Finding Beauty in Unexpected Places, Day 30: Running Away

Last Tuesday, Ben came home and asked, "We are we doing on Friday?" I cringed and readied myself to hear yet another obligation I had to add to my week. "I don't know," I said. "Why?" "Well, there's tickets left to the Royals-Twins game. I thought we might be able to go to Twin Cities. We couldn't do that, could we?" I looked at him, "Um, I don't know...Yeah. Yes. Yes, we could." And we did.

Do you even know how awesome this is? We just up and went out-of-town. In mid-April. MID-APRIL - the time when all academics go insane. I was so proud of us! I would not have done this a couple years ago, and I don't think Ben would have dared asked. Of course, it took me most of our 24 hour trip to finally relax. But it was such a great reality check for me. I woke up at 5 am because of a nasty headache. My brain started cycling through everything I had to do, worrying about my students, etc. Suddenly, that self-policer I've been working so hard on (but who tends to get drowned out in all the end-of-the-semester craziness), barked at me, "Stop! You don't need to worry about this now. Right now your job is to sleep in this fluffy king-sized bed. You can worry about all that on Monday." Then I feel right back to sleep, and when I woke up, my headache was gone. How healthy is that!?! I don't think I could have ever gotten to that point if I hadn't let myself step out of my life for a while.

So even though it was a painful loss for the Royals, I think this was a major W for me.