A return to normalcy
I feel like I’ve been traveling for months. I think that would be because I HAVE been traveling for months. It’s been a long time (read: Thanksgiving) since I’ve had my regular work-home-Augusta schedule, and let me tell you, the nastiness that is my house is simply awful to behold. I’d post pictures, except then I’d have documented evidence that would forever haunt me.
Tonight when I unpack my suitcase and put it away, I’m going to do so with the expectation that it will stay away for the next couple of weeks. At the most, I’m planning to go to Augusta, and I have enough clothes already there that I rarely bother to pack a bag.
I’m looking forward to living in my house and my city full-time again… but I’m very much going to miss the regular trips to Chicago. It’s been good to see family so frequently, to strengthen existing bonds and to form new ones (with baby Amal, for example), and when I say that I had begun to consider the guest bedroom in Naperville to be my room, I am not entirely kidding.
As much as the Chicago visits upended my routine, so also did they provide stability for me. They became a different, albeit hectic, sort of normal themselves. In Chicago, if you remember, we are competitive, we are sarcastic, and we laugh a lot. There is a space for me in Chicago, whether or not somebody else is in my room, and the amount of comfort I take in that knowledge is indescribable. Plus, there are very few people in Atlanta who will play Scrabble with me.
Atlanta’s home. The place where I keep my shoes. However, it’s heartwarming to know that if I ever need it, my shoes and I have another place that’ll take us.
And then there’s work. I don’t think I’ve worked two consecutive five-days-in-the-office work weeks since Thanksgiving either. I took some time in the middle of December for the aforementioned traveling (and also, I suppose, to finish out the rest of my vacation time), and then we had the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, and then I was gone for hajj, and since coming back from Saudi, I’ve spent at least two days a week in Chicago, sometimes working a whole lot, sometimes… not. I’m amazingly productive out of the office, but for some things (like stalking people — have I mentioned I’m a champion stalker?), it’s easier to be at work when you’re working.
Seeing my friends again will be great. Cleaning up my house so it’s not a federal disaster area will be great, and cooking again will be great. Not worrying about whether I need to wear a coat will be super-great. It will be normal. After so many weeks of “abnormal,” though, I’m not entirely sure what “normal” is going to feel like now.