Like the veggie burgers I left on the counter overnight, I wonder if this can truly go bad?

Now that the country is slowly returning to normal I am realizing what it is that I have been not missing.  I have not missed working in an office.  I have not missed all-day interruptions from and feeling uncomfortable in my own skin.  And whose idea was it to return to work in the summer, when I have to schlepp across the parking lot in 90 degree heat & humidity, to the back of the building, up the stairs, and to the back of the wing while wearing black dress pants and a polyester shirt so I am a nice sweaty ball of breathiness and fatness?  

Sometimes, if nobody is looking, I take the elevator.

We're not even there full time yet.  Two days a week.  One of those days my co-worker is also there next to me, narrating everything she does out loud so that I have to constantly pull my earbuds out and look at her to see if she's talking to me.  Sometimes she is.  Most of the time, she's not.  

I go in on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  She does Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  I was going to make Wednesdays my third day in July and she's going to make Thursdays hers, but that would mean working next to her three days in a row.

"I think I might make Fridays my third day," I told my boss.  I'm sure she knows but it's one of those things that I don't know if I'm allowed to voice.  My boss is five years from retirement, and the co-worker guesstimates she has about three years left.

By September we'll all be there five days a week, so I'm just delaying the inevitable.

Isolation was good for me.  It was a break from societal expectations, of feeling self-conscious.  Now I am feeling submerged right back into the diet & wellness culture with the co-worker saying things like, "do you know how many calories are in those pop-tarts?" and feeling like anything I eat has to be healthy because everyone else is watching.  Are they?  Maybe.  If they are judging, it really only has to do with their own internal food issues and body shame.

I have definitely noticed I am more likely to snack in the office than I am when I am working at home.  I will chalk that up to ADHD.  One of the elements is needing constant stimulation/dopamine hits hence the easily distracted behaviors.  When I am at home and I feel the need to change things up, I go out for a cigarette or vacuum or tidy up the kitchen.  Because I don't really have friends at my new job yet (if I did, I might also be prone to interrupting them with idle chit chat to cure my boredom), I go in my designated snack drawer for pop tarts or granola bars.  

I mean, it's a cheese company for crying out loud.  A lot of my insecurities are self-perceived, I'm sure.  Maybe the first time people see me they might think "woah" and then they just get used to you.  I'm doing the same thing.

Here's a confession:  This draft has been sitting here for ten days and I don't know how I feel about it anymore.  

My job is fine.  It's a beautiful building filled with art and cheese and wellness culture and relaxation rooms and yoga classes will come back and I'll just get used to walking up stairs again by the end of the summer, maybe I'll go walk the walking path outside through the Sunflower Berm, monarch garden and Italian orchard.  I average one gift every time I go to the office.  There's a fucking 2pm Gelato break in the courtyard.  It's actually quite wonderful.  I am slowly starting to act like a human again.  I just don't want to weird people out.

I've been listening to the Breath book and getting my usual excitement at the prospect of a new lifestyle spurred by a single self-help book.  You're supposed to breathe slower.  Or faster.  Depends on what you're trying to do.  But empty your diaphragm.  Don't mouth breathe.  I downloaded a sleep tracking app and paid $20 for the year and it records when you snore in the night but there seems to be a two minute limit and maybe a ten times limit, but just listening to the horrible horrible noises I am making in my sleep are enough to confirm that I should not spend the night in any lover's beds.  Make a hasty exit lest he discovers that I sound like an elephant with a bird stuck in its trunk.  My "occasional" cigarette smoking has been creeping up so I haven't smoked since Sunday (a secret Father's day gift for my pops), bought mouth tape and I have been practicing my slow and empty breaths.

Speaking of father's day, my dad had a heart catherization scheduled for yesterday which turned out all fine, his existing stent was replaced and no new ones, but he was a little anxious on Sunday and I was being an accidental dick and decided that it would be a good time to talk about family history and how everybody died.  He said his mom died because she was too fat and had diabetes.  That's not really a cause of death.  He wanted to say something about my weight, he tried, but I have yelled at him before so I could see him trying to restrain himself.  I almost wish he had so I could point out, "but you aren't as fat as I am, and you have heart and cholesterol issues so maybe it's more hereditary bucko?"  He didn't say it in person but later texted me that he was sorry, and I said I was sorry back.  

I started a dad rant blog post a few weeks ago but didn't post it because I'm glad my dad is alive even if he pisses me off sometimes.  I think I have just come to realize that my dad is just a guy who probably doesn't know everything, he just acts like he does.  I had a thought the other day of, "what if my dad is NOT THE ONLY GOOD MECHANIC that exists in the world?"  I have been under the assumption that they all will screw you over.  I don't know.  My dad provides free labor and parts at cost and he asks what I'm going to do when he dies and I just shrug and say I guess I'll have to get a brand new car with a service package.

Maybe I'll just get a bike.  If I don't have to leave town to visit my friends or family I have no need for a car.  Everything is here.  Even delivery.  

I think I'm ready to switch into the next intuitive eating phase where I don't try to lose weight but I magically do because my brain is fixed and I eat like a bird.  

Well this was enough of a warm up.  I was gifted a mock-moleskine hardcover notebook from work that I have decided is going to be a book for making lists so I need to go start some lists and I bought a women's ADHD workbook because waiting until 2022 to get started seems foolish.  

It's like I have some hopefulness!