Surreality

"Fine," is the word I have chosen to apply when people inquire after my well-being.  And I am - I sleep and eat and laugh at times.  I work when necessary - scooping my laptop from the floor and tapping out replies to emails.  Using Daddy's phone with its stronger signal to make conference calls that can't be postponed.

But everything feels different. 

Wrong.

Surreal.

My mom had friends when I was little - even before I was born, actually.  Two of them came to visit last week, bringing photos of a 1-year-old Katie in cars and trying to walk and playing with toys and snuggling with her mom.  My favorite, of course, is above - staring at my Daddy in delight.  (Which is now making me cry.  I miss him a whole lot.)

"What?" I asked from the back patio this morning.  Adam had called - as I'd requested - at 6AM on Labor Day to answer an urgent question.  He'd just returned to his hotel in Japan and we'd asked and answered questions about this mess of a project. 

"Are you sure this is what you want?  Moving into a more operational role?"

"Yes," I replied. 

"Because it's not too late.  I can get you out of it.  Or I can continue to push to make it happen.  But you were so good and this is so different..."

I nodded, staring out at Daddy's garages across the humid morning.  This is not what I wanted, I thought silently.  Given my way, my day today would look quite different.  Do I want to abandon global travel?  Work more on execution than owning the strategy?  Will I miss the attention? 

"I'm positive," I stated.  "It's time to do something different."

And different my life has been - I've lived with Mom and my parents' house for the last week.  Yesterday I used a majority of my mental power to help Smallest One make 2s.  She'd been doing them backward so we practiced and cheered and giggled while she grinned with pride.  We made it through the number 10 - quite an accomplishment. 

And perhaps I'll someday return to some sort of accomplishment of my own.