Ambivalence

I just handed off another chunk of work, crossing off one more item that I need to complete before my current client commitments end on May 30. I'm taking off the entire month of June, maybe longer, and I'm giddy at the thought of spending lots of quality time pulling the garden into shape, catching up with friends, and completing long-neglected tasks around the house.

I'm also nervous.

I need a break. I returned to work a few weeks after Sandy died, and though I haven't always worked long hours, I've had at least one project in progress every day since. My energy level is still not up to par, so I've put off things that are more personally meaningful in order to meet my work commitments. I'm ready for a vacation.

So many of our plans had to be reworked in 2010. Because
Sandy had been having trouble catching her breath while
cycling, we'd already changed plans from biking to Moses
Lake on Memorial Day weekend to biking to Snoqualmie
Falls for the night. After her bone scan showed a femoral
tumor and she couldn't bike at all, we just drove there for
a getaway. Not what we'd originally hoped for, but it did
feel like a very welcome mini-vacation after all.

But I don't trust the universe to give me this time for rejuvenation. Three years ago, I planned a sabbatical from work. I thought I'd take two months to do all the things I'm hoping to do this June. (In fact, I still have the spreadsheet of all that I'd planned to accomplish then. Does that make me sound terribly nerdy?) In 2010, my work projects were to end by the first of May, but one slipped out a few days, so it was May 6 that I handed off the final product. And it was the night of May 6 that we had an answering machine message about suspicious spots in Sandy's lungs on a chest Xray. I was glad not to have to work for the next couple of months so I could care for Sandy during a very difficult time, but I didn't get my sabbatical.

In 2011, I stopped working in mid-April and planned to avoid any new projects until Sandy had successfully transitioned to a new chemo drug. I didn't want to commit to anything major because I wanted to be flexible in case we ran into any snags along the way. But I expected to have plenty of time to garden and catch up on home maintenance and the like. Instead, much of my time in late April, May, and early June went to trying to ease Sandy's pain; each time we finally figured out how to manage one symptom, a new one would emerge. We did have a vacation, in name, but it wasn't much of a vacation for me. And then, of course, we were in the hospital and in hospice and, if anything, my long list of neglected tasks grew. I didn't make much progress on them in the weeks after Sandy died; I was doing well to eat three meals a day, get to therapy, and spend time with comforting friends. And then I started working again by mid-August.

So now I yearn to have days that are all mine, days of losing myself in tasks enjoyed and completed, days of check marks next to to-do lists. And I'm less than a week away from that reality. Or at least, that's the plan. But I can't help feeling anxious about what happens when I dare to plan to take some time for myself.