Hard Landing

We just returned from a trip to Disney World with the boys and my family.  We were there four days, with a day of driving on each end, and it was a great trip.  I will write more about it this weekend when I have a chance to take a breath.  We returned Monday, at which point the husband carried in the suitcases, repacked a small bag, and drove himself on to his job in New Orleans.  I’ve done my best to manage laundry and groceries and settling back in since then, but boy I wish I could have had one day extra off to do that, instead of squeezing it in at night after I get home (after 7, yesterday).  I need to get to the weekend, so I can process the whirlwind of fun, plus all the pictures and videos we took, and actually ease back into normal chaotic life instead of leaping onto a treadmill at an automatic 70 mph.  Isn’t that always the way with vacation?  We could all use a transition day at the beginning and end, but rarely can manage it.  All the bosses line up at your door and demand your immediate attention when all you wanna do is go home and run some laundry and watch a couple of Duck Dynasty while your photos upload and, like, breathe a second.

Anyway, we’re back.  I am struggling to find focus at work.  I write a sentence, delete it . . . pick up a file, put it down . . . a partner comes in and talks words at me and they sort of float around my head, and I’m mostly taking notes so I can re-process whatever it is they’re saying at a later time, when I am more coherent.  I would just go home, but the kids are at home with the nanny right now, so that’s no refuge.  Sometimes in order to trick myself out of a funk like this, I will take everything that I’m supposed to get done, put a physical representation of it (either the file, or a piece of paper listing a single task) into a pile, shuffle the pile into a random order, and then do the work from top to bottom, regardless of whether it makes sense to do it in that order, whether I feel like it, whether conditions are perfect to get that particular item done when it appears on the top of the pile.  This can be a good way to keep me from listlessly passing my hand over this task or that task, making up excuses for why I can skip it for now, procrastinating by pretending I’m prioritizing.

But I think today’s shot, so I’ll have to do that tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I’ll just let the vacation letdown wash over me, and shut my door and pretend I’m busily catching back up, when really I’m staring moodily out the window.  Don’t worry.  I have to track my hours, so I’ll be making this up at midnight some night. That just isn’t enough of a “stick” to get me motivated to giddyup and go today.  Turns out walking approximately a hundred miles over the course of four days while 24 weeks preg takes it out of a girl.