Saddle up!

Wow.

Well. This is just…déjà vu all over again.

I am sitting at my new desk. I just got through with a TWO HOUR conference call regarding data systems here, there and everywhere. In that two hour period, I put about twenty hours of work onto my task bar. Having forgotten my more physically and fiscally sensible lunch at home, I ran across the street and got a two item “special” (and by “special”, we mean…special) from the cheesy Chinese place, which I am now scooping into my maw as though it were my last meal before the approaching meteor hits while I scan through the News of the Day before attempting to get my tired brain back into the World of Convoluted Data Structures and How to Make This Damned Thing Do What I Want It To Do Before End of Day TODAY.

If it weren’t for the pictorial proof on my desk, clearly showing four (4) adorable children ranging in age from 18 months to 7 years instead of two (2) adorable children aged two and ‘brand new’, I’d swear that it was 2000 and I was back in the data team at MegaBankCorp.com. Same high energy. Same data-convoluted-ness. Same being surrounded by bright people.

Same office color scheme, for Pete’s sake.

Same distant rumbling of traffic far, far below us. Same occasional blast of a horn, or whoop from some strong-lunged construction worker. Same glimpses of the bay – today she’s cold, a dark slate-green and choppy. The last time I paused at the big window, only two little sailboats were tacking manfully along; the rest are undoubtedly huddled in their slips waiting for sunnier weather.

I know that in the weeks and months to come, I’m going to have days of yelping and squealing and complaining and maybe even throwing things over how ‘awful’ all of this is. How hard it is to get the laundry done, or how unfair it is that I had to miss the Butterfly Parade at school, or how tired I am, or how much I wish that {coworker, client, random stranger} would just hack up a hairball and die, instead of pestering me incessantly about the stupid {project}, which everybody knows is nothing but a load of {expletive} nobody cares about in the first place.

But it is good. It’s like coming home, in a way. I expected I’d need a lot more adjusting, a lot more settling in, getting used to the concept of working again.

Instead, I’m just…in. As if it were nothing more than a long weekend away followed by moving into a new cubicle on a different floor. Where’s the coffee maker, where’s the bathroom – OK. I’m good. Ready to go.

Speaking of which, my truly awful Chinese food is as consumed as it is going to be and my task bar is not getting any shorter so with that – I leave you, my dear friends.