What color is your cubicle?

A trip across the globe provided somewhat of a reprieve from a mechanical routine that was beginning to strip me of any remaining sense of self and worth. But coming back, jet lag exacerbated what I left behind. What I wrote before the trip:

More of the same. Plus some. Every day a rush to get to work, only to count the hours to go home, and then hasten to pull together dinner, lunch for the next day, and other errands so that if I'm lucky I can find some time, an hour or even a few minutes, to read a book, or play with my camera, or take an extra long shower before going to bed... Things become routine, and I don't mind or at least notice for a while. But then I do. Becoming painfully aware that I am working to live (which begs the question of "and living to?"). And with this awareness, each day in the cube becomes increasingly more claustrophobic. And I can't chase the thought that this may be my destiny, for at least a year, probably five or ten, and very possibly twenty or a lifetime...I try not to think about it, and the surprise break in routine, a new obsession with photography, and my now weakened determination to remain positive, help, but not enough to allow me to prevail over the much stronger force of the cubicle draining me of all spirit. Seems a cruel twist of fate that all my dreaming and education and hard work have set me up in a cubicle trap in a far away land of peace, beauty, and geriatric neighbors...

But perhaps if I accept that for now my place is in the cubicle, I can hope of finding a way to counterbalance the lack of job satisfaction in my life, or if nothing else, if I work hard enough at it, maybe I can imagine that my job is something to live for.