Claiming Solitude

“Are you coming tonight?” came the muffled question through the cubicle wall. Stacy’s enthusiasm came through loud and clear but Ramineh pretended not to have heard her. Ramineh depressed the power button of her computer and watched the screen go dark, just this small gesture gave her a sense of relief and she felt a loosening begin somewhere deep inside. The simple movement of pushing that off button signaled the end of another week and her accomplishment of successfully piloting herself through another sea of potentially turbulent and treacherous social waters. In her mind she drifted to that calming image where she saw her little boat coming ashore to hug the sandy beach and come to a rest. Jolted out of her inner world, she was now facing Stacy who popped her head around the cubicle wall and asked again, “Are you coming tonight?” Oh god! Ramineh thought, suddenly back in the real world, how she hated these office get togethers. Every week, every friggin week, the office would plan to meet at a nearby bar. 

When she first started her job about 6 months ago she had been flattered by the invitation to the weekly get together and felt fortunate to be welcomed. It was important to be accepted but she had secretly known then, they may never really know her. She isn’t the most social of people. She had been called ‘shy’ and told, she just needed to put herself out there more; Ramineh knew differently though, she wasn’t shy, she had learned she was an introvert and struggled with some social anxiety. Ramineh appreciated that the invitation was a good opportunity to meet her new co-workers and hopefully get started on a good footing, at least socially. People had often misread her quietness as stuck up; some even told her they thought, at first, that she was a bitch. She made an effort to keep trying but it just became dread. 

Realizing that her coworker’s face was still perched on her cubicle wall awaiting a response, Ramineh marshaled her facial features and formed what she hoped looked like a genuine smile and responded with her usual response, “maybe? but I’m pretty tired today.” It was a weak excuse but she gave it a try anyway. Stacy, her first new friend, is an ebullient woman who is most definitely an extrovert. Stacy formed an exaggerated frown sticking out her low lip to indicate that Ramineh was being a party pooper and she was having none of it. “Oh come on”, Stacy said with a smile and fake sternness in her tone, “you missed last week and you know,” she now softened her tone into a friendly almost conspiratorial whisper, “you haven’t been here that long, everyone’s still getting to know you,” now she lowered her voice even more and leaned towards Ramineh slightly as if to tell her she had something in her teeth, “you’re way to quiet, so you gotta come.” This last statement was said with a confident finality that she had made her argument and was doing Ramineh a favor. Despite the voice now screaming inside Ramineh’s head to just, say no and go home, she gave in to the social pressure and nodded her head to show she’d been bested and Stacy had won this battle. Ramineh tamped back down the feelings that had been slowly evolving into resentment and the feeling as though she was being eroded away. 

Most of the people Ramineh worked with were friendly and nice enough to interact with one on one but it was physically taxing to engage with a group of people. Office birthdays, office meetings, the lunch parties, she found it all exhausting and difficult. Trying to hold a worthwhile conversation with a person in most bar atmosphere conditions was an effort that amounted to the physical exertion of running a half marathon; although she’d rather be running the half marathon, which she had done and enjoyed much more. How were the others so at ease in this group dynamic? She has difficulty hearing the person next to her, let alone the person across the table. Sitting there on the uncomfortable bar chair, Ramineh found herself not engaging in any of the ongoing conversations and just sitting quietly starring at her cocktail and sipping at it much more frequently than might be recommended for someone who is such a light weight. Finishing her drink and wanting something to occupy herself, Ramineh got up to go order another drink and offer refills to the rest of the group. A few stop their chatter long enough to nod yes or no and then return to their exchange but most just fail to even acknowledge Ramineh. She often finds herself drinking and spending much more than she wants just to pass the time and to numb down the anxious feelings these bar nights dredge up. 

After what seems an acceptable length of time, Ramineh hopes she can make an exit without to much harassment and says her goodbyes. Heading home she begins to chastise herself for giving in again and not saying no, now it’s another late Friday night, she’s feeling a bit more tipsy than she would prefer and she will have another early morning at the market. Ramineh gets ready for bed and as she tries to calm her mind and get some sleep, she begins replaying the evening in her head and wondering how she could have made it easier on herself. 

The weekends are Ramineh’s best time, currently unattached, her home is wholly and completely her own space. She lives in a small cottage that is part of a larger farm complex where the Hughes family live in a big, beautiful, turn of the century farm house nearby. Jim and Mary Hughes and their adult children are a wonderful family who she had the good fortune to meet while working one of the stalls at the local Farmer’s market. Ramineh lucked into the market job thanks to a friendly referral from a guy she talked to briefly but frequently at the whole foods store while she was in between jobs. Even now that she is gainfully employed full time, she still wakes up at the crack of dawn on her Saturday mornings each week to go help the Hughes at their vegetable, honey, and pottery stand as part of her monthly rent but she would have done it anyway just because she enjoys the market and the company of the family. 

The Hughes have come to feel like real family to her, or at least what she imagines real family should feel like. They are kind, generous and she is never made to feel uncomfortable or awkward. From these kind, earthy people she had learned about all different kinds of vegetables; how to grow and cultivate them as well as how prepare them. Ramineh is always welcome to the join the Hughes for meals and often does on the weekends; when she does, Jim and or Mary often give an impromptu cooking lesson. In addition to her new found plant husbandry and other personal interests, Ramineh has also been learning about beekeeping and making pottery. Both the beekeeping and the pottery take a great deal of calm and patience. Ramineh is still not very proficient at either activity but to her delight, she has discovered that practicing with clay and tending the hives create a quiet and calm that is very soothing and restful.  

