It’s Monday and a public holiday. It’s the first day in a long time where I’ve felt like there wasn’t something urgent to do or something I’ve been neglecting that needs to be addressed.
Work is bordering on the insane sometimes but I know it’s ok. I have a great team around me and we haven’t yet veered into the unachievable or ridiculous.
Home too is going well. As the restrictions lift things feel more normal. While my working from home arrangements will remain in place for a bit longer, and maybe in some ways more permanent, my wife is making the transition back this week.
I love long weekends. They’re like my favourite punctuation mark, the dash (–). It provides a little space to explore and chill out. A chance to change ideas.
This long weekend there’s a dash – but an empty space there.
We didn’t move quickly to book a weekend away which while it would have been nice would have only been a break from our lovely comfortable home. We did a road trip instead and got that same feeling of escape.
But today what was missing was friends. I got to lunch time and then, space. Nothing. The perfect time to go and grab a beer or hang out, but for all the benefits of the move there’s one bit that’s missing – friends.
We don’t have that pre-built network that comes from growing up here, or spending our 20s partying and being sociable beings. We landed and got ourselves settled, and then …
The intention was always to make friends next, but then COVID came along. Rather than being socially active it forced us into isolation. And without friends and having no family around has been a struggle for us as a family. We’ve stayed connected for sure, but there’s no one new connections and no one local. We lack that ability to just hang out. This past week, as the cafes and bars open up I’ve desperately wanted to go out and be sociable, just not on my own.
This long weekend has been great to pause and contemplate. As most of them are. It’s at least clarified where I need to put some energy going forward. Another couple of heavy weeks of work and I think I’ll have the time and headspace to do that.
Heart | Soul | Machine 