The Last Friday Morning

After a day of off and on thunderstorms, oppressive heat, and finally enough rain so I didn’t need to water my gardens, it’s a bright, cool, clear morning.  Crickets are rolling their chirps over and over as a back drop to the clacking call of the bobolinks, the songs of catbirds and robins and chickadees and the complaining of the crows.

This is the last Friday morning, at least for now, that I’ll wake up relieved that the end of the work week is almost here.  I’ve loved my job — the challenge, the chance to make a difference, the incredibly smart and dedicated women I work with both here in NH and across the country — but I’m tired.  As I said at my farewell party on Tuesday evening, I consider my success at my job to be a result of luck, the great good fortune to have found a meaningful career that uses my particular talents to best use.  Other than very occasional sticky situations, this job has never been hard for me, but I’ve worked very, very hard.

So for years now Fridays have meant I’m close to a couple of days of longer sleep, a slightly (though truly only slightly) more relaxed pace, and the chance to do something other than concentrate fiercely on continuing to advance the work to end violence against women.

I still have three more days of work next week, but the weekend is almost here, and by next Friday, I’ll be looking at an almost unimaginable number of days ahead when my concentration and focus can go elsewhere.  Sweet.