My Job Is Going to Kill Me (Part II)

Daisy Valera

Last month I was limping around on one leg, and just a week ago my back was giving me trouble from my scoliosis.

So the plastic chair that serves as my workstation doesn’t help much.

Since I don’t like wasting three hours I spend traveling every day, I read on the bus, which has ended up giving me more of a headache than usual.

The cold air at 6:00 in the morning has given me a cold that has proven to be super-resistant to what I believed were infallible home remedies: honey and vitamin C.

But in my short work experience, the physical ailments haven’t been anywhere near the worst.

The problems that have succeeded most at tormenting me are psychological.

– The bad mood I’m in when I wake up.

– The presence of one recurrent thought all day: the end of that workday.

– The apprehension and uncertainty over whether or not I’ll have money to eat until the next payday (this has given me so such anxiety I find myself biting my nails). Selling my crafts would be the solution but I don’t have time.

– Insomnia, when trying to sleep and rest for the next workday.

– Finally, the nightmares and screams of terror in the middle of the night (some old gray-haired man is trying to pull me out of bed by my legs, and his image remains even after I open my eyes).

I’ve thrown myself into trying to find solutions to my physical and mental state, but so far I’ve only found one, through a book by the Spanish yoga practitioner Ramiro Calle.

What he offers is yoga, and its link between concentration and corporal practices has begun to help me recently.

While I focus on postures, breathing and exhalation, I forget about the difficulties that I’ll run into the next day.

For the time being my legs have stopped hurting.

And I suffer less, at least a little less, thanks to my little efforts at de-alienation.