Monday mornings are something Ramineh enjoys. For her, Mondays are a fresh start, a new beginning, a chance to do better. As she came around the corner heading towards her cubicle, there was Stacy, her face lit up with a big smile and her eyes sparkling with her familiar friendliness and optimism. “Good morning starshine!” she said with a sing song voice that was to resemble the opening line of the song made famous from the 60s musical Hair. Eager to keep her optimism and good mood going, Ramineh responded to Stacy, singing, “the earth says hello”; they both smiled in acknowledgment of the shared reference. Ramineh was happy to see Stacy, she was a pleasant person and her cheerfulness was infectious. Seeing that Ramineh wasn’t going to break away, Stacy seized her arm and squeezed then lowered her voice saying, “I’m so glad you are here, I have been dying to tell you what happened after you left on Friday.” And, here we go, “They’re off and running folks!” shouted the horse race track announcers voice in my head. Here comes the drama.  

More and more people were steadily streaming into the building either alone clutching a much needed cup of coffee or chatting with a coworker eager to share their weekend’s activities. Ramineh and Stacy walked towards their area of the office along with the others, Stacy was so eager to tell her all about what who said to who and about what but Ramineh really wasn’t certain why she was either, A) eager to tell her, or B) why she was so concerned about it? None of the regurgitated conversation she was relating to Ramineh seemed of any real significance or consequence for either of them. Ramineh began the weekly chore of replacing, what she privately referred to as her “work face” and tried to look dutifully concerned and smiled as appropriate. Ramineh didn’t want to be false or fake with Stacy but she also didn’t want to offend her or appear uninterested. She did care about Stacy and just couldn’t understand why she would let some of these things bother her so much. Being Stacy’s friend, she wants to let her share and so that seems to mean that she should pretend interest in the gossip although her concern for Stacy’s well being is genuine. It is all so exhausting. 

Stacy continued the steady stream of conversation leading Ramineh into the break room towards the coffee machine, allowing them a few more minutes of talk time before getting to work. It occurred to Ramineh, Stacy had not even asked how her weekend had been, and Ramineh immediately felt guilty for being so selfish. Finally making her way through the office maze, Ramineh welcomed the sight of her little, empty cubicle and that it meant she would be left alone. Her work space was kept tidy and organized with a few personal items hung on the wall space behind her computer. She had also hung up one poster on the opposite cubicle wall for visual calming. It was a picture of a tranquil, tropical beach scene at sunrise with gentle waves lapping at a white sand shoreline and palm trees. Ramineh carefully guarded her work space from intrusion and stress including often wearing a headset to listen to soothing classical music primarily to not hear adjacent conversations. And so the weekdays went, she feeling like a kid dodging those hard rubber balls being hurled at her from all directions as her teammates are eliminated one by one until it is just down to her and them, and then it is Friday again. 

Again came the question, “Are you coming tonight?” Did they really have no idea that she was not at all interested? Could they not see or feel her earnest desire to not go out again? Why wouldn’t they just accept her lame excuses and unburden her from this obligation? Why were they tormenting her like this? Ramineh went round and round in her head trying to figure every angle to their actions and to what had started to feel like tyranny. Ramineh was certain that none of these coworkers really even liked her that much, how could they? She had never had an earnest one on one conversation with anyone, even Stacy, they really knew nothing about her. 

Ramineh became more and more oppressed by her feelings of victimization. She just wanted to be left alone although not really, not in the isolated cast away on an island sense of alone, more in the give her peace, calm and control over her own destiny kind of alone. She felt herself slipping away, like pieces of her were being slowly worn away just like she’d once seen on a marble threshold of the Great Blue Mosque in Istanbul; millennia of feet trampling over that threshold had created a swale in the stone. The hard marble stone had been worn away by constant pressure over time. It was beginning to effect her work, her temperament and was now even intruding on her home life, her personal, private solitude, her sanctuary was being impacted. She found herself feeling frazzled and disjointed, a sense of coming apart. Why was she having trouble separating her work persona from her home persona? She just wanted to get along, she didn’t want any animosity or bad feelings with her coworkers. 

That Saturday at the market, being more quiet than usual, Mary asks Ramineh if she is feeling okay? Ramineh starts to give her a casual response then realizes that Mary is asking in earnest with genuine concern. They find a quiet space, sit down and Mary looks her in the eye and says, “spill it, what’s going on with you, you haven’t been yourself lately.” Ramineh tries to explain, without making herself sound like a whiner, what had been going on and how she had been trying to adjust to my her new job and coworkers. Feeling like she was exposing a vital fact about herself, but feeling safe with Mary, she confesses that she is an introvert, and that she is finding it difficult to fit in. Mary smiles and in her very warm ‘Mary’ way she simply says, “So? Then explain this to your coworkers and stop going out for drinks with the group on Fridays.” Astonished and a bit embarrassed, damn! she thought to herself, could it really be that simple? As if reading her thoughts, Mary continued, “I know it’s not that easy, I’m an introvert too, and it will be difficult the first few times you explain it to someone, but it will get easier, and you will feel so much better when you start setting boundaries with your coworkers.” Then, Mary went on to suggest that Ramineh invite Stacy to the farm one weekend so that they could get to know each other better. 

It was a great idea to ask Stacy out to the farm and Stacy was eager to visit. Stacy came to spend the very next weekend at the farm and the family instantly took a liking to the vivacious woman. Stacy was a natural at pottery but was scared to death of getting near the bees. Ramineh and Stacy quickly started started getting to know each other more and more and having much more meaningful conversations. Ramineh became more comfortable exercising the her option to enjoy her Friday evenings at home alone to rest. Stacy still enjoyed her Friday outings with the group and for her it was a great way to blow off steam and regroup but she now knew her friend Ramineh needed to regain her energy her own way, in her solitude.