Today is day one of my company’s relocation. No power yet, no wifi yet. Oh, and no more phones; we’re all to start wearing headsets. And even though my phone rings twice a week at the most, it’s mandatory. And have I mentioned the insanely bright fluorescent hell-lights that are beating down upon my back and bouncing off my desk into my face? There’s no escaping their soul-sucking glare.
Step 2: came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Of course, if I don’t like it I can just quit, right? I mean, nobody wants to hear me bitch about The Man having too much pointless control over our lives. I’m not allowed to twist the bulbs above me and break their current: it looks bad, the non-uniformity.
So, before I have a breakdown, I shall attempt to break it down. Let’s work through this new stuff as it happens, and try to keep it right-sized. Fact: I don’t like my new work digs. I had my own office before the move; now I’m out among Client Services and I.T. and Accounts Payable. Or maybe they’re Accounts Receivable. So many voices. So much traffic. Through squinted eyes I become totally aware that I’m making a choice to be miserable.
What’s it really all boil down to? I’m mourning the loss of my isolation and distance. No more door. No more seclusion. No more boundaries. People lean on my four-foot wall and smile, their hands dangling over into my personal space. I’ve been sitting here for less than two hours, and the level of self-imposed unhappiness is crushing my will to live.
Working towards a solution: I think about what’s worked for me in the past. Ironically, it’s through interaction with others where I’ve found comfort, and it turns out to be a pretty solid solution in this situation as well. Of course others can relate: our new blueprint is much, much smaller, and as a result has half the individual offices as before. I’m not the only one who’s got some moving anxiety. They can’t all be alcoholics, can they?
No, they can’t. So worrying about something doesn’t necessarily mean I’m doing something wrong. In the past, this is where shame and guilt and anger and resentment would follow: cunning, baffling and powerful.
Today: I can’t honestly blame anything on my alcoholism. I had first day jitters. And even though I was totally aware that nothing bad was going to happen to me, the unknown is the unknown, and I needn’t feel embarrassed about the knot in my stomach. It’s normal.
12 the hard way 
There has got to be a way out. I feel claustrophobic just reading. Then again, my own work had me feeling that way already. We have to save ourselves!
That’s so me in the moment. By 2:00 p.m. yesterday, I was already becoming accustomed to the new surroundings. The miracle was how little reaction I showed on the outside. Years ago, there would be sulking and complaining for weeks. And my cube’s at the end of a dead-end aisle (no through-traffic), with giant windows behind me, twelve floors up. Three different people came over and told me they were jealous of my location. But could I see any of that for the first 5 hours I was there? No way! The insanity’s still there, but the flare-ups are less intense.