Beware the Ides of March

Convergence.  The state of being converged upon.  Intersecting demands.  The art of scheduling becomes more a mastery of juggling.  Just don’t drop the most important ball.  Which one is that?  Exactly.

I’m an organized person and actually enjoy planning my ‘to do lists’ and calendars for work and home.  But lately it’s become a bit more challenging.  For quite unexpectedly my working life has become like an advanced algebraic problem gone awry. 

I’m always working on several project teams at once.  They typically involve completely different groups of people and the work usually is fairly hectic at the beginning and the end of a project period. Of course, there is a rather lengthy cast of quirky characters involved.  Gathering information and coordination, endless meetings and conference calls at the beginning and then it levels out to a manageable pace in the middle with a lot of documentation.  The end is another flurry of activity with determinations, recommendations, written reports.

Well, at the moment, I am working on the end of two projects and the beginning of three more.  And my boss retired a couple months back and the new one started this week.  Yes, really.  And you know what that has meant?  Interim status reports.  So, picture each segment of work as curves on an X and Y scale.  Now circle the points where the multiple curves intersect.  That subset of points is my current work existence.  And you thought you could live your life without understanding algebra, right? Suffice to say it’s not a pace that is sustainable in the long run but perhaps for a month or two. 

Then there is the bevy of usual doctor’s appointments.  At this stage of life, there is a fleet of medical professionals to keep happy.  This past week was the dentist, orthodontist and ophthalmologist.  So I’m actually attempting to schedule conference calls and meetings around the medical appointments and the schedules of everyone on each of those project teams.  I am one person who is looking forward to May- my best estimate of when this will all settle down. 

How am I taking care of myself, you might be asking?  Very carefully.   Getting to sleep early, healthy meals, exercise and lots of lazy, unplanned weekends.  Long phone calls with people who care.  There has to be somewhere I exist with no schedules to juggle.  No demands being made upon me.  You know all those things we all know we should be doing, but don’t always?   For now, they are my mainstay as I continue on my grief and cancer journeys.  And I am looking forward to spring flowers.  So yes, beware the Ides of March.  And keep an eye out for convergence.  You might want to practice your juggling, just in case.