So many people seem to love all that’s going on.
The restructuring of life around working from home, family time. There seems to be a fallacy that we have all this free time now. The world is filled with articles screaming out “Here’s how to fill your free time when you’re bored.”
I hate all of this. Every part of it.
Yes, there is good that has come out of it. Yes, there is PLENTY to be grateful for and look forward to. No, I am not grumpy and miserable all of the time. And also, YES I am incredibly lucky to have plenty of kind and caring friends who continuously reach out to check in and make sure I am ok. As an extrovert I’m sure the introverts in my life have plenty of concerns for those of us who don’t know how to get by without social contact. Us extroverts appreciate the effort you guys are making, truly.
Now I spend my entire day on social media of some sort, not to keep in touch with people I love who live far away. Not to reconnect and find some form of grace from the normal churning of life. No. Now my skype, my phone, whatsapp, instagram, any form of chat, email, it’s all filled and invaded with work. No matter where I go or what I do, the anvil of work surrounds my life.
At work all I do is reach out to my team, video call people to talk through problems, troubleshoot, get updates, run meetings. Everything is a video call, a text, and email, a chat message.
What I miss in all of this is the way that people smell. There’s a richness in human interaction that goes beyond sight, and sound, or even touch. You can taste a smell, you can feel it on your skin. Someone told me there’s a way that sounds in English that comes across as unpleasant, but it’s different in Portuguese. The literal word for “smelly” (cheiroso), in Portuguese denotes something pleasant, and appealing. There’s a presence in people’s smell. A richness, a personality. I can recognize most people I know by their smell.
Maybe I’m just a creep. But in all of this that’s what I miss the most. My sense of smell.
Upside Down Flight 