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.
