and, so, I kissed the machine door

There's a job at work that I have a troubled relationship with. It's a production job, so doing the same thing over and over, for finishing diecast parts. They're little zinc things and they each need two passes with an end mill, repositioning them between runs.

It's a bit mind-numbing. The machine takes ~36 seconds and then I take ~43 seconds to move one part to the second position and put a new one in the first. But it's also very pleasingly efficient! I finish working on the part-just-out-of-the-machine right as the cycle stops; There's no downtime.

It hurts my wrist, my back, and my mood. But.

It's easy to fall back into myself. I put on an album I enjoy, today The Unicorns' Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, and sit back into my mind letting my body do the motions. So I sing and think and exist-only-in-half, kinda.

But today! Before I was able to slip away! I elbowed the door, hah! And it jolted me back. So, as I do when I'm surprised into being-again, or when I feel a pained-anger bubbling up, I closed my eyes and stopped moving entirely. To try and figure out how to resolve this before I'm overcome by A Bad Day, I guess.

And I stood there for a minute and tried to figure out how I could again find that,, that peace? To continue doing what I was doing in an okayish-at-least mood. I tried forcing a laugh but it didn't work.

"Kiss the door", came into my head.

At first I rejected the idea outright, "why?"

"You just have to now, you know it. You like the idea, yeah?
I can see it."

And they were right. I liked the idea. And i knew it was the path forward. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, giggled slightly, and, so, I kissed the machine door and all was alright again.