i have never read love in the time of cholera

So I live right by a highway.

This was a feature of this complex, other than proximity to work and a convenience store. I lived in the country and constant rural quiet broken by the sound of the train, coyotes, wild dogs, or What The Hell Pretend It's Dogs got old fast. I used to use TV, and still do, but the highway helped. I tuned it out fairly quickly but opening the porch door would bring it back, so generally, anything I heard was something I should pay attention to--people outside my porch, sirens, things actually close enough to worry about.

The highway is almost silent and boy that is getting to me.

I work from home, but that's been the biggest change so far; I am not social and do delivery groceries anyway, so not a lot changed. But a.) work from home and b.) that highway: it wasn't super active at night, but it was a highway and now it's silent.

Also, I hate work from home; I didn't realize my base level of social interaction at work was so important, just to listen to people and talk a little, share annoyances and successes and nothings. I think people really underestimate the part coworkers play in your life, categorizing them as 'work friends' as opposed to 'real friends'; I have no idea what that even means. I'm not sure 'friend' even encompasses what these people are to me.

I spend more time with coworkers, prefix 'friend-' or not, then pretty much anyone. They probably know me better than my own mother; they know my work ethic, if I get shit done, if I slide on some things (and what those things are), if I'm timid or confrontational, they know me in the morning before coffee and can judge my mood and if I did laundry on my choice of clothing and if my hair is clipped up or not. they've proved that. I know Y is up for something or do not approach by her slump at her computer; I know J's approachibility by how he wears headphones; I know who to call, in order, when I need shit done. I know who knows the most, who's the most competent, who's the best, and who gets shit done, and how those four things are not ever embodied in the same person at the same time, ever, but everyone is always one of them whether they know it or not. I know who needs me to push them, who needs me to flatter them (not hard, they're all worthy of a lot of it), who needs to be nudged, and who will slam forward without thought so I only call when I need a bull in a china shop.

We work individually, but the truth is, we're a unit, we just don't notice; there are pieces of them I need that I don't notice except now they're absent. I need them desperately; I am less me in absence of them.

This would be my angst, work from home. Everyone else mourns normal shit like movies and parties and hanging out with friends; I am yearning desperately for my desk and coworkers and a second monitor; how do people get anything done with only one?????