Renewal in another place.
I’m really burnt out.
I can feel the restlessness. The lack of clarity and concentration. The short temper and intolerance for other people’s stupidity.
I’m really, really burnt out.
Yeah, you’ve sent me an email lately and I haven’t responded. I’ve got somewhere around 600 emails piled up right now, about half of which I actually WANT to read and maybe a third I want to scan through. Of the half I want to read, I’ve probably got about a third of those I want to reply to. Don’t hold your breath if you’ve been waiting.
I have absolutely no desire to go to another meeting. I’ve been to so many unproductive meetings over the past couple months I’m sick of ‘em all. I dread March 13th – I have three meetings scheduled for that night, one starting at 6:30 pm and the other two starting at 7:00 pm. Here’s a surprise: I’m not going to two of them. I think I’ve mostly settled on which one I’m going to attend. I’m sure my choice is going to disappoint some people - well, I simply can’t do everything.
I want to sit down and read and teach myself new things and my focus is…
I procrastinate on things I really want to get accomplished and off my plate. On the other hand, I have managed to get a lot of little things done as I go.
I don’t even have my usual spewage of nonsensical attempts at humour I normally tweet to my adoring public (and the other 1220 or so of you who clicked “follow” entirely by accident).
What is it normal people do right about now? That thing that happens when cabin fever sets in so bad you start looking for any excuse to escape those four padded walls around you? That time when the curling playoffs have ended and the hockey playoffs have yet to begin?
Today, the day has come where it is time for me to swing my mind forward and begin thinking about – a vacation.
Not one of those “stay-at-home-and-file-paperwork” vacations. Not one of those “go-camping-for-a-week-and-try-to-smell-like-the-forest” vacations. An honest to ghod, get thine self out from the ordinary and do something different vacation. I have never been on an actual vacation like this. Maybe a family vacation when I was younger. Certainly nothing remotely like this as an adult.
My mom planned a special trip to take my daughter to Costa Rica. I don’t really have a desire to travel the world, but the responsibility fell on me to take my daughter down there in my mom’s absence. My job is to make sure that she has a good time.
My joy, however, is going to be something quite different.
Tonight I opened up Stellarium and did something I have never done before. I set my location to San Jose, Costa Rica. I let time progress beginning at sunset and proceeding through the night. My dear friend and protector Orion did not stroll just above the horizon but rose high into the sky - practically at zenith given how much trouble I had moving the mouse without having the sky spin around the pointer. Constellations I only barely remember as names that skim along the very edge of the horizon instead popped glaringly into view. Fornax, Columba, Pyxis, Antlia. They’re just names to me. I don’t really know any of their stories or details.
I discovered new names I did not recognize at all. I’m sure I’ve seen them before in star maps, but they have no meaning to me. Horologium, Reticulum, Pictor, Carina. The Southern Pleiades? How fascinating!
I had a realization tonight. In about three weeks I’ll be fulfilling a dream. A little after sunset, I’ll be looking straight to the south and trying to find the constellation Dorado. Just beneath it, if the skies are dark and the weather cooperates, I’ll look for a little puffy cloud. A galaxy, a companion to our own, a member of our cluster. The Large Magellanic Cloud. I won’t be able to see the Small Magellanic Cloud, it will have set before the sun.
Some time around midnight I’ll look to the south and see Crux - the Southern Cross. My father talked about seeing Crux when he lived in Australia. I never believed I’d see it with my own eyes. It’s almost a certainty that I’ll see it at some point.
My daughter’s gift is a trip to a foreign land. My gift is a trip to foreign skies. May they be cloudless and dark.