I Should Just Lie Down

Only four days and 4 hours left. That means that I'm going to be spending the next four days writing documentation to cover everything that I've done in the last year. whee! Plus, my client is insisting that I produce documents covering what they should do for every possible eventuality they might encounter.

Might I point out that we implemented a data warehouse? And that there are literally thousands of pages about warehouses and troubleshooting already available? Oh, no. They want a "reference" guide so they don't have to find these things themselves. So, on I write. And on. And on and on....

But come Friday...I'm off for three months! Hopefully this will let me get my life back in balance. That sounds really new-agey to me, but what I've seen in the last few months is that my job (with the hour-plus one-way commute and crazy clients) has sucked the joy out of my life. I'm not doing anything that I find interesting, I'm not even doing the things that I truly enjoy. I've almost stopped reading. The website for the Ireland trip is languishing in the planning stages, I have developed an almost OCD relationship with crossword puzzles, and I've easily gained twenty-five pounds in the last year. Burnout is a concept that everyone understands, and when I add what appears to be serious, major depresssion (with oh-so-fun anxiety attacks and insomnia)...I need to do something else for awhile.

It's not like I don't have a list of things I want to do -- I just haven't been able to summon even the barest hint of intersest in things for months. I want to go back to reading, finish my current cross-stich project and start some new ones, write the Ireland travelogue and finish the website, spend time at the library, finish cataloguing the books, reorganize my iPod, wrap up classes, write, frame some of the pictures from the trips. Walk the dogs. Start riding the exercise bike again. Cook dinner at home once in a while.

I have to send out a note to my office telling everyone that I'm taking off. Everyone knows, of course, but my boss thought I should remind people. So, I'm thinking of: "I am taking three months off so that I don't have to take an axe to work and start offing the clients" as a good message. Or, "...so I don't start telling the CEO what I'm really thinking." They won't believe the second one. They figure I already tell the clients exactly what I'm thinking. I think I still manage to keep some of the PC filter in place!

Four days and three hours, fifty minutes.