8,000 and counting

We walked to the park today and I sat in the sun for an hour as small person played soccer.  Nothing too remarkable in that, other than that yesterday we woke up to an inch of snow and he had to do his egg hunting in a parka.  He came in half way to get gloves as it was so cold. Today, no snow anywhere, sun out, sun glasses on.  Energized by that burst of vitimin D I just popped into Home Depot to get some spring colour but sadly nothing to buy.  A few more weeks before a pansy or primrose appears.

It was strangely nostalgic to be looking for spring plants. Having spent the first 16 years of my working life in horticulture Easter has pretty much been the colourful, busy start to the season. But that was an ocean away as here everything is still sleeping, ready to wake up in a few weeks for 3 days of Spring before going turbo into Summer.  But still, the environment was reassuring.  I reminisced about how much less stressful life was when I was managing a garden centre. But nostalgia isn't real, those days were no less stressful if I'm honest, it was just that I had other problems to solve back then.

I have just announced to my husband that "I am ****ing sick of problem solving at work.  Why is everything so bloody complicated?"  And as I compare now to 25 years ago I can see the same patterns.  Maybe that's what drew me to Home Depot, maybe I was looking for a familiar less complicated environment?  Back then I had mountains of work to do, limited people to do that work, new stuff arriving all of the time and the challenge was to work out what would die first (plants that is not people, although...).  The days were long, days off were spent at work, or were frowned upon as Laziness.  So roll forward 25 years, same jigsaw pieces, new stuff arriving, not enough people, nothing dying persay but having to choose what to do and, most days, what not to do.

A year ago I was micro stressing that my inbox was approaching 2000 emails, most read but many unactioned.  Last week my inbox hit 8000 emails, around 80 unread, the rest read and waiting for someone to do something.  Maybe these emails are the Pansy's and primroses, fresh and eager when they arrive then gradually they die away, unloved, untended as I frantically squirt water at a fire elsewhere.  What does any of this tell me?  It tells me that I am drawn to jobs that cannot be fully completed; where the daily chore is not mostly doing the work, but is mostly arranging the work into piles and then doing maybe 3 key things each day.  It tells me that whatever hours I put in there will always be a mountain more to do.

So as I sat in the sun, in Canada...in Canada for goodness sake!...most days I don't even recognize tht I am here.  Life in conference calls has no sense of presence.  I sat in the sun and vowed that enough is enough.  I don't want to spend every night and weekend on email.  I do want to have the energy to drag my son away from the iPad, I want to live outdoors, feel the sun everyday, not just at weekends. I am reclaiming my life from that side of my personality that works non stop.  I am a part timer and from now on I am going to deliver that dream.  Let battle commence.