Ninety Minutes for Me

After a few busy weeks, I really needed a break.

This week has been absolutely nutty. Make that last week and this week — or perhaps every day since Friday the 13th when it was also an impending full moon. That’s it. Work has been a combination of Friday the 13th, the Full Moon, and toss in Groundhog Day, for nearly two weeks now. Everyone has lost their minds and is howling.

Daily, I think of something I want to write. I want to be at my Surface, at my little writing desk, putting my thoughts to paper. But something about the change of seasons has caused me to sleep later (likely the later arrival of the sunrise) and that has stolen the early morning hours of spring and summer when I would capture some time for myself. By evenings, I am exhausted, and for the past two weeks I have been unable to catch a break.

Then last night, I happened to see a post from a local bookstore — Anderson’s Bookshop — that they were hosting a luncheon with Richard Powers, author of The Overstory. The Overstory has been on my to-read list, and I even have the audiobook in my queue. I saw in the post that The Overstory has been selected as the 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner, and it is always a goal of mine to read the Pulitzer Prize winner each year.

I looked at my calendar. I could sneak out to the luncheon. I had nothing else scheduled, and it was at a hotel that was only a 10-minute drive from my house. I guessed that the event would be 1.5–2 hours. I hesitated. I really could use that 1.5–2 hours in my workday and losing it would mean catch-up later.

But then I thought of how rough the past two weeks have been. How I have been slammed with one thing after the other.

I really needed a break.

Last Friday was my oldest son’s 10th birthday. A HUGE milestone. And in marriage therapy, my husband had requested that he and I spend more time together. More dates. More time with the two of us. And while I appreciated the sentiment, in my brain I was thinking “When? When are we going to do this?” We take walks together almost every day, in the middle of the day, usually at least a mile. And then in the evenings, we always talk before we go to bed. And he’s wanting MORE time together?