Why I Sometimes Prefer Work to Home
At work, I am in dress shoes, slimmers and fit tops, mascara and earrings and styling foam. At home, I am bra-less, sagging, and bare foot, often with bed head and tiny spaghetti sauce hand prints on my tank top.
At work, I am a professional, an actor, a career gal. A woman fit nicely into the long box of a specified role. At home, I sometimes find it difficult to determine just who I am. A woman who must multi-task, split between a host of roles and personalities.
At work, I have a classroom with big bright windows, ample closet space, and a nice gentleman who comes to sweep, mop, and vacuum. At home, there are, at the moment, five loads of laundry that are wrinkled and unfolded, curtains drawn because I don’t want neighbors to see the mess, floors that are mopped, swept, and vacuumed whenever the heck we get the chance.
At work, there are angst-filled, eye rolling, smart-mouthed adolescents who are fairly easy to put back in their place. At home, there is a whining, screaming, inconsolable toddler who can’t tell me where it hurts making me feel both exhausted, inadequate and helpless.
At work, I can employ lessons I’ve learned in college. I’ve had training and mentors, support groups, and workshops. I don’t have to generally figure it out on my own. (Note: I do have support groups, and other helpful moms, and parenting books, but they seem so distant and incomprehensible when your darling little one is up until midnight again with a fever and a tantrum and you have to get up at 5:30.)
At work, I don’t have to communicate with my partner about intimate, complicated issues.
At work, I am wildly creative and easily successful. There is no need to question my effectiveness or ability.
At work, there is a structure and a schedule, deadlines, routines, expectations, administration.
At work, the day comes to an end. There are weekends and vacations and a sick bank if I need it.
At work, I am not so at ease with my co-workers that I know that I can snap at them and ignore them and fuss at them and know that they will still love me.
At work, I’m just not my full true self.
I have a break from my problems.
I don’t have time to suffer.
I don’t spend hours in the web of my own, compulsive, questioning mind.
Work is not really work. It is an escape.
Home is work. The most important work. And, I need to spend more time working at it.
And, I will.
(Stay tuned for a post in which I describe why I prefer home to work. Soon. I hope.)
