The Drive

There is this concertina wire between us in the car. But it’s that time: fading of the golden light and it’s hard to focus on the darkness between us when the the sun is at the window, rubbing its nose against it.

Directly ahead, up upon a tall building is a vertical glass panel, rendered aureate blind like a path to the sun has opened up. Like another world looks into this one. I squint my eyes, the flash is at the threshold of unbearable and beautiful. A mix of both.

In my right side-view mirror, the sun is a mellow coin of red-gold, turning everything in reverse to a fond memory. The cars, the electric poles, the road, the buildings, and above it shimmering down in sheafs is glitter of another time. The traffic behind me is nostalgia and longing.

Then a quick glance at the rear-view mirror and the left side-view mirror, along with the right side-view mirror. I almost have a complete picture, pieced together of the memory I’m supposed to remember. I keep glancing back at the road ahead in quick alternation. The world is swirling itself into treasure, priceless and unattainable, and at that moment I almost forget the twisting awkwardness in the chasm between us. I almost forget you.

The Employee From Hell.

I had no idea that my parents were such trendsetters.

They were the ones who started walking on the roof as a form of exercise, and lo and behold, most of our neighbours have now started doing the same. I suppose it’s to do with the fact that both of them are healthier than most for their age (touch wood), internally for sure but they also look amazingly fit and way younger than their years.

Today was a decent day, after our passive-aggressive arguments last week, my boss and I clearly longed for some peace and were polite paragons of cooperation. There were plenty of thank yous and sorrys. It was rather a perfect world order. I also realised that I have a pattern of making my bosses miserable if they make me miserable. The quid pro quo is strong here.

I don’t mean in a way that makes work suffer, but more like them suffer. I’m the kind of employee that acts as a reflective surface for suffering I suppose. Well, it takes a lot to make me like that too. I usually approach conflict with the aim to resolve it, it’s literally coded into me, so if I’m propagating it, some safety valve has switched off.

I remember in my first job role I was so unhappy with my manager and his debilitating micro-management, lack of a spine in front of external teams, and his incessant haranguing on weekends that I blocked him so he couldn’t call me. I’m not sure how long I intended to get away with it, perhaps it was a sub-conscious or partially conscious want to get fired? He figured it out and nearly wept while telling me how ‘No one had ever done this to him ever!’, but trust me he had made me weep far more. Granted that it was juvenile, definitely not up for a repeat, but it’ll always be a story to chuckle over. Luckily for all concerned, my request for a change of role was granted.

There was another time when I may have employed a sharp tone with my boss with a possible elevation of voice. Again, I had been goaded beyond limits of patience by repetition of a situation. But I did recognise that I was losing my temper and stopped abruptly, but not before my boss lost his and had to talk it through with a colleague and calm down with a long smoke break. I did apologise for that one but he’d already sorted it out in his head and was truly understanding of the situation.

Closer to the present, specifically last week, my boss took important calls, calls that affected the work flow, made me liable to look like a fool in front of our agencies, threw us to achieve impossible deadlines and all of this without consulting me. She pushed up the launch for a campaign and told us it’s the next day! This, after clearly delegating that the two of us, a colleague and I, were the ones leading this project. Both of us were in the same boat, confused, unable to understand how to make things happen in the timeline our boss had conjured out of her ass for all we knew. It took a call meeting titled ‘What’s The Problem’ to resolve this. Luckily, my sister had offered me a piece of advice before it, “Don’t get into an ego tussle with your boss. You won’t win even if you do.” So I went in meek but clear about why the whole issue had happened. My boss was feeling injured and resentful by our haranguing of her, “Fine, I’ll discuss with you guys before I take such decisions.” she said as though consulting with her team was the worst thing anyone could have asked her to do.

So there you have it, I hope the growth from the first incident to the last is apparent. All of us have our work place moments I suppose. Someday I’ll write about the first time I cried at the office.

That Muscle

My tolerance for arguments has gone down.

That muscle weakened with all the peace I had in a different city so now it’s almost like I can’t stand fighting. It’s a pattern, I get more upset than usual when I argue with anyone, even mom, with whom having a conversation is often having an argument. Something feels so off until the situation is resolved.

In the other city, there were rarely any fights with my sister and father. Mom, sure. But even so, I could keep the phone down and live a whole other existence without the taint of any harsh words. Here, the person is in the vicinity so the energy is close, I’m reminded of the tilt of the painting without the ability to straighten it.

Plus I’ve gotten used to the affection and love too from all of them, so the absence of it due to silent treatment or anger feels like an absence unlike before. I’m not reviling myself for all these changes and for feeling the way I feel. I am human and it’s normal and healthy to feel upset after disagreements or changes in a close equation even if temporarily. But yes, I do wish I’d accept it better. Fights, aftermaths shouldn’t bring me down more than they need to.

If I had to take a leaf out of the book of everyone ever, distraction is an effective way to distance yourself from such a problem. Some do it all their lives and then die so that they never ever have to face anything. But for me, distraction is a part of a process. Mostly, I try not to bury things, they tend to take root and bloom up as entirely different beings and later you can’t tell where they sprung up from.

So if I’m trying to break a situation down, I dwell on the below:

What I said/did

Why I said/did it

What the other person said/did

Why the other person said/did it

What was the context and timing

What part was my responsibility

What part was the other person’s

What I could’ve done differently and will do if the same thing happens again

Is there a need for a larger change and boundary setting in our relationship or it’s a one-off

What is in my control now (in the aftermath) and what isn’t

These are heavy questions and usually don’t get resolved in like one round let’s say. This is where distraction comes in, serving as break time. And it can last for a couple of days depending on how big the episode or argument was. The next time, I pick up the same questions and try to assess with an even calmer mind. Each round makes it clearer and more structured. The only piece of information missing though, is the other person’s side which is important too because we often fill in gaps in understanding with assumptions. Doesn’t mean that their side is more accurate or valid than ours, but it’s helpful to know if you had any blindspots.

Depending on how big a fight it was, and how big a role I played, I will decide whether I should be the first to apologise. Or wait for the other person to or ideally, though it’s hard to do, I try and communicate that I need an apology or a conversation. This works seventy percent of the time, other times, I find it difficult to state this explicitly. It’s like opening up your chest, removing your ribs and exposing your heart, the idea makes me feel utterly exposed. But communicating what you need is important not because it’s assured that you will get what you need, it’s to eliminate ambiguity because a lot of the time people do not know what you need, even when it feels like it’s clear as day. Staying graceful and finding your own boundaries once someone doesn’t give you the apology you deserve is a whole other exercise too.