, and our bodies rebel.
I realized this on a personal level when it occurred to me that the only time I really feel emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically whole and content is when I’m sick. That’s the only time I give myself permission to live fully in the present and to rest without apology to others. The irony is that I haven’t allowed myself to use pregnancy the same way. I’m still slavedriving and flagellating myself for not getting as much done as I “should” be. Ridiculous.
Clearly, you’ve given me something to discuss with my therapist. Thank you Jonna. (And kudos to you for reclaiming your life as a PERSON, not a WORKER.)
2. Kate | December 2nd, 2005 at 10:11 am
Excellent post and also, excellent comment from Kris, too.
Isn’t it weird how when you are in something so stressful you think you are coping with it, but once you get some distance it’s like the stress from it comes to the surface and all of the sudden you’re feeling all the anger, anxiety, worry, etc that you couldn’t afford to let yourself feel before?
I don’t think you’re spoiled, AT ALL. I doubt if Adam sees it that way either. Because doing what he is doing is what married people who love each other do. Because you guys are on the same team. And a burnt out resentful overworked member of that team isn’t much fun.
So relax, take some time, and try not to feel guilty about it. Don’t be so eager to jump back into a job too soon. Give yourself a break, you def. deserve it, Hon. Love, KM
3. Jamie | December 2nd, 2005 at 12:07 pm
I’m dying right now. The Freddy Jones Band is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITES. One of my sorority sisters was a cousin of one of the bandmembers and we did a concert fundraiser with them in college – I thought I was going to die of happiness. I got to meet them and gush and basically be a total groupie asshole. It was fabulous.
4. PFG | December 2nd, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Just gotta chime in and say “Rarin’!” (that’s authentic frontier jibberish for “darn tootin’)
I came to a similar realization when I was taken down by Lyme disease a few years back. That I had forsaken too much of my life in order to better accomodate a socially acceptable mold of industrious, achieving adult that would never ever really fit me.
Not to say I won’t or don’t want to achieve my professional goals, but that I needed to rethink and temper those goals with the other ones that make me who I am. I’m still working on the integration and it isn’t easy (as winterwheat’s discussion of the glamourized denial of self highlights), but it is important.
Great post.
5. whinger | December 5th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
I am just so happy for you!
So happy.
And also a little embarrassed that in a 90-hour work week you had time for a run, and I whine that I just can’t find the time!
I am a loser (in just this area), and you are wonderful, for more reasons than this.
6. Anonymous | December 9th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
J, this speaks to me so much right now… I feel so great when I can be alone and just… puttering, making stuff, reading, arranging things, writing, etc… and so horrible and stressed out when I’m using the bulk of my day to further someone else’s agenda, which is all jobby-work ever really is to me. I can’t even enjoy the things I am supposed to enjoy; I just feel imprisoned. I am really changing my life around this year and I am cautiously overjoyed. I feel like nothing I’ve done in the last few years has been really soulful, really me. I am grateful that I may be able to take a haitus and regroup and dig in! love, thalia
7. katiedid | December 15th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
Adam is just as clever and funny as you are! I didn’t know, just took your word on it in the past. You two are very very funny smart people: I would love to be at a dinner party with you guys.
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