Taking off
I haven’t even returned from my 10-day summer vacation – the longest break I allow myself to take – and here I am, trying to stay away from all that is somehow related to work. With technology always involved – I work for one of the Big Techs – it’s way too much to disconnect from!
As I try – am I really trying? – I know very well that I won’t make it this year either. I’m saying this with a huge smile on my face. I don’t want to miss a thing, but my mind needs to stop – does it? – and I need to get serious about that – Do I? Now I am openly laughing at myself. Yeah! I say those very same words every single year, along with some justifications (summer isn’t my favorite time of the year for a vacation but it is the only one I get considering that it is not only me but us), excuses (this year there’s so much going on… – as usual!), and promises (next year I will manage better and take a longer break).
I don’t see that coming for me, to be honest. It wouldn’t work. If it is about taking more time to be able to really switch off, I don’t have an off button. This is who I am. Everything, everywhere, all at once. Always on. Pure energy. That obviously tends to end in pure exhaustion. I know that too. It has always been that way. It is getting even worse since I started working remotely at the rhythm of different time-zones. Time and space blur… here and there… I always wanted to be ubiquitous and it seems I have finally got it! Be careful what you wish for…
So, how do I manage to stop? Obviously, I don’t. I slow down a little bit – very little at the beginning of the break. I deliver my out of office message that usually goes out two or three days after my vacation has started, always leaving a door open for urgent business matters. Let’s not even get into discussing what urgent business matters are – the debate about urgency and importance has as many perspectives as people involved and would take us forever. And yes, I always get requests that I always answer. And everybody knows that beginning with myself. I am a woman of my word! Who am I trying to fool?
You can call it horror vacui – this is my literary self. Or use more mundane expressions like workaholism, such an ugly word. Or we could have a very deep and extended conversation about boundaries, insecurities, impostor syndrome, anxiety… Or you can call me boomer, which is the word that appears to solve every puzzle and end any conversation. But let’s keep it light. Summer vibes, you know.
And so some days have gone by.
Relativity
The simple truth is that I am always up for something. And one of the things I am always up to is a trip. So… time, here and there, except when I travel. The explanation for that exception is Einstein’s theory of relativity. Remember? Space and time as the inseparable same entity, the energy and the mass, the constant speed of light…? This is exactly what happens to me when I travel. First, space and time taking a consistent form and coming back together. Then the famous equation E=mc2 broadcasting live. Energy as released mass and mass as energy waiting to happen, equivalent but not identical, like myself. My always on energy mode – happening so fast that I don’t even have time to think about it – switching to mass, waiting to happen again. Everything becoming relative as I feel like I am somehow entering a new state of solidification.
Have I finally escaped from the natural me – thinking now about black holes and the event horizon but I better not go there! – and managed to just be in vacation mode? Well, this is my vacation mode. More about pausing than stopping. More about a comma than a period. A different rhythm where even when I remember perfectly all that I have allegedly left behind – I haven’t – it is now in a latent state.
So time, here and there… except for five days in Budapest. That was my spacetime this summer. Two towns in one and a river. A perfect metaphor for the flow of change and continuity. Another me, solid and present, crossing bridges and climbing the Gellért to reach the Freedom, walking the streets of the Jewish Quarter, flowing at the rhythm of the Danube… In the dance of a Sunday evening by the river side, eating chimney cakes on the go… White butterflies flying around as a good omen… The cool and cloudy weather announcing the fall with all its load of nostalgia and future…
Landing
And just like that, it is time to come back! The moment I land, and as I turn off airplane mode, I can feel myself changing again to my usual energy state. In a couple of days, I’ll be up and running, happening at the speed of light. That is part of the trip too – coming back to all that matters to me, including my work as an essential piece of my identity. Call it good luck or a curse. Or just call me boomer.
In the spacetime of the trip, I have gone through the process of reconciling with who I am, here and now, with my current particular circumstances. Sometimes I need to compartmentalize, understand how it works, separate the pieces, check the friction, adjust, and change what is no longer useful. But then, for everything to work again, I have to put it all back together as a whole and forget about divisions, silos, limits, and boundaries. Because that is life. Or at least that is my life. Everything, everywhere, all at once. Time, here and there… except when I travel… except for Budapest.
I see a white butterfly fluttering around that seems to have traveled all the way with me to keep me company as mass turns into energy, always at the speed of light. I am back, about to happen again. I guess that being intentional in everything I do is all that matters. It will be okay as long as my life flows, whatever the flow may be, whether on a hot August afternoon or on any morning of the fall that is just around the corner.
Can´t wait to check my email!
PRESENT CONTINUOUS 