The Second Child - Session 2

(Beep. Music fades in)

I agree; the new workplace looks promising, but I can’t say much more than that. Let me remind you, I can’t see the future. And the end of whatever honeymoon period this is would be in the future. It’s not now. Despite whatever your nerves tell you, you have not ended it just yet either through clumsy actions or not thought out words. And I don’t think you will. Not that I mean to dismiss the reality of living with such anxieties, but I can’t help you with that. You won’t let anyone help you with that. I can only point out what I see, give you this additional information that you will do with what you will. Nothing more. Nothing more useful.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

As I see, office spaces are particularly unique social environments. Partially because, as much as I love my workplace, I genuinely have to wonder how necessary or justifiable office spaces really are. They aren’t like bakeries, forges, or wherever carpenters gather. I won’t deny that those are–or at least were–centers of some sort of community. Then again, they were all family run or at least not tyrannical run in any way, but I offered the past tense of the verb just to cover all my bases. 

My point, however, is that when everyone’s working with their hands directly, when everyone is reaching out towards that center point not because they absolutely have to in a life or death sense but for any other ‘because,’ there is some sort of camaraderie there. Or the chance for it. 

My girlfriend used to work in a bakery, when she was in college. It was owned by this older couple who kept running it because they missed their children and grandchildren. Their children had all moved away from the chaos of that college town, who can blame them, but the couple wasn’t ready to leave just yet. Sure they missed their kids, but that was their home for better or worse. The employees of the bakery filled the void, in a way. And maybe that’s why my girlfriend left with such fond memories of that place and with so many coworkers she still talks to regularly. Or maybe it was the right time in their lives, being that they were all new adults just about to start the rest of their lives. Or maybe it was something else about the workplace–not the work or the management but something I can’t think of right now. Honestly, I don’t think it will ever be easy to sort out all the details, to give simple yeses or nos with something like this.

But I do know that the sort of workplace you find yourself in shouldn’t come with or have that expectation. It’s quite the different beast to the one that my girlfriend knew. So much of the work happening around you doesn’t need to happen there, and rather than reaching your hands into something, you’re figuratively tossing things ahead of you…? The work is distant, I mean, from the tangible. And add to that, everyone is coming to that office with well established lives of their own. There’s still some creation to be had on that front, of course; there always will be. It’s part of the human experience, but with you all firmly on your own paths, there’s no room for everyone else. Maybe some but not everyone.

No matter what your career aspirations are. I think it’s fair to say that, when it comes to your office, you’re just passing through. No matter the specifics.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

And that raises a certain set of questions, doesn’t it? The most relevant to you is how are you is how are you supposed to carry yourself in that situation, one that as I argue is not innate or all that consequential. You’re not the only one who thinks that question is relevant, you know? It’s a question you and many others feel like you need the answer to. For your own sake. Or that’s how you would describe it. Really, you feel as if you need a sense of security that comes from certainty. Certain of a place, of a role, or a duty. There’s an assurance that only a perceived necessity can provide. But necessity can only be derived from an acknowledgment of sorts. You want me to give you that acknowledgement, at least. You’ll take more, but you know, you can work with that. You want me to give you that. You are waiting for me to give you that. I do not know if I can give you that.

I am not infinitely wise. I only know… Well, I wouldn’t say I know better than you or better than anyone. What I know is different. It’s a different perspective. It’s a different set of eyes on a puzzle. If you have one in your hands that you’ve been struggling with for hours, you can turn it for hours, but your pupils will follow the same patterns and habits that they always did. It will be hard for them to break free from shackles you aren’t even aware of. And I have my own set of patterns too. I’m not saying I’m better than you. But they are–and I am–different. Perhaps my habits will be more favorable to the task, but there is always a chance they will be. There is always a chance I can’t help you. Can you accept that chance? Can you handle uncertainty? Even for a moment?

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I do love my job. I’ve been promoted again, at the same office I’ve been working in for four years. And I know there are benefits to finding greener pastures, to moving otherwise, as it were. I will not pretend otherwise. And I will not begrudge those who go down that path. I think it’s the best thing for many. Just not for me. Part of it is my inability to find the initiative or incentive to seek out more, and part of it is my own love of inevitabilities. It is inevitable that I would find some place to stay and rest, given everything else in my life. In the same way that it is inevitable for others to move. 

Because at the end of the day, regardless of what you do, I think you are simply yourself in the office. Especially when you’re told or have led yourself to believe that this place is meant to be some sort of home, an enduring location in your life. I don’t think there’s another part of you that comes out or a persona that rises to the surface. I think you are you: the same collection of habits, hopes, gifts, drawbacks, and so much more. You might want to curate yourself, but unless it’s truly a matter of survival, there’s only so much you can do and then sustain for an extended amount of time. But even then, it’s often only facts of your existence that you hold back. Those patterns of being, as I think of them for no one single word will work, remain. Those patterns of being that you use when you have to relate to the larger world and navigate unfamiliar spaces, those remain. Your restlessness remains.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

In fact, all things considered, it is probably worse now. I don’t have a baseline for my anxieties, before my father died. But when it happens again, when someone else dies, I find myself more anxious. And there is something inevitable about that. I mean, how could you not be? In addition to sadness and so much else, of course. But your world has been turned upside down and apart. The ground beneath you is gone. And then it’s so hard to catch your footing. And sure, you’ve walked difficult ground before. You do it everyday, but that doesn’t make it easier. It’s not the sort of thing that is more bearable with practice. Quite the opposite. That’s the point when the fatigue sets in. 

You won’t let yourself rest, will you?

On your tongue sits any number of practiced speeches about why you can’t, shouldn’t or don’t need to, though. You know the command or admonishment from me is coming. And you are prepared. That does come more easily with practice, I know. Just as this restlessness got better at consoling you practice. It shouldn’t. For your own sake. But it does. It’s good at making you think you are in control, right? Or that you can be. You aren’t there yet. But keep going. Keep striving. Keep pushing. It can happen. It really can. Just keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

But have you asked where the finish line is? From where I stand, I can’t see it, but I can see that it doesn’t exist.

(Music fades out. Beep)

The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?