Monday Morning Blues

The minute the door opens, she is hit by the repression in the air. A stagnant kind of silence. Everyone in their own little boxes, sitting at their desks, preparing themselves to face yet another day of drudgery. It's Monday morning again.
She wants to walk out, the minute she walks in the door. She's just returned from holiday and she knew she'd feel like this again. It always hits her, like a grey dark cloud. She always vows to herself that this time, it won't get her down again but it always does. She just gets sucked up into it after the first day or two. The bounce in her step after two weeks of freedom, quickly gets replaced by tired feet unwilling to take her to that place.
She loves music but music is banned. She loves laughing but laughing is frowned upon. She likes thinking but she's always too busy and the phones and the emails just take over her mind. She likes art but the office is functional. She loves her family but personal calls are banned. It seems that just as she hangs up her coat on the way in the door, she also hangs up her personality.
Everything that she is, has to be put aside for eight hours and picked up again at 5pm as she makes her way out the door. The trouble is that those eight hours are long and as each day passes it becomes harder and harder to remember who she really is. The pace of the office has taken over her own body rhythm. The concerns of the day have become those of the 'company'. Her mind is tired, her body fatigued from sitting at the desk, hunched over the computer. She feels like a robot.
The fresh air hits her face, pleasantly cold after the stuffiness of the office. She tries to pick up on her thoughts before she went in but they've all gone now, pulled away by the stream of the day. She feels empty inside. The sparkle of her soul too quiet, yet it felt so alive on holiday. She had felt herself under the glorious blue sky. Her body had felt relaxed and now that all too familiar tension had returned to her back and shoulders.
Her massage teacher had told her that tense neck muscles come from saying, 'No' to situations or people. God yes! She said, "No" again and again in her mind to that place. She hated it. She hated what it did to people. What it did to her and yet she couldn't see an escape. How would she ever pay the bills if she left? Her body tensed as fear rushed through her body. The thought of those horrible demand letters flashed back, changing her body chemistry violently. She didn't even have those bloody letters and yet the memory could still affect her like that!
The evening had drawn in, only 5pm and yet the sky was black. She felt depressed. Miserably miserably depressed. What happened? Yesterday she was fine. She was having the time of her life and now she felt almost suicidal. Is this how life is really meant to be?
Her head dropped and she stared down at the pavement and made her way home.

Tuesday morning. The alarm clock rings for the fifth time on snooze. She doesn't want to get up and go to that place again. It's warm in bed, it's cold outside and the thought of spending another day there, wearing her facade is not appealing. She doesn't want to go to work, she doesn't want to get dressed, she doesn't even want to get out of bed. A depression has fallen over her that she cannot shake off, no matter how positive she tries to be.

She's read all the books about positive thinking and the 'art' of being happy, but nothing seems to last for more than five minutes in that place. Nothing. It has bad air and a bad vibe. On the wall of her desk she has a print out about protecting herself from negativity. It describes visualising a protective balloon to block out negative people and situations. But it's hard to visualise bubbles when the telephone rings out full volume and must be answered immediately, when the emails coming in are never ending, when the list of things to accomplish can never be met with all the distractions.
She's running out of choices now. She basically has two; stay there and be swallowed up by the depression that follows her around, or leave. She knows which choice she'd like to make; she'd like to leave that place and never return again. Assign it to her memory file, labelled firmly 'the past'. Yet she hesitates and a month goes past. She hesitates and a year has gone. She knows if she continues hesitating, she'll be drawing her pension and her life will have been given to a company that she has no love for and that has no love for her. She knows she is just an employee. Now matter how hard she works, no matter how 'efficient' she is, how organised, she'll easily be replaced by another worker. Another slave.
She doesn't think she can take much more. The depression that is around her is too heavy, too dense and it seems to be getting thicker each day. She needs to escape, she needs to breathe and feel free again. If she doesn't take action, the machine will swallow her up whole and that is unthinkable; she knows she is worth more than that. Somewhere along the line, she had come to consider herself as a special, unique, spiritual human being. She had gotten lost in the Matrix but now she was desperately praying for a way out of the grid.
Everyone told her not to leave her job until she had another one. But that was the problem, she didn't want another one; it would be like swapping one farmer for another. Different farm but same scenario. She didn't want to do this anymore; be just another slave bound to a soul-less existence, she wanted to find herself again. Discover who she was as a human being, as a soul, and not just merely a company slave, an expendable company slave.
With heavy feet, she trundled her way to work. Every step an effort. Resistance in every stride. She arrived and pushed the buzzer to enter. The same stifled scene met her as it had on every morning, since she had joined there. "I have to leave. I have to leave," said the voice in her head, "I really can't do this anymore." Then just as quickly, another voice piped up: "But if you leave you won't be able to pay your bills. You're are being very silly. Just stick it out. You know you have to work." "But I can't stand it anymore," screamed the voice of freedom inside her. "I really cannot stand it".
She pulled out the chair and sat at her desk. It was an uncomfortable chair and it gave her back ache. She was so tired of having an aching back. The phones began to ring, as they always did. It was difficult to sound friendly and professional with the whirl of thoughts and conflicting emotions surging through her mind. "Shall I stay or shall I leave? I don't know what to do," wailed the voice in her head. Desperate.
She recalled other times in her life, when she had been faced with similar emotions. Times when her 'gut instinct' had battled with her 'logical/play it safe' mind. And in the past she'd always found that her gut instinct was right. No matter how crazy it might sound at the time, it had always led her in the right direction. She knew she could trust it, even if trusting it made her feel a little scared. Even if trusting it petrified her!
How had she gotten to be so frightened, so full of fear? How had that happened? She used to be so free, so fearless. Fear had come to dominate her mind. It was ruling her. Her whole life had shrunken down to avoid it. Everything she had been doing lately was in avoidance of fear. She had to do something. She had to believe there was a better way because if she didn't, the fear would take over her completely.
There was only one thing she could do. She had to leave. She had to trust that she was worth more than this existence. She had to believe that something better would come along. She had to, because if she didn't she risked losing herself completely.