Perspective, or lack thereof

Last week was my first five-day workweek in about two months. With wedding stuff and the honeymoon and holidays and retreats and compressed workweeks and whatnot, I hadn't worked a full five days straight since, I believe, the very beginning of October. So I think it's fair to say that I was dreading it. But in actuality, it flew by. I was impressed, and began looking forward to the next few weeks when the workdays will be fewer.

But, clearly I counted my weeks when only one had hatched, because this week has been the longest EVER. It doesn't help that my new computer has some sort of hardware problem that causes software to crash and the computer itself to freeze and/or not wake up, and that I spent an hour and a half on the phone with Dell last night, getting transferred from one useless customer service rep to another and then getting mysteriously disconnected every time--yes, EVERY TIME--that I was allegedly going to get to talk to a manager or anyone else the slightest bit useful, until finally I called back after getting disconnected and was told that it was after business hours and I'd have to call again the next day, i.e. today. That kind of experience really puts a damper on your evening, and I think my blood pressure is still twice its normal range from the experience. And now I have calling them and going through the same thing again on my list of things to do today, and I really, really, really don't want to.

Today is our office holiday party, and though it's a fun and somewhat swanky affair (cocktail dress, open bar, all different cuisines including sushi, raffle for real prizes like free plane tickets, dancing with a good DJ, etc.), I'm feeling somewhat downtrodden by it. For one thing, I was torn between wearing jeans to work since it's Friday and therefore casual, and then changing into a nice dress for the party, and just wearing an in-between dress to work and going to the party dressed in that. I went for the latter and I'm wearing a purple wrap dress that normally I like, but I feel so beaten and exhausted that I really wish I were just wearing jeans and a sweater. But then I would have to go to the work bathroom and change for the party like a teenager and I don't think I'd have the energy for that either. I think I'm lacking perspective on this week.

On the other hand, I think I'm gaining perspective on the past. Yesterday I was having a conversation with the lovely Each about ridiculous past relationships, and this friend of mine from when I was living in Senegal came up, and I realized that you know what? I kept a journal fastidiously while I was there, so much so that I filled it up and had to purchase another one. And then I came home and took a creative nonfiction writing class and I wrote so much about Senegal, which was obviously just me processing through the experience. And then I graduated college and moved to DC and started a job and met Torsten and changed jobs and got married and in the midst of it all, my experience in Senegal kind of got shoved to the back of my mind.

But in discussing it yesterday, I realized that I had a lot of really crazy experiences there, and that maybe I'm in a place where writing them out again from a more distanced place might make for a very interesting, cathartic experience. So I think I'm going to do that, privately, just for myself. I started yesterday and it was so interesting, looking back at all the stuff that happened while I was there from this distanced vantage point.

It was such a new experience for me and changed me in so many ways, and it's taken these four years of distance to start understanding that. And I imagine in another forty years I'll look back and think of even more ways that the whole experience affected me. So having this kind of tangible subject to write about, just for myself... it's a nice feeling. It's good to have things to write other than the blog. Not that I don't love the blog. But private outlets are good too.