catching up and slowing down

I just finished reading several posts on Steve Yoder's blog on Wall Street Journal and it got me thinking aout my own blog.  I haven't done any substantial posts recently other than pictures, one-liner comments, or quotations.

My rationalization for this, of course, is the information systems project that I am currently involved with at work, compounded by a couple of hours' laboratory work in the evening.  I leave the house at 7:30 in the morning and don't see my front door again until 8:30 pm on most nights.  Occasionally it had been as late as 10:00 pm.  This happens consistently from Monday to Friday.  And I work on some Saturdays.  Insane.

Of course my real schedule is supposed to be the normal nine-to-five kind of work, but with this project -- not that you really care, but we will have 35 laboratory sites going live on a new system on the same day on June 19 (we call it the Big Bang, affectionately or anxiously depending on whom you ask ) -- most of my days are stretched to 9 hours or more.  Then I switch hats, drive over to the lab, sit behind a microscope and be a scientist for a few more hours.  In all, I am out of the house about 12 hours each day.  If I sleep for 7 to 8 hours, it leaves me 4 to 5 hours each day for getting out of bed in the morning to get ready for work and feeding the dog at night and getting ready for bed. 

The scientist part I really don't have to do.  "It's your choice," a co-worker told me one time when I complained about not having enough hours in the day to unwind at home at the end of the day, my dog having to eat very late on my account.  But I couldn't tell my co-worker that I am, sadly, a victim of the paycheck.  The extra paycheck.  The supposed "candy money" that has become part of the household budget.

But I digress...

Recently I started doing something I haven't done in a while: having an honest down-time.  I went and spent my days off with friends -- lunch, movies, cafe, plays, brunch, and dinners.

It made me stop thinking about work.  I still talked about work with my friends, but it was from a point of view outside the work-bubble.  And it made me see that this I-am-so-busy drama that I so inexorably cloak myself with is actually silly and pointless.  Yes, I am busy, but I don't have to let it define who I am and dictate how my relationships should be.

It made me think of other things I haven't done in a long time.  Like playing the piano.  Or writing real posts for my blog.  So last night I spent close to an hour on the piano with my Hanon exercise book in front of me, discovering how slow and weak my fingers had become.  And today I am spending long-overdue time on the laptop putting thoughts into words.

This is good.  Maybe I'll do it again next week.