And we’re Back!

My sister in law asked me tonight “How is Normal Life”?
I really don’t think I can say this week has been normal and I guess you always must define normal (as my son would say). ‘How is life’ would be the preferable question!
Answer- we hit the ground running.

Home Sunday 4am..tried to sleep for a few hours, (Marc did) but my brain would not switch off. As I listened to his gentle snoring beside me, my mind revolved through an open doorway that was spinning endlessly!  I guess a combination of jet lag- change of time zone, the heat – a contrast to the extreme cold we had been having…just general events going around and around and around and not to mention sideways too! So, eventually at 8am we rose from the bed, Marc more rested than me and commenced so called normal life.

But first The Coffee !
Brunswick Heads Coffee from Gary’s. Oh, where have you been! Lots of welcome back smiles from the locals and greetings as we walked down to our favourite coffee bar;
Then the Washing
Load after load after load…I mean after all, we had been away for 6.5 weeks and even though we had washed once or twice on our trip, it really needed to be ‘washed’! So about 10 loads later of thermals, jumpers, trousers, scarves, skivvies, socks, gloves, jackets, parkers, hoods – you name it, if it was in the bag I washed it, I even washed inside the bag, all blowing dry in the hot humid sun;
 The Gifts
The inspecting of gifts we had bought for damage and placed into relevant bags for the right person
Dont forget the Phone, messenger, Skype:
Mother, Children and grandchildren to say we were home
Ah..Drinks
A quick farewell drink at the local pub for a staff member who was leaving; More welcome back and comments re my photos and blogs on Facebook, Dinner at home – you know -we actually had to cook ourselves, strange…and some down time before heading to bed extremely early’
I could not keep my eyes open!
And that was just day one!

Of course, the rest of the week slipped by in a muddled fuzzy rush.
Monday looms with the unwelcome sound shrill of the early alarm as it awoke me from my deep slumber of jet lag and heat induced sleep on day one of work. Normal morning routine and walk to work, Marc disappearing to the hospital before his start at the surgery, nothing different from six weeks ago. This all extended to five days’ daily routine of basically catching up on the day to day work activities; finding unexpected change that had occurred in our absence and -problem solving about that; debriefing with staff as to how things went, entertaining them with regales of our travels in work moments and at our administration thank you dinner staff meeting- (I mean they worked hard in my absence so I had to say thank you!) Its like we had never left.

But my head was not there.

My first day back and in reality the rest of the week,  I really had to think hard about what I was doing. The routine we normally do at the front desk, thinking on my feet, the aspects of management and reception combined, making quick decisions , solving patient problems, writing emails that perhaps could be taken the wrong way because I just answered and did not think about my professional words as I normally do,( then sending another email to say that it was not meant that way at all and I was not offended or upset), walking up the hallway to ask or inform reception or the boss something and finding that it had flown right out of my head and have to retrace my steps to think what I needed to know in the first place, answering phones and responding professionally, attempting to clear  my full desk of paper work from materials left from my staff in my absence before I left Friday afternoon ( which I did)…but it took so much longer because I was not in my correct head space.

I so loved my holiday. I really did. It was an amazing experience.
Having six weeks away of exploring and learning about a completely different world, of lifestyle , of customs , such an educational understanding; of the time shared together in great company, just us, not thinking professionally and being casual, informed and relaxed about what we did and where we went, proved the undoing of this last week. I sincerely apologize for not being the ‘normal’ person as i was before.

Back to Normal?
Me?
Anything but!
Is there a Normal?

But the hardest part for me was waking midweek on Wednesday night at 1am with an overwhelming sense of sadness. Now, I do not suffer from depression and so it was extremely strange to feel this, but I felt so lost and so sad. I snuggled further and cuddled into my husband( in the intense heat I might add,) trying to ward off the sadness i as feeling.  I guess it was the fact that reality and the usual pace of life had indeed hit. Spending six weeks together 24/7 without any hassles or arguments and now the demands of life pulled us apart, away from each other to our separate spaces in this frantic busy world.
I guess it was the anticlimax of knowing that our wonderful holiday had finished and life had to move on.
I guess it was the demands of life, of changes, of life as the normal as I remembered had really hit!

And I went back to sleep!
Ready to face another day.
And to quote a quote…Everybody knows there is no such thing as normal. There is no black-and-white definition of normal. Normal is subjective. There’s only a messy, inconsistent, silly, hopeful version of how we feel most at home in our lives.

Tomorrow begins a new week.
And yes, we are back. Back to ‘normality ‘as we know it.

So, to answer my sister in laws question, how is ‘normal’life?
I will return, with my husband, (who by the way is working Saturday night shift tonight,at the emergency department- talk about reality ) back to my ‘normality,’ which I guess is really hard to  define but where i am the most comfortable, where I know I happily belong.

I will see you there!