Not Really So New

• Posted on January 6, 2015
• by Karen Fayeth
• 5 Comments

Welcome to the sixth day of the year 2015 but only my second day back at the ol’ place of work.

While technically the first of January is the first day of the New Year, it doesn’t really feel like the New Year has begun until I go back to work, i.e. get back into the “real world.”

My employer is ever so kind in that they shut down operations from December 24 through January 1. That means with a little planning and a little curation of vacation hours, I can eek out full two glorious weeks away from the office.

I look forward to this two-week break from work all year long.

All. Year. Long.

In my career, I’ve rarely taken two weeks of regular vacation time, so these two weeks at the end of the year feel beautifully indulgent.

My first priority for the break time is to sleep. Nap. Sleep more. Rest and then do nothing too taxing on brain and body. That usually lasts about three days then I’m rested and raring to go.

The rest of the break time is spent with family, exploring the world with The Good Man, cleaning up my home office/studio and working on creative projects.

I find I’m able to fully and completely forget about work and live the dream of a creative life. Sleep until my body is rested, rise and work on creative projects, fill my head with creative inspiration and plan forward for the projects I want to work on in the coming year.

It’s a beautiful place to be, a place I’d live all year round if those darn lottery numbers would just break my way. It feels solid and satisfying and clean and pure.

And then sixteen days of being my own boss pass too quickly and Monday, January 5 arrives. I have to figure out how to get back into the flow of “regular” life. I have to metaphorically merge into speeding traffic with no running room and only two of four cylinders in working order.

Yesterday was that day. Yesterday I woke up with the help of an alarm clock (bleah, sixteen days of no chirping alarm was REALLY nice) and sat up in my comfy bed, bleary eyed and lost.

I tried hard to find the muscle memory to rise, to make some breakfast, to put on some clothes, where is my work badge?, move out the door and get to work on time.

When I arrived at the office it was all too familiar and all too unfamiliar.

It felt like I had changed. I was a different (and better) person as I swiped my badge and entered the office. Then I realized that work had not changed.

I came to my own little gray cubicle and there was all of my same stuff I’d left behind, but it looked alien.

The laptop machine asked me for a password and I had to think very hard about it. Took a couple tries at it and finally remembered.

Have you ever seen baby ducks when they are following their Mama Duck into the water? It often looks like this: Mama slides effortlessly into the water and her eight to ten ducklings slip, slide, belly flop, and unceremoniously plop themselves with a splash behind her.

For a moment, the water crests over the top of their head, then the ducklings one by one pop to the surface like popcorn and start swimming.

It was very much like that yesterday. I fell uncoordinated and perilously off the vacation ledge into the bracingly cold pool of work. I grasped for stability for a little while and then I found my feet and began to paddle. By the afternoon I was moving more or less in a forward manner.

So that’s the New Year. A little bit new, a lotta bit old. I suppose all of the inspirational quotes are true. It’s up to me to make 2015 a really awesome year.

Forward into battle! *splash*cough*splutter* Okay. Now, here we go.

“Hoooooly craaaaap”

Image found here.