We just came back from a great ski trip to Colorado with some friends from law school, and I’m settling back into my basement (the heater is still taking a while to warm up, so I’m in my husband’s old Gap jacket that he hasn’t worn for a decade, the only warm thing I could find down here, since I don’t want to go back upstairs and upset the breakfast that my kids are having with my nanny).
I haven’t yet figured out how to enjoy a vacation while in this new role of starting up my own business. I actually talked to my father about it, thinking that he might have some words of wisdom for me since he used to work seven days a week in his convenience store without any vacation for years. His advice went something like, “Why you worried? No salary, right?” It wasn’t very helpful. (Any better advice would be most appreciated).
I’m used to checking e-mail and keeping things going while on vacation, but I’ve also been better at shutting down for most of the day and just enjoying the time with my family than I was during the first couple of days of this trip.
But I had planned to have a lease signed and just be waiting to start up construction when I first scheduled this time away.
Instead, I am still working through some issues with the space (namely, an unexpectedly large and ugly duct that appeared on the ceiling one day), and have some other hard decisions and conversations looming over me. Nothing that couldn’t wait a day or two, but also nothing that I could escape, even during late night card games after dancing to the Scissor Sisters’ most poorly named song, “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing.”
When I left Starbucks, one of my mentors there told me that the toughest thing about this experience would be the inability to talk openly with my spouse about the worries on my mind. Because it is unfair to ask for the financial and emotional sacrifices you require while also burdening him with the concerns. Because the concerns, each taken individually, are rather small and unworthy of disrupting limited family time. But he neglected to tell me that I wouldn’t be able to make it through a Scissor Sisters song without worrying about how my reception desk would look.
The last couple of days were better – perhaps because I’d had some time to decompress, perhaps because it was the weekend, and nothing more could get done anyway, and perhaps because my husband pointed out that I was being impatient with everyone, including my five-year old son who wanted nothing more than to impress me with his snowplow. Also in large part because of my wonderful, supportive friends, and several cases of great wine.
Thank you Renata and Nick! And Becky, Stu, Camy, Lisa, Jerry, Liza (and Mary Lee and Carter too). And my lovely family. Maybe I’ll do better next year . . . if I’m invited back.
