The past few weeks I’ve been really in a funk. It’s my typical winter one I suppose. I love snow, don’t get me wrong, but what bothers me is the general bleak skys you see most of the winter here in Illinois. It’s very hard not to let that seep in and begin to permeate your thoughts.

Another part of my overall blah has been a general frustration over things of a technical nature. I spend all day at my job writing code, solving technical problems, and dealing with general computer problems. I get home from work, and I’m wiped out, my brain needs a recharge and needs to decompress. I get so tired of people calling me wanting me to fix their computers. I get especially sick of it when that is the ONLY time I hear from them. Is it to much to ask for an occasional phone call with the sole purpose that the person on the other end just wants to say “hey, how are you?” and doesn’t ‘cleverly’ work the conversation into a “oh hey… i’ve been meaning to ask you…” or “..Oh I bet you’d know…” followed by a request to fix their email, or remove the latest virus or malware… I wonder if people, when finding out someone is a surgeon, ask the surgeon, “oh hey do you mind taking out my appendix here? No rush just when you have some time off or something?”

This past weekend, I escaped for the whole weekend. I posted on facebook that I would not be answering my phone, and was going to just get away. I recently re-connected with a couple of very dear friends who live south of me and accepted their gracious invitation to come visit for the weekend. It was truly the most relaxing, enjoyable weekend I’ve had in YEARS. Not once was I asked to look at a computer, or even answer a computing question. We hung out, ate well, watched British comedies, shared stories, entertained the cats (I mean really, isn’t that a “peoples” job, to entertain and serve cats?) and just generally had a good time. By Sunday morning I felt at peace, for the first time in a long time.

A compleetly unexpected side effect of that was that I slept well last night. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, I slept peacefully and did not wake up multiple times at night with various panicked thoughts running through my head. I didn’t lay there awake for 3 hours trying to force myself to unwind enough that I could sleep. I just rolled over pulled the blanket over me, and slept.

I need more weekends like this last one.