Slowing Down

I'm surprised the blog still had me signed in, it's been so long since I posted anything!

In reality, though, it's only been six weeks. And in the scheme of things, that is a fairly short time. This is not just an excuse (though it doubles nicely as one), it's my theme today.

I'm taking a sick day. And writing a blog post, you say? Shouldn't you be curled up in bed sleeping, or at least moaning in misery, since you had the audacity to take a day away from your duties in the workplace?

Maybe you're not saying that at all, but I am. I'm not sure why I feel such tremendous guilt whenever I take a sick day. Probably because I am very seldom too ill to function, and that's always been my guideline about taking off - if I'm too sick to work, I should be too sick to do anything but lie around and groan about how awful I feel.

That does happen to me, but not often. Maybe once a year, not even always once. I had a cold last week that has lingered through the weekend, culminating in an upset stomach and a night without sleep, and when I found myself wide awake at 2:30 am after two hours of fruitlessly counting sheep, I decided to just take the day off. I have well over a hundred hours saved up and nothing pressing on my calendar today. So why am I so reluctant to just give in and take a day to rest?

Well, for one thing, it's appearances. One does not call off on Monday without raising a "yeah, sure" eyebrow or two. Plus I was off on Friday for my scheduled flex day. Surely I could have willed myself into feeling better by now. And the thing is, I am not incapacitated. I could work. When I woke up around 7 (after finally drifting off around 3;30), I thought, "just go in late, you're all right."

See the guilt? I can't decide if this is my Catholic upbringing, my German ancestry work ethic, some combination of the two, or just my personal psychosis.

I stopped to visit with a friend on my way home Thursday. After yawning approximately 42 times in the course of an hour, she advised me to go home and completely relax - Netflix and the couch. It'll be good for you, she said.

Did I do this? No. Instead, I was spectacularly productive over the weekend. I wrote up a to-do list with about three dozen items on it and did them all. I thrive on that feeling of accomplishment that comes with ticking off a bunch of things that needed to be done.

And yet, here I am. Tired. Still needing to slow down. 

Green Acres is the place to be. 

This is the time of year to remember to do that. Maybe it's part of the reason we all tend to get sick in the fall. (Yeah, I'm pretty sure it has more to do with people being inside more and the kids going back to school spreading germs everywhere, but bear with me here.) This is the time that the brightly-living part of the year fades away. The heat and growth of summer come to a gradual, beautiful end, over the course of just twelve weeks. This is autumn, the slow decline to that part of the year where everything will come to rest.

Winter is unequivocal. It's cold, there's only a few hours of daylight, pretty much everything about it says "Go inside and sit by the fire with a book." Autumn is the promise of that, with its changing colors and chilly mornings, all the while allowing summer to linger on with its clear blue skies and continuing wealth of hot sunny days. It's my favorite time of the year in part because it feels so fleeting. Technically all the seasons last three months, but in Colorado there are really only about six weeks to take a drive through the mountains to see the gorgeous colors before a wind storm or early snow rips all the leaves down. By mid-October, the window is closed.

The message is slow down. Look around. Everything is coming to an end. Enjoy it while it lasts. Take a moment.

Take a day.

The world will not miss you for one day.