2:30

It was 2:30 this afternoon when I realized I had accomplished most of the things that I typically aspire to (but don’t generally complete) as my beginning-of-the-day routine on “work days.”  You know the drill:

Sleep.  Goodness knows I am SHOCKED by how late I am sleeping.  Check.

Delicious and healthy breakfast – complete with a warm cup of tea and actually sitting down at the kitchen table.  Check.

Work-out – and by this I mean some cardio and some stretches.  Today was a walk and some Wii.  Check.

Preparing food for the rest of the day.  Among other tasks:  grinding flax seeds, squeezing lemon and limes into a pitcher of water and a quick run to the store to pick up dinner.  Check.

Meditation.  I have the newish Deepak Chopra guided meditation cd and I am trying to work with that.  And it is hard for me to do.  1/2 Check.

Unpack the dishwasher.   Enough said.  Check.

Now, I feel very balanced for having accomplished all of this as I “started” my day, but let us be abundantly clear:  when I have to be in a classroom by 7 AM this fall,  this program that ends at about 2:30 PM (after shower and getting dressed)  is simply not going to work. 

And that is part of the challenge of vacations.  In being re-introduced to a pattern and a pace of life that actually makes sense, the clock ticks and we are thrown back in to such a cacophony of commitments, schedules and pressures that it is easy to forget what we really want to be about while we walk this earth.  

How will I ever make the transition to working again?

I am not going to tackle that right now, even though the question of how to maintain this vacation equilibrium is inherent in every aspect of my time off.  For today I am really grateful that my pace is my own.  Others will own it soon enough.