Choosing Chicago.

On coming home from long-term travel.

Going back to work on my first day.

 

It’s been over a month since I left Athens. Stopped traveling. It’s been over a month since I came back home to Chicago, since I started back at my new old job.

And it’s been over three years since I’ve been back in Chicago and working “permanently.”

The transition back into work has been easy. Too easy. I went back to a position I held for five years, so I already knew it inside and out. There was no grace period, no training period, no adjustment period, I was just thrown in. So much so that no one even bothered to re-teach me how to use the phones or tell me a password to get into my voicemail. They just assumed I knew everything.

Work has been busy. Last week I sent out 34 marketing emails. Trust me, that is a lot. I work every day past 6. Work through lunch most days. Check into my email even when I’m out of my office.

But, you know what? I kind of love it.

 

 

Yes, some days I miss the carefree days of having no other responsibilities outside of drinking a bucket of rum and coke on a Thai island. Yes there are days I wish I was back learning salsa in Colombia. I even miss those days I spent struggling through India.

But I love my job and I care about my company. And I love sitting at my desk every day laughing too hard with my coworkers in my cubicle group. I like the sense of accomplishment I feel daily. I like feeling like I’m being productive.

Out of work, though, it’s another story.

After spending 24 hours in transit, 24 hours awake, I arrived home from Athens at 6pm on a Monday, ordered takeout Chinese, and then passed out around 9. I woke up cheery and bright the next morning and set off for work, ready to take on the world. And that first day I felt great, alive, prepared.

 

Chinese takeout: my first meal back home.

 

And then I just crashed and haven’t been able to dig myself up again.

I never really gave myself time to adjust and now all I want to do after work is come home, lock myself in my room, and binge watch Netflix. In the last month and a half I’ve watched several seasons of several bad reality shows. I finally watched the last season of How I Met Your Mother (and all I can say is what the fuck?). I watched the first two seasons plus of Breaking Bad before I had to step away because it was making me too nervous. I watched the first three seasons of New Girl and bawled like a girl the whole time.

And since I watch Netflix on my laptop I can’t even pretend that I’m working while watching it. So my outside responsibilities, and my blog, have been suffering. A lot. (If you noticed, I only posted one post last month. One. That’s never happened before.)

I didn’t feel any “reverse culture shock” coming home. The hardest part was remembering that I could flush my toilet paper, as I’d become accustomed to throwing it in the trash bin. But I spend so much time bouncing around and have spent so much time coming and going from Chicago that nothing feels different anymore. It all just is. But I have been tired and overwhelmed.

I have 12-days of Christmas vacation coming up which I hope to use to finish some neglected freelance work, catch up on my blog, catch up on life, and look for an apartment.

Though I’ll probably just binge-watch Gilmore Girls.

 

 

This is how I live right now: in a pile of laundry.

Work perk: free opera.

 

It started snowing (snowing!) soon after I got home. So my choice was to either quit my job and fly back to Thailand or buy a new winter coat. I settled on the coat.

 

These two got married. But more on that later.

 

Before those two got married, there was a bachelorette party that involved whirleyball and bowling.

 

I watch a lot of improv. Because if I didn’t I would never see my friend Mat.

 

All I crave all the time is Indian food.

 

My department at work is actually a lot of fun and we do a lot together. Like have pot lucks.

 

And go out to Headquarters Beercade to play video games and eat pizza.

 

And have a holiday cookie exchange.

 

Thanksgiving happened. No one wants to cook Thanksgiving dinner but me. And I don’t have an apartment to host it in or a car to shop and transport. So we went to a buffet. And I ate too much everything. And my nephews ate too much chocolate fountain marshmallows.