Taking a time out...

One of the nice (or worrisome) things about this journal is that I can see the clouds gathering before the storm breaks (but not sensibly enough to get inside before it does, to stretch the metaphor). In this case, the trip to Koln, the notes on not having enough time, and on trying to be accommodating, were all probably good signals that life was getting overwhelming.

I woke at 4 am this morning with just a sea of worries. What to do to help my son was the big one, but there is a venture capital presentation Monday to be prepared and reviewed, paperwork to be written for two promotions of people working for me, a couple of status reports to write updating people on projects I'm leading, an interview with my replacement as Research Manager, half a dozen students to sort out for supervision back at Cambridge...and I haven't even touched on Christmas or on what to do about extending my expat contract (due to expire in May, and where do I go after that?). There was a full day of meetings ahead and Conversational Dutch this evening, so clearly things would not get any better.

Time for a Time Out.

Honestly, looking at calendar, was there anything so important today that I couldn't step back, take a deep breath, maybe take a bath, dress comfortably, and give things my full attention and best effort in a little space and quiet?

No.

And so I did: 'first sick-day in years.

And it's all getting done, and there will be time left over to unwind a bit. 'gotta work on that 'balance' part of life a bit better, clearly...

PS: I later found that Douglas Welch gave similar sage advice...