The Day Off

I love working.  If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do so much of it.

Some people call me a workaholic as if that’s a bad thing.  I just shake my head.  I did the juggle-shuffle-and-balance for years, fighting against my central nature, trying ALL THE TIME to maintain a nonchalance designed to keep others happy that kept me dissatisfied with my performance at work and my performance at home.

Actually, I’m not a workaholic, I’m just naturally obsessive.  There’s a difference.

If it involves people of all ages (including sweet little children,) business accounting, food, feeding people and making them happy, photography, writing, marketing, multi-media creativity, social media, brainstorming, problem-solving, and strategic planning, I’m all in!  Just so perfectly happens, I do all that.  Most of it at work.  For a lot of hours each week.

See.  Love!  I love my job.

I love my life too.  That’s always nice.

Never before have I had freedom to pursue my career without a constant thought to children and the demands of a husband.  I gotta say, I like it.

This is what the empty nest feels like after almost a year.

This is what they were talking about.

This is what they said I would get used to.

It’s interesting how even when “they” are right, I still need to live it to believe it.

Don’t get me wrong.  I enjoy balance.  And leisure.  I know how to relax.  Take today for instance.

I slept late.  Without guilt.  I talked with my 24-year old son.  That is, I listened to him on purpose.  (He can talk when I let him!  And I like it.)

I sorted laundry and ran the dishwasher.  I picked up garbage my sons left behind in their effort this summer to turn my house into their own bachelor pad.  (They don’t mind either that I’m working so much.)  I came home at 11:00 last night after my “short day” of work to find them gutting fish in the kitchen sink.  Thankfully, they took care of the guts right away.

I took a nap already today.  I don’t feel one bit guilty about that either.

I ordered perfume on the internet since I don’t anymore have time to run down to St. Cloud for a fun excursion of shopping. (Not that I’ve ever found shopping all that fun.)  Clothes and shoes on-line…I can definitely see that in my near future.  I finally understand why people like it!

I keep toying with the goal of all my laundry clean by the end of the day.  I like that.  All my clothing clean at once.  Hasn’t happened for a while.  Still toying.  Did I say I sorted laundry?  That’s as far as we got.

When BoyWonder and ManBoy were off on their own adventures over the winter, I used to wash clothes once a week in three neat little loads.  I didn’t step over piles of discarded laundry in the living room.  I didn’t have to wonder if the pile thrown up against the wall behind the door to the basement was housing mold.  (That’s because there was no pile thrown up against the wall behind the door to the basement, in case you didn’t catch that.)

I got used to knowing where every single glass in the house was at any given moment.  I love it when they’re all clean and put away, stationed neatly behind the pane of glass in the cupboard, symmetrically sentinel where I can see them. Needless to say, I’ve lost count entirely.  I’m just hoping they haven’t been broken.

I used to have a pretty little farm-house porch complete with a charming day bed and an extra dining table and four wooden chairs.  The floor was a clean, happy purple, freshly painted last summer.   It used to be a nice entryway.

I’m not sure I can see the floor, the day bed or the table any more, given the plethora of gear that’s been deposited there.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love that my sons are now men and doing very manly things like riding their motorcycles, buying boats and fishing gear, cleaning their guns and shooting them off, acquiring 20-foot trailers and boat lifts and parking them in the grass they mow.  I’m glad glad glad they mow it!  I’m happy they can spray their truck-bed liners out in the driveway.  I just don’t want to spend my one day off in two weeks picking up their goods.

So, I’m not.  I’m also not really complaining.  I’m actually too tired to complain.  I’m here to rest.  The house actually doesn’t smell so badly of fish guts, grime, hunting gear, and motorcycle parts that I can’t rest.

See, I know how to relax.  I know which battles to pick.  It can’t really surprise anyone I like my job so much.  I’ll be hard at it again tomorrow.  But first I’m going to take  a nap on the beach.

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