Office Sweet: Momentary Monday madness

It's been a rough day. It's the first day I've missed the life I walked away from, missed the friends and acquaintances of that life. Perhaps I'm beginning to heal after the trauma suffered this past year within the confines of that other life.


Worse yet, I found myself longing for the life I had even earlier -- another life I walked away from nearly ten years ago. The desire came over me out of nowhere, hit me in the gut like a sucker punch.


Right in the middle of rush hour traffic.


I saw him at the wheel of his dark blue Audi sedan, the third car in the left hand turn lane at the red light. He had that closed off look, like his mind was still in a conference call long ended. His eyes looked off into a distance not on the horizon in front of him, long past the intersection before him.


He flipped his arm and flexed his wrist in a fluid one-two move, lifting his left arm from the steering wheel, looking at his watch, then moving his now-fisted hand up to support his head against the window as he waited for the light to change.


It was that flick of the wrist--shifting the crisply starched cuff of his expensive white dress shirt just so above the bones of his lean wrist--which did it for me. That movement I've seen thousands of times, performed by the bright and rapacious young men in middle and upper management, like a fisherman's lick of the wrist as they cast their line.


Yeah, that move. It catches my eye as if a lure has been tossed in front of me; it means time is wasting away and a move must be made rapidly before the opportunity slips away, before bait has been pounced on and the line run out taut and taken by another more eager for the chance.


I am thinking of heated business meetings, close and intimate, passion for success and the bloodlust  for the business kill filling the conference room, only to lead to quiet business dinners with voices exchanging numbers sotto voce over espresso while high heeled pumps are kicked off under the table and stockinged feet dart back and forth beneath the linen table cloth.


And I reminisce about crisply chilled martinis with briny olives served at the country club in the lounge where one will find the finest collection of white business dress shirts and silk ties actually worn by men were one to look at a certain hour of the day. I can hear the low hum of their voices, slowly increasing in volume with the number of martinis quaffed.


I feel wretched for missing these things today.


I feel even worse for missing him.


And him.


And them.


[Copyright 2011--all rights reserved. | Graphic: _Davo_ via Flickr.]