Cooped up

When I was growing up, Saturdays were supposed to be the day that I cleaned my room. I would get up and watch cartoons though, and my parents didn’t really fight about that. My brother and I would watch cartoons all morning, but then Mom would lower the boom. We were each sent our rooms to clean them.

I almost never cleaned my room. I hated being cooped up in there alone with a seemingly insurmountable mess. I never knew where to start. Mostly I just listened to AM radio and fantasized about becoming a DJ someday. Eventually, it would be dinner time, and we were allowed to come out of our rooms. I think my parents thought if I was left alone in there long enough, I would eventually take responsibility and start cleaning.

Once in a while, this happened. I remember being really happy doing the last step of cleaining my room, that was dusting my furniture. That part was so easy: spray the cool pledge, and wipe it up and make the furniture shiny. I loved that part, but usually my room was such a mess that I couldn’t even conceive of getting to that part. In my youth, it never occurred to me that if I just dug in and started, soon I would be dusting.

I was realizing that this cooped up in my room with an insurmountable task is often how I feel at work. I don’t want to be alone in my office at work, I want to be socializing and talking to people. The difference is, I am learning to just start something. As a result I finished a big project in a month that I thought I was going to need an intern for. I am learning not to feel cooped up.