Brave promises and all, my writing resolve collapsed this week under the literal heat, and the more abstract pressure of other projects. While I'm not working 40 hours, I did wind up working six days this week, and it simply threw me off.
As frustrating as it can be to find writing stalled, this week was a reminder that at my other job - my "real job" if we must - I am finding a place in the world that is pretty good, even a place I might want to stay.
We had a visit from our "big bosses" yesterday - the District Manager, Area Director, and the Regional VP. The Regional VP used to be our Area Director, so it's not entirely as forbidding as it sounds, and all three of them think very highly of my boss, our store manager. So there's pressure, but it's not all bad pressure.
But part of the reason my boss is so well regarded is that she takes visits by management seriously, so there was a lot of pressure to clean and organize and put on our best face. It's hard work (in a word, it can be summed up as "bleach"), but if you do it right, you'll know right away it worked. MOstly because... they won't say anything about it.
As bad as the heat was this week - until it broke, day before yesterday, the humidity and high temps felt more like August (and the breaking point included those horrific tornados across Western Massachusetts) - it was relief to go into work and clean just because of air conditioning. But more than that, as much as my boss worried and fretted, we pulled together and worked as a team and achieved the desired result. And we did it with laughter and a positive vibe and a sense of positively pulling together. All of which makes hard work pretty rewarding in itself.
Soon enough, things will change. The heat is broken, life is easier, I am typing this while wearing long pants and not seweating - a nice break from the Memorial Day weekend onward. Someday, maybe even soon, my boss will be promoted to her own District. I may, somewhere down the road become an Assistant Manager and have to leave the comfortable nest of my protective and supportive supervisor. Thinking about the likelihood that this great environment may not last forever, that change is ineveitable, and heat and discomfort return... I remembered to look back on the hard work this week and to appraciate all that we have, that I have, right now, in this moment. These are the days to remember and to appreciate... the sweetest days we'll know.
And that's a good a place as any to take up writing some more.
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