The photo has nothing to do with the blog entry, but it’s nice to have something pretty to look at while I type.
Well, I woke up and wished I were dead, so that’s definitely a sign that I’m back at home. Even the sitting on the tarmac at McCarran for an hour yesterday before a long six-hour flight with no food, drinks or movies (Dear U.S. Airways, you suck. Love, Goddess) beat coming home to the smell of cat shit and a phone bill in which someone talked for 5,000 minutes last month.
I keep a photo of my grandfather in my wallet, and I noticed I’ve been especially emotional when I see his face. It occurred to me this morning that we lost him two Thanksgivings ago, and I gained an Extended HouseguestTM who seems to be content as a permanent one.
So, today I’m having a wee bit of trouble with the “things I’m grateful for” list. Let’s see, I gained eight pounds on my eating tour of Vegas. I spent $100 on (adorable!) boots when I should have checked the phone bill instead. I spent $60 on a (so cute!) DKNY sweater when I haven’t yet been able to turn on the heat for the winter. My job was spared from cutbacks but that means continuing to do more but with even less.
All right, I’ve got to turn this around or else I am going to carve my wrists instead of the — oh, wait, no food in the house. Shocker! — turkey I will be having with friends tonight. (Thank you, God, for my friends. I mean that.)
I needed this vacation (eight glorious, glorious days. Half work, half play. As it should be). My sanity hinged on this escape. It almost didn’t happen and I’m so grateful the powers-that-be approved the expense because I can’t take a real vacation ever (I’ve learned to stop asking for days off) but no one could say a word when I tacked on a personal leg of this journey when I ask for so very little.
I’ve been suffering with “too much to do-itis” because there are always more projects but not the manpower unless it comes from within. And while I get that we’re entering a period of belt-tightening and taking one for the team to keep the boat afloat, well I’ve been operating that way for a lot longer.
Now that I’m at the end of my rope, I am being asked to find even more rope — and by the way, could I braid it myself? Super!
And I’m OK with that. For now. But I just needed to get the fuck away for a while to regain whatever sense of balance that I might have found, for the five minutes I might have found it to recognize what to emulate.
I did a lot of networking while I was away. And the thing I always walk away with, are compliments paid by the dozens, on what a happy person I seem like. That I worship my boys and bend over backward for them. That I genuinely come across as loving what I do for a living. That I will stay two hours after the conference ends to help ONE CUSTOMER to make up his mind about something.
Yep. That’s me. And you know why? Whether it’s Thanksgiving or any day, I am grateful for the opportunity to get to fall in love again with why I do all of this in the first place.
So, yeah, my vacation haze was shot within 60 minutes of collecting my luggage last night. But while I know I will probably never get another vacation day ever, from the home or the job, I was no dummy — I lived it up while I could.
And while a part of me wishes that I DIDN’T know what it was like to live the high life — because it really hurts to leave it — I at least have something to keep aspiring to and not just climbing into the hamster wheel, day after day, because it’s the only life I know. …