Under Pressure: When personal, professional, and projects overlap in PEC

There’s a particular kind of tired that comes from never really leaving where you work, even if you love where you work and where you live. It’s not the dramatic kind of work; not burnout, exactly. Just the low-level awareness that everything you’re responsible for is always nearby.

Piled on the table. Inundating the inbox. Half-finished. Waiting. Under pressure.

Lately, most of my days start, proceed, and end in the same place. The same space, the same view out the windows, the same mental juggling act. Personal things. Professional things. And then, inevitably, a project… some small, persistent thing that insists on inserting itself into the mix, just to keep things interesting.

Luckily, I have my personal assistant, Atticus, to keep me on track for the low cost of way too many snuggles and treats.

In the County, this kind of live/work arrangement doesn’t feel unusual. If anything, it feels like the default. So many people here live this way. Work folded into home, home folded into work.

The County's full of honour-system stands at the end of driveways. RMT clinics tucked into basements. Kitchen islands and dining tables that double as offices. Fields that are both livelihood and inheritance. It’s convenient, yes, but it’s also constant; there’s no clean line between “on” and “off” when everything happens within reach.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this winter, partly because of the shed. The shed itself is not dramatic. It’s for landscaping storage. Practical. Necessary. One of those unglamorous pieces of infrastructure that exists to support the rest of life moving along smoothly. What has been dramatic (or at least persistent) is the process around it. The slow realization that something we were originally told didn’t require a permit now requires an engineering report to use an existing part of the structure. A communication issue, with no villain and a growing pile of paperwork, lengthy timelines, and the familiar feeling of a never-ending process. Again. 

This is one more thing to hold alongside everything else. Personal life. Work life. And the ever-present project that seems to attach itself to both, whether invited or not. This feels deeply County to me (as does the neighbourly advice to “do it first, beg for permission later”, which no doubt many have done to escape the painful process that we signed ourselves up for).

Everyone I speak to seems to be balancing something similar. Not in a complaining way, more in a matter-of-fact way. As if this kind of overlap is simply understood. You tend to your work. You tend to your home. And somewhere in between, you tend to a project that refuses to stay neatly categorized or get easily completed, for one reason or another.

At the same time, PEC Connect has been quietly taking shape behind the scenes, and this is a personal and professional project that I’m hugely excited for. But, even this is not getting ready in a big, glossy, launch-ready way. More in fragments., notes, drafts. And even in conversations (my favourite!). I’ve been sorting ideas into loose buckets:  tourists, locals, business owners, people who live here full-time, people who love the County enough to visit from near and far. Through this process, I’m trying to be thoughtful about how different people experience this place: what they notice, what they miss, and especially what they carry with them.

Most of this work happens at home, at the same kitchen where I answer municipal emails and in the same notebook where interview questions sit beside to-do lists. It’s all mixed together, which feels appropriate given the subject matter.

The interviews themselves have been grounding in a way I didn’t fully expect. A café owner. A resort owner. A small farming family. Early conversations, still unfolding. There’s something incredibly intimate about these first interviews, before there’s an audience, before anything is framed or shared. People speak differently when they’re not performing, when they’re just talking about how they got here, how they keep going, what it costs… and what it gives back.

What strikes me most is how inseparable their work is from their lives. These aren’t jobs that clock out. They’re commitments rooted in place. You don’t just run a café here, you become part of someone’s daily rhythm. You don’t just farm land, you live with its moods, its seasons, its unpredictability. You don’t just operate a resort, you host people into a version of the County that’s deeply personal, whether you intend to or not.

Listening to these stories feels like being entrusted with something fragile. I already know I have a responsibility to listen well, and to share carefully, when the time comes.

All of this (the shed, the interviews, PEC Connect slowly forming) lives in the same mental (and physical) space right now. That’s the part I keep coming back to. How close everything feels, and how little distance there is between planning and living, between responsibility and rest. 

Working from home in the County is often romanticized, and sometimes, it deserves to be. But there’s also a quieter truth beneath that narrative. When your work lives where you do, unfinished things don’t disappear at the end of the day. They sit there with you, and sometimes follow your thoughts even as you’re already in bed... eagerly waiting for the next moment you have the energy to pick them back up.

Winter amplifies this. With fewer distractions, fewer places to escape to, everything feels a little louder in its stillness. Projects linger. Processes stretch. Stories take longer to surface. But there’s also space here (real space!) to notice what’s unfolding instead of rushing it into something presentable. I don’t feel done with any of it yet: not the shed, not the launch of PEC Connect, not even the planning involved for these interviews. And I think that’s okay. If anything, it feels honest.

There are so many people shaping this place quietly, often from their homes, often while juggling more than one role at once. I know I haven’t met them all, but through starting the process of story telling, I hope to weave my way through the County’s story, one thread at a time. If there are stories you’re curious about (people, businesses, families, projects), I’m open to hearing who you think belongs in this unfolding picture of Prince Edward County.

There’s a lot happening right now that doesn’t show up neatly on a timeline. Projects that are still figuring themselves out. Conversations that haven’t turned into stories yet. Paperwork that keeps circling back for one more thing.

It all feels unfinished,  but not unresolved. Just in progress, in a place where work, home, and whatever’s happening overlaps… whether you plan for it or not.

Xoxo,

Andreea in PEC

P.S. The more time I spend working from home, the more I notice how many people in the County do the same, in all sorts of ways. Does this sound like you? Someone you know? Share what living and working in the County really looks like!