Buying Time

It is nearly the last day in February, and it is six degrees below zero, that is not counting the windchill. That, I don’t want to know. It has been the longest coldest winter that I can remember and we are driving ice packed tires over ice packed roads and daily see cars that went too fast, turned too close or just sadly hit that patch of ice and ended up in various conditions of crash. My nerves are fraught and I am tired. We are still expected to show up for work, to buy food and to go about our business. We don’t add up the time that we have lost to slow traffic, to needing more sleep, or to making ourselves another cup of tea to warm ourselves up. We are in this gogogo world and I’m just tired. We are not supposed to say we are tired, we are supposed to be happy and filled with passion for our work and our lives, and if we are not, well, just don’t bring it up. 

So, I’m adding another layer to my life in trying to keep it together, when I don’t feel very together. Who to tell the truth to? When to smile, and when not to? Why care about my hair when I’m just going to wear a hat that smooshes it? Why care about my clothes, when I’m wearing long-underwear, yet again? I want to just carry a blanket around, really, and have a hot toddy instead of a hot tea. I am waiting, waiting, waiting for spring.  I am angry when a co-worker tells me well, we are not out of this yet. I want to scream, let me have my fantasy that it will warm up in a couple of days, and what are you now, a meteorologist? But I don’t, I smile, she has more power than me, sits higher up in the hierarchy, and my place is precarious enough. Smile, smile, smile; tiredness and anger have no place in the workplace. They are not just buying our time.