didn’t take me long at all to fall off my writing streak. tends to happen on wednesdays. lately – but especially the past few years of holding this job – i’ve really leaned into humpdays. they are the ones that tend to be stacked with meetings, and the monotony that is packaged with them. contrived smiling, checking in on personal matters only to turn them into tasks and bulletpoints. the offline texts, the talking shit. by the time they’ve wrapped up, it can seem impossible to find the joy in thinking. the promise of the future is replaced by the pettiness of planning. is this what it means to be making a living? to fill one’s schedule with weekly episodes about what we’ll talk about next week? agendas that will expire by the close of morning? logs and minutes that will stale in the cloud?
one thing’s for sure, it’s that meetings are good scapegoats. this is why i didn’t write today. this is why i can’t get anything done. this is why i can’t stand my job sometimes. without meetings, i’d have to explore more deeply, more honestly, why i leave my wednesdays for the dogs, why i allow a 2-hour call to consume my brain through sunset. i call into these meetings already cranky, already pessimistic, already ready to assume that all will go to shit. so big surprise when it does.
but is it my fault? or are meetings just inherently wack? my mind goes to the reemergence of tech after the popping of the bubble. how workers were enticed to silicon valley on the promise that meetings would be short – standing, even – or sitting on colorful foam cubes and giant beanbags, situated by foosball tables and with laundry facilities nearby. life can just be one long exciting meeting? i rolled my eyes at that concept, thanked myself for the wherewithal to commit to never holding a full-time job, until i did.
the poet mary oliver calls her practice of daily writing “a meeting with the self.” and as much as i despise my wednesdays, they have helped me understand what that means. if the meeting with the self is like any other meeting, they will be preceded by a dragging of feet, a confidence that it will lead to nothing productive, a mad search for excuses to show up late or cut out early, and in the meeting, moments of eye-rolling and “why are we talking about this right now.” but also an understanding that it has to be done, if you are going to call this a job.