(Not Quite) Right on Target

One of the great things about moving to Boston was giving up my car and building a new life around the public transportation grid. But my new(ish – its been 8 weeks) job is in an office park in the suburbs. For the first time since I moved out of Los Angeles in 2004, I am commuting to/from work each day in a car, on the highway, mired in soul-crushing traffic. On the plus side, I have an awesome new ride (okay - used, but still the nicest car I’ve ever had) and get to listen to a lot of NPR. Go ahead and quiz me on indie bands and current events, I have never been so hip and well-informed. On the down side, the gas costs are staggering (compared to my trusty ol’ subway pass) and I might not make it through the traffic every day in my right mind without obtaining an Rx for Xanax.

That the daily highway commute is truly unpleasant comes as no big surprise. When I accepted the new position, I knew it was going to be a cost of doing business, so to speak. But what I did not factor in was the unexpected lunch hour dilemma.

See, at the new gig, I get a bona-fide lunch hour. It’s not a clock-in/clock-out kind of deal but it’s generally understood that everyone can disappear for an hour in the middle of the day without further explanation. A luxury not afforded to a Big Law associate – I ate at my desk, as quickly as possible, grateful for the time to eat at all. Leaving the office for an hour to loiter over a real meal, possibly with (gasp) friends or co-workers, even if work was slow, was viewed as “lazy”. That’s just law firm culture. What’s troubling is how much I miss it.

Because here’s the problem with my new arrangement: there may be the time allotted, but there’s nowhere really on site to go to sit and be left alone. Especially given that I no longer luxuriate in the privacy of my own office. If I eat at my desk I am wasting the only real opportunity to get away and clear my head during the day. Plus, I have already learned the hard way that “eating lunch at my desk” does not mean “allowed to be seen not working”. God forbid anyone walk by my monkey-cube and catch me so much as glancing at Gmail or the nytimes.com headlines, even with a mouthful of sandwich at 12:15pm. Because its not like I am a professional who can be trusted to manage their time and work-load. Clearly.

So, I have to leave the office; that hour away is critical to my ability to make it until 6pm with aplomb. I am very grateful for that hour, I need it. But where can I go? I’m in the middle of an office park jungle, so I have to get in the car. Then what? I can’t justify squatting at a nearby eatery, like Panera or Chipotle [yes, um, let’s not speak of the five pounds I initially gained going burrito-wild at lunch 3 days a week ... self control has been restored and warm, spankable burritos are now a very-occasional delicacy, accompanied by a flagellating evening work-out.], because I brown-bag my lunch for health and financial reasons and every option is prohibitively crowded during the noon rush anyway.

What is a girl to do? Well, it is the suburbs, after all, and one of the best “perks” of being out of the city all day is that there is a Target, a beautiful, clean, newly renovated Target, less than one mile from my place of employment. Lemme just spit this out: I spend my "lunch hour" walking around Target - almost every day. There's no where else for me to go., in my estimation. Most days I don’t even buy anything, although the temptation is always there and it is dangerous. It does, however, save me the off-hour errands for basics (such as toilet paper, detergent and $10 patterned ballet flats). Some days, I don’t even go into the store; I just sit in my car in the parking lot, reading email and blogs on my iPhone, listening to more NPR, until my time is up and I go once more into the breach.

It feels as pathetic and sad as it sounds, trust me. But this is my daily life now; and so this is a story about my new routine, and my (attempted) adjustment to it. It hasn’t been easy, and it isn’t getting any easier. It is difficult to honestly describe this place in my life, without sounding ungrateful. I make every effort to stave off discontentment but I do want to be real.

And the reality is that I have a job as an attorney, after five months of unemployment, in the worst economy since the 1930’s. Yet I still feel lost and disappointed. I struggle, sometimes on an hourly basis, with feeling like a failure; with feeling like there’s no way out, like I’m no closer to heading in “the right direction” than I was three months ago. Every day, it seems, the news brings a report of the rising unemployment statistics – and I can’t help but remark at how even those staggering figures don’t take into account all of the people who may, technically, have a job but are still derailed; underemployed or re-employed in, what is for them, the wrong direction. That can be nearly as devastating, I think. I know.

These are just some of the things I think about as I meander through Target every day. It’s a surprisingly deep place. I guess they don’t call it retail therapy for nothing.