I didn’t go into the office today.
And even though that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve done nothing with my life, that’s not helping me feel good about myself.
I fixed a broken website before lunch or coordinated a whole corporate matchmaking situation.
I submitted next month’s promotions, followed up with the bank, negotiated business terms, and somehow navigated three jobs and a volunteer task on just two slices of bread and some dried mango.
But I still feel crappy about myself.
Because I wasn’t in the office physically taking up space, breathing the same air as my mother. Who is also my boss, but is also my mother.
She hasn’t asked for anything, btw. She hasn’t looked at me like I’m slacking, or said a word about my absence in the office.
But I still feel.. down. Just guilt with a side of imposter syndrome.
Because even when no one says anything, there’s that internal pressure I put on myself. The feeling that comes when someone trusts you and doesn’t micromanage.
I’ve been given so much freedom and flexibility at work. A front-row seat in the family business.
And I know not everyone gets this.
So I feel like I have to be present for it. Be visible.
But today, none of the work I did was visible. My body heat absent from the office. Cobwebs growing at the corner of my desk. I’ve just been at home on my laptop being invisible, working on my mother’s other child (the biz).
Then because of that, I feel like a bum. Even though, logically, rationally, I know I am not.
I asked ChatGPT how to reframe this. Because writing it down, I know I did stuff today. I know I’m doing my best.
It told me to remind myself that being invisible isn’t the same as being idle. That work done in private is still work. That I did do something today, and it wasn’t big, it wasn’t noticeable, but it took time.
But because no one saw it. Because it wasn’t in the office. It feels like it didn’t happen. It described all my tasks as having disappeared into a cloud of invisible usefulness and that sounds exactly right. How there’s no trophy for “made twelve micro-decisions that prevented bigger problems later”.
Decisions to stall on the job are still decisions nonetheless. Decisions that I have to make because things from the other parties don’t make sense for us to be involved yet.
It’s ridiculous. But the feeling is real. Like I have to be visibly busy for my self worth.
So it’s just me here, still in the shirt I woke up in, wondering if I’ve done enough to not feel like a bum.
Welp. I’ve got to go teach group class now.