Day 3

Ok, well this one isn't as nice as the first 2 days, but I committed I'm going to try to be as honest as I can. I guess I will have some good and some bad days, and today was definitely a bad day. Today I thought, wow, I really don't know if I can do this. Now granted, its the 3rd day back from vacation, which can be stressful anyway, so I'm hoping it's nothing systemic. I certainly need to learn some things from it.

The problem is I closed Tuesday night with 400 unread emails. I've still not learned how to not relate unread email to a feeling of loose ends or unfinished business. On those rare days when I have 10-20 unread emails, I still at least scan the subjects and the from to make sure I haven't missed something important. Not possible with 400. I worked later than normal Tuesday night, and skipped my tennis practice (2nd time in a row). Even with that, I had 400 unread emails.

I also had 3 vice-president reviews to prepare, with only 2 days to prepare (Thursday and Monday) and since people were missing me when I was out, my calendar had exactly 2, 30 minute slots open starting from 6:30am to 4pm. My stress level was very high.

So I didn't sleep Tuesday night. I get up Wednesday morning and try to have a nice breakfast with Zak, unfortunately with a slightly pre-occupied mind. I take him to TumbleBees (make-up class from vacation), we have lunch and I selfishly try to get him to nap ASAP so I can sift through a little email.

The weather is rather nice, so I sit out on our new patio and start to work. The real trouble began when as I was steadily reading through and I got on escalation about something I hadn't managed to catch up on while I was away last week. This gets my blood pressure going. I don't like not being on top of things.

As I start racing to fix the escalation, my Polish mother-in-law chooses that time to try to talk to me about buying some new facial cream "because it is too expensive in Poland." I manage to tell her "pozniej" (later), then she continues to ask me about how Zak slept last night, what he ate, etc.

Now, I don't know what my mother in law thinks I do for work, but I'm sure she thinks I just type away, not really needing my mind to do so. It's hard enough multi-tasking with someone next to you speaking English, much less in Polish. My blood pressure rises higher as I keep telling her "Nie wiem, nie pamietem, or pozniej" as I desperately try to close out the escalation. Finally, I give up. I'm not supposed to be working anyway. I hear Zak starting to wake from his nap. Maybe it's a sign to let myself calm down before trying to close out this issue.

I close the computer and my mother-in-law say "Juz?! Skoniecz pracy?" (Already finished with work?) I don't know if she understood my slightly esasperated smile but I simlpy said "Tak, juz" - yes already. But my mind was whirring the whole rest of the day and night. I vaguely remember going for a bike ride with Zak later that afternoon, and then playing some puzzles, but my mind and heart weren't there.

I was preparing how to close the escalation and finish those 3 vp presentations with the one hour free time I had. I got up at 4 the next morning to get to work early.

I hope this is a symptomof coming back from vcaation and not a sign of whats to come.