Bloom where you're planted

I'm getting ready to head out on business again this week, my annual trip back north. This should be no big deal, it's to an office I've been in before, I know the area pretty well, and I used to travel all the time, so I feel like I'm a pro at this.

So why am I completely freaked out?

Here's the thing. I have completely slowed my life down. Like a back to the 50s slowdown. No traffic, no schedule to speak of... I now get miffed when the dry cleaners changes their counter help and I actually have to explain my starch needs and that there are two families in Mayberry with the same last name. I don't think the ice age moves any faster than I do these days.

And while I love my job, I truly do, I love it best when I'm doing it at home in my PJs and I can freak out in private if something goes horribly wrong. Not, say, in a conference room with my boss and his minions with People Who Matter recording the day's events. (And rest assured, no matter how much planning I've done, something will go horribly wrong. It is the way of this project, and success is based on the amount of wrongness, not the lack of it.)

But I am going. I have booked flights, sifted through 42 pages of train schedules, and issued project plans. Part of me is looking forward to it. A few days of quiet, a few days of letting my husband worry about packed lunches and color cards and homework.

A little more of me, though, is realizing that I like it here. And that maybe, just maybe, I've put down some roots.