A quiet moment and a big sigh

I am sitting at my desk at work, listening to the hum of the air conditioner battling the 90 plus temperatures outside.  Summer is coming on in full force, and I am grateful for the amazing long lovely spring here in the MotherLode.  A gift. 

It is afternoon on a Friday.  My whole self, consciousness, my whole being has been focused on getting through the annual progress review.  Always challenging, always exhausting, and yet fulfilling as all my concepts are solidified, and I back up my models with data, maps, documentation.  It all works.  In spite of the weekends and long hours, in the end it is worth it because I can answer the questions.  I can go to whatever folder, paper or electronic, I can pull up the maps, and show exactly how this huge puzzle of a landscape works, how it is put together.  The best part of my job.  Juggling all those puzzle pieces into place. 

It's now over.  Whew.  and whew again.  I don't know why I get so wound up over it all.  Some sort of silly idea that everything will be perfect?  How dumb is that!  It's the natural world, for pete's sake, and I am trying to make some kind of sense and order out of it.  dumb. 

So now I will breathe, I will get over all the stupid stress that I lay on myself at these reviews, and I will especially savor the thought that it is my last one.  No more reviews.  Ever.  Maybe an exit review a couple of weeks before I retire, but that is a different thing entirely.  I do not have to do the stressful, brain busting, lay-it-all-on-the-table-and-justify-it kind of review ever again. 

weird thought.

This afternoon I will pack.  Tomorrow I will leave before dawn and drive 8 hours through the valley back home to the Oregon forests and beaches.  I will spend some days at the coast, feeling chilly, at the lake, in Klamath at the small town celebration of the 4th with my daughter.  A week away.  A week without worry about anything at all.

But right now, just for this moment, I am savoring the deep breath, the big sigh, quietly looking out the office window to the asphalt parking lot, watching the blue oaks laugh at the heat, watching the grass wither as I speak.  Just savoring.  I don't have to do one single blessed thing in this moment.