This isn't my toilet paper.
Neither is this my iron or my pillow or my coffee or my time zone. Nothing here seems to align with my daily expectations, and it's kind of driving me slowly toward insanity.
I need my creature comforts to feel like a comfortable creature, y'all.
Still, my would-be roommate actually has family in this city and a new grandbaby, so she's staying with them, and I've got all this strange hospitality to myself. I have flung my things all over, and I have canceled housecleaning services for the duration. (Except, for some reason, they have to come in on the fifth day, no matter what.Odd.) I have walked around with nothing but a towel, and nobody has been the wiser.
Yesterday, I pulled up and allowed some friendly young man to commandeer my vehicle, leaving me with nothing but a square of paper to reclaim it. I stood there with my luggage and stared into the fog and snow and wondered if there maybe was a mistake about my being here. The powerful, domineering swell of self-doubt began to creep into every pore. I don't belong here. There must be a mistake. Am I educated enough? Do I know enough about our company's culture? Will anybody recognize me as any kind of authority in my field while I'm here? How many hostiles? How many friendlies?
Why am I thinking about this in terms of war?
But...I can do all this. And even more than this. This is no big deal.
And the little things don't matter. In a couple of weeks the strange traffic and the weird night noises and the somewhat familiar faces of the folks who work in our company will soon become routine, and I won't think a thing of it.
And then it will be time to go home.
Neither is this my iron or my pillow or my coffee or my time zone. Nothing here seems to align with my daily expectations, and it's kind of driving me slowly toward insanity.
I need my creature comforts to feel like a comfortable creature, y'all.
Still, my would-be roommate actually has family in this city and a new grandbaby, so she's staying with them, and I've got all this strange hospitality to myself. I have flung my things all over, and I have canceled housecleaning services for the duration. (Except, for some reason, they have to come in on the fifth day, no matter what.Odd.) I have walked around with nothing but a towel, and nobody has been the wiser.
Yesterday, I pulled up and allowed some friendly young man to commandeer my vehicle, leaving me with nothing but a square of paper to reclaim it. I stood there with my luggage and stared into the fog and snow and wondered if there maybe was a mistake about my being here. The powerful, domineering swell of self-doubt began to creep into every pore. I don't belong here. There must be a mistake. Am I educated enough? Do I know enough about our company's culture? Will anybody recognize me as any kind of authority in my field while I'm here? How many hostiles? How many friendlies?
Why am I thinking about this in terms of war?
But...I can do all this. And even more than this. This is no big deal.
And the little things don't matter. In a couple of weeks the strange traffic and the weird night noises and the somewhat familiar faces of the folks who work in our company will soon become routine, and I won't think a thing of it.
And then it will be time to go home.
