There are days that just feel messy. I've discovered that these days are often directly related to other aspects in your life. For me, if my house is messy or even my desk at work, days have a tendency to feel messier than days where my house or desk is clean.
Sometimes, this can be as simple as just picking up the dog toys and chewsticks that are littered across the living room floor, of wiping the IKEA coffee table that, being dark 'wood', shows every speck of dust which, if you'd have thought about it before you bought it, would have been left at IKEA in favour of a lighter coloured table or, even, just running the vacuum cleaner around.
Messy days usually begin with you leaving the house in the morning ruing the fact that you don’t have time to clean a little. You should have done it last night but you either didn't feel like it or you didn't really realize how messy it was until the sunlight shines through the morning window.
No matter how much you tidy your desk at work in compensation, it's already a messy day. Your outfit doesn't feel like it comes together. Your hair feels messy even though it probably looks fine. You just feel….blah.
Today was a blah day. I tried to make it a non-blah day but things seem to be working against me. It was beautiful outside. It's a perfect late summer day even though, technically, it's not late summer. It's sunny and warm but not hot. There's a perfect breeze. It's the perfect day to just enjoy August.
Part of my blahs are probably due to the fact that I was stuck inside. Being at work, that's sort of a given. Except, in our area of the office, it isn't. As I've mentioned, I'm literally the only person without a laptop. Everyone else has Mac laptops. I don’t care about the Mac part. I would like a laptop though. Most of my department has rotated the tables outside for the past two days, working in the sunshine on their laptops. Me…I have no choice but to sit at my desk and bemoan the fact that I'm stuck in my cupboard under the stairs.
I sometimes feel like Harry Potter and how he was treated by the Dursleys. He got all of Dudley's cast-offs and was treated like he didn't really belong. As melodramatic as it sounds, that's how I feel at work. My coworkers, while nice to me, don't always seem to know what to do with me. My boss, especially, is more awkward around me than anyone. I'm not sure why. I try to be friendly. I think I'm just a square peg in a round hole, to borrow a cliché.
Most of the time, I don’t care that I have my dinosaur of a desktop. On sunny days, it's hard not to have the freedom to go outside. The ridiculously logical, expectant part of me wishes my boss would have the awareness to realize that I'm stuck inside but as always, he's oblivious. I usually have to tell him in which case he stutters and seems alarmed that I've pointed it out. I tend to be quite direct with him. Sometimes, I think he prefers that and other times, I think I surprise him.
Ah well. I get a lot done in the office when everyone else is outside. At least it's quiet.
Of course, my coworker proved that you don't necessarily have to have a laptop to 'work' outside as evidenced by her 2.5 hour meeting out there today. When I came back from lunch, she was out again. This time she took her laptop.
During lunch, I thought I'd get over my blahs by cleaning a little and moving myself out of my messy day. Then I proceeded to spill my soup all over the counter. It's the type of soup that's a rough puree so it wasn't too easy to clean up. I ended up not getting time to clean and not getting as much to eat as I'd planned. Thus, my messy day didn't feel any less messy when I went back to work.
When I got back to the office, I saw that my coworker had made a run to a fast-food restaurant that I've been wanting to try for ages. She knew I've been wanting to try it. She'd asked all the people who'd been working outside with her if they wanted anything and so it became a lunch run. I missed out.
It was my own fault. I get this. It's a choice I make by running home to the puppies at lunch. It doesn't mean that it doesn't make me feel a little left out. Given that there's already very much a social clique in the office, being reminded you're on the outside is always rough, even when you know it.
Still, I decided to ignore it and concentrate on a better afternoon. It ended up not being too messy unless you count the fact that, once again, I managed to dunk the one working earbud on my ipod into my coffee cup. Again.
I don't know how I manage to do this. I honestly don't. But, in the past year, I must have done it at least five times. I think what happens is that my coffee cup always has a few dregs in it. When I take off my earbud, I accidentally fling it and it lands in the coffee mug. I usually don't realize until I go to put it in and I realize that it's wet, sticky and smelling of cold coffee.
To top things off, it was the kind of day where you can't really organize your time. You get calls, instant messages and emails that need to be answered right away. I got pulled into a short discussion with my boss as to a future project which, actually, isn't a future project but something I've been doing all along but he didn’t know it.
So, all in all, despite my best efforts, today was undoubtedly a messy day. The trouble with messy days is they can lead to a dark, uncertain spiral which leads to a little lack of self-satisfaction. I'm not going to let today do this although I can feel the tugging at my subconscious anyway. Self-doubt is always easier on messy days.
Still, while I can't control some things in my life, I can control others. I can control the prick of hurt I feel when I realize that I've been left out of the lunch run yet again. I can control the bitterness that seeps in when I realize I'm stuck at my desktop. I can control my frustration by reminding myself it's just a job. These aren't easy things to do but I can do them. At the very least, I can clean my house and my desk. I'm not sure if I believe in the whole concept of Feng Shui but there's definitely something to the idea of tidying up your environment and having it make you feel like you're in control of your life.
So, tonight, I shall clean and organize and I know that tomorrow will be a better day. At the very least, I hope it won't be a messy day.
I just need to be more careful with my earbuds and my soup.
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