Triage

One of the side-effects of constant travel is that when you’re home, you’re in triage mode. Everything I think Imight want to do, gets quickly stacked against my current priority ranking, and some things, somewhat cruelly just don’t make the cut.
If I’m home only for a weekend, then I want to spend most of it with my kids — and with my wife without the kids. I want to spend some time with my church family somehow. And, I’m realising as a home owner and a stuffy old grown-up, I need to spend some time doing tasks around the house. Add to that maintenance of my fragile back, andĀ the necessary sleep, grooming, and clothing preparation tasks (if all my dress pants need dry cleaning before the next trip, I’m in trouble!) and two days is gone pretty fast.
I think I’ve gotten pretty good at this triage, and do manage to rotate the priority list to try to keep some of the other balls in the air — like, say, our trip to Asia. The challenge, then, is shutting off triage-mode when I’m home for awhile…
“Be here now” has never been a natural activity for me. I find I’m worse at it now. I continue to stack and sort priorities, trying to find the optimal use of my time and ensure that the things most important to me are taken care of, even when I don’t have to. If, under normal circumstances, I have trouble not getting ahead of myself, I’m in worse shape now. Its like I can’t stand to sit still, or just “hang out” because there’s something else I should probably be doing, before it falls through the cracks.
I’m conciously working on this, since I’ll have almostĀ 4 whole weeks at home in the next two months, but if I’m a bit more of a task-oriented jerk than usual, I beg your forgiveness and your patience with me. Hopefully a short stay in Asia, where they prioritize much differently than us North Americans, will be a step in the right direction…