Here I am…
… at my desk, in my office. Away from my family. With my calendar beside me, wondering what the weeks ahead will look like.
I was going to start back yesterday, but my boss pretty much told me I had to work half-time for the rest of the 3-month leave I’m entitled to – until Feb. 3 – and that I should start back today, for some chunk of the day. So, OK. I’m here for the morning. The rest remains to be figured out.
(I’m listening to the parish administrator and the sexton discussing my car. Whose car is that? – the silver one? – I don’t know – could it be Weirdbird’s? – oh, yeah, I think the Boss mentioned she might be in today… and here comes the parish administrator to say hello.)
My spiritual director asked me, when we met in December, what gifts of this time of sabbath do I want to carry forward as I return to work? A good question.
One gift of this time with my family is an awareness of how focused time with each and all of them feeds both them and me. I want to keep the ability to discern what’s most important and put my time and my heart there – which much of the time will mean spending good, joyful, present time with my husband, my son, my daughter. (And with the circle of local friends I’m starting to have… another blessing.)
Another gift is the very clear sense of work/life differentiation that I have right now. It’s not perfect, by any means – I’m not sure I’m constitutionally capable of totally detaching from my work – but it’s much better than it was the last time I sat in this office. Some things still matter to me in a front-and-center way, but I have a sense that a lot of details and issues and tasks would slide off my back pretty easily if they presented themselves to me right now. I know I’ll get enmeshed again, caught up in it all, and some of those details and tasks will begin to seem terribly terribly important for me Me ME to handle again. I don’t look forward to that. It’s not a mindset that’s particularly healthy or fun. I don’t want to think about work stuff at home, with the very limited exception of projects or questions that also interest Tilt and can be the subject of fruitful and enjoyable conversation.
I would like very much not to get as enmeshed as I was before, and to keep a clearer sense of work/life boundaries. I don’t know quite how to make that happen, other than trying to notice. And writing this down now, so I can look back at it. (And so my husband and friends can remind me. 
January 13th, 2010 at 11:26 am
If you figure out the secret of how to keep yourself apart from work, and retain that nice peaceful feeling that goes with taking a break from it, I want to get in on it.
I think somehow we’ve got to listen to that little tiny voice inside ourselves that whispers, “talk to your husband,” “lay down with the kids and find cloud animals.” And ignore that screaming idiot-box called work that purrs when we stroke it all day and all night long… I’ll be darned if I’ve turned the trick of doing it yet, though.
January 13th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Yay to trying to notice. Sometimes that’s the most important step.