I need people.

There are things that I like about my job. I enjoy interfacing with other engineers and people in general. If I were to stay at home during the day or work from home, I would definitely miss talking with other people. It is amazing how much a single conversation can change my mood for the day. My worst days are when I sit at my desk all day and do my work and don’t talk to anyone. My best days happen when I have multiple conversations with people about work and our personal lives. I need those work conversations to feel like what I am doing is useful. Someone out there appreciates what I am doing, I hope. I also need to be reminded that while I am at work, I am still looking for things and conversations that result in eternal reward.

It is amazing how quickly I forget that I need people. I need other adults in my life. I just spent the past three days with my boys. I love spending time with them and that is why they only go to school 3-4 days a week. When I spend 3 days straight with them and only see Bryan in the evenings, it makes me realize that I need conversations with other adults to cheer me up and realize that life is bigger than me. That is one reason why staying-at-home full time with the kids didn’t work well for me. Over the weekend I did have a few short conversations with other people: a neighbor, a pediatrician, ticket sales lady, etc., but I realized today that it wasn’t enough. Why didn’t I call anyone to hangout over the weekend? We did play with two neighbor boys but without much adult time. We had 3 dinner meals with just the 4 of us. That rarely happens. We eat dinner together a lot but usually there are other people involved. I knew I wasn’t enjoying life over the weekend but couldn’t really put my finger on it until today at work. I need more people in my life.

Bryan's response, "You are such an extrovert!"