Reschedule

Monday morning I found myself with a lot of time on my hands.  The combination of early spring snow, public transportation, and recent cancer treatment led all my morning clients to reschedule.  I gathered my things to go into the office anyway -- it seemed like the perfect time to get some paperwork done.  I just couldn't make myself get out the door, though.

Do you know those times when the couch feels absolutely magnetic?  When putting on a coat and striding purposefully through the door feels like climbing out of a well with no rope?  This was one of those times.

As someone who has been at this massage thing for longer than five years, I am acutely aware of the symptoms of burn out.  I counsel my students about it, and I schedule regular days off to keep myself away from it.  But I'm not perfect, and I started to worry -- is this burn out?  Is this it, the beginning of the end of my career in this field?  It felt so much heavier than other days when I've been tired, or have chosen to do something besides paperwork.

I got a little bit panicked, and tried even harder to will myself up back up from my chair and out the door -- which only made me get more stuck.  So I paused for a minute and decided to re-view the whole thing.  Because that was not the beginning of the end, it was merely a little breathing space cleared out for me by circumstances and seized by that subconscious part of me that always knows better.

Like my clients, I took the opportunity to reschedule.  I spent the morning productively, but in a different part of my life.  By the time I met with my afternoon client, all thoughts of burn out were gone.  Just another moment to remind me -- sometimes you just need to reschedule.