Work and home and home and work

When we moved to Finland, I took the opportunity to make a change in the way I balanced work vs. home responsibilities. In previous jobs, whether by choice or necessity, I had often worked from home: grading, lesson prep, or the actual job itself - I snatched blocks (slivers…shreds…) of time to fit it all in and did it with kids milling around/sitting on my lap/whining in the other room. But for the last almost-5 years, with very few exceptions, I have left work at work. And when I was home, I was HOME.

That was in the Before Times and it worked really well for me. And the fact that I really valued that separation between work and home is one reason why adjusting to this new way of doing things has been logistically and emotionally hard for me. All of a sudden I MUST work from home. And as a bonus, the kids are all at home, too! And my husband, who also needs to work from home! We are all home, and we all must work. This living space that we picked out and settled into as a soft landing from the outside world now has to fill in for a lot of what the outside world was previously providing. It’s an awkward retrofit.

So now I’m back to snatching and stretching and blocking off time to work, at home. I suppose it’s good I had so many years of practice before! I am remembering all my old habits and tricks…but also all the old frustrations. Home vs. work was never perfectly balanced, not even in the Before Times, but now it’s all mixed up and topsy turvy.

There are some boundaries I have tried to preserve. I don’t work in our bedroom, not ever. This is not easy when it is sometimes the only free room left in our small house! I have also gotten better at not stressing out too much when the sounds and sights of home pop up in the background of work, including during Zoom lectures (gasp!).

When work is at home, sometimes home is at work, too.