I found out last week that I needed to fly to Miami on Saturday and stay through Tuesday night. It sounds like a lot of fun to jet off to a tropical hot spot in November, but the reality of it was that I’d had a nice quiet weekend planned. I was going to have lunch with an old friend, scrub the house down, do my Thanksgiving shopping and just generally chill out. Unfortunately, in today’s economy when duty calls you have to go because decent jobs are tough to come by.
My flight from Chattanooga landed about 6:00 pm on Friday so I had enough time to run out and do my Thanksgiving shopping, do my laundry, and repack my bag before it was time to fall into bed. Saturday morning I headed off to pick Sean up at school. We had a nice lunch together and then he dropped me off at the airport. Once I was in the air, I had time to reflect upon how this might not be such a bad thing, after all even though we were working there should be time in the evenings to hang out and chill out and just relax. I’d done my research on the hotel and found they had a pool and a great patio with inviting looking sofas so maybe I could spend a few hours hanging out by the pool and reading or writing.
Those fantasies were not to come to fruition until Tuesday morning. My new boss had most of his new team on the ground and together for the first time and he wanted us to hang out together and get to know each other. I like my new boss and I like my new coworkers, but I also love my me time and heading into the holidays I knew it was going to be in short supply and that sofa on the patio looked so inviting.My me time finally arrived on Tuesday morning when I arrived downstairs 45 minutes before we were supposed to head to the office. I didn’t see any of my coworkers at breakfast so I didn’t feel guilty 
heading outside to claim one of the big comfy overstuffed chairs for my own. I leaned back, took a deep breath of the warm tropical air, closed my eyes and listened to the fountain. I felt all the tension ease out of my body as I enjoyed my brief tropical respite. After a few minutes of relaxing, I called a friend and enjoyed a good gossip session about all the insanity happening at work. Once our gossip session ended, I pulled out my trashy novel and spent 20 minutes soaking up the sun and reading.
heading outside to claim one of the big comfy overstuffed chairs for my own. I leaned back, took a deep breath of the warm tropical air, closed my eyes and listened to the fountain. I felt all the tension ease out of my body as I enjoyed my brief tropical respite. After a few minutes of relaxing, I called a friend and enjoyed a good gossip session about all the insanity happening at work. Once our gossip session ended, I pulled out my trashy novel and spent 20 minutes soaking up the sun and reading.Although I didn’t get all the me time that I’d hoped for, that 45 minutes of tropical bliss was more than enough to recharge my batteries and give me the boost I needed.
Cairn by Cairn 