Well. I believe I said my intention was to write every day in this new, unemployed (taking a break?) phase of my life. 14 days letter, I’m back. Apologies to myself — gotta get better at keeping promises.

Time still moves strangely … sometimes so slowly, but sometimes it’s 9 p.m. and I can’t figure out how it got so late. The days are filled with old things that are new things … things I didn’t really get to do during the last five years of commuting from Georgia to NYC every week. Things like … organizing kitchen cabinets, cleaning out the garage, sorting my closet, making sweet tea and cooking dinner every night. My husband is finally regaining the weight he lost when he had heart surgery three years ago — something else to feel guilty about; add it to the long list a working wife and mother accumulates over the years.

Working out every day is good — coupled with the physical activity of household work, and I’m feeling good in my body for now. Eating at home and cooking good food helps too.

Probably watching too much HGTV and Food Network. Probably sleeping too late some days. Probably not thinking enough about work or what work looks like in the future. But heck, it’s only been four days since I was officially off-boarded. It was weird when my TWC email account disappeared. It’s really weird to not talk to Anthony, Susan or Bobby every day, or to get the random IM from Steven. Very strange to check my new email and find … nothing. And so strange to think that the team I led and the work we created together for the past eight years now just carries on without me. Life moves on.

Today’s the first day of the rest of my life. And I think I kind of squandered it. See, I was packaged out of my job, and maybe my career, last week. After 33 years of working, it’s all good, and exactly what I wanted. So today was it — the first day to make something new of myself. That didn’t happen.

I’m not used to this much unstructured, unplanned-for time. I took a two-hour walk, cooked breakfast, answered some random emails, turned down a job offer. And it was 11:45 a.m.

I went to lunch with a friend, cleaned out my closet and gave away a bunch of work clothes, checked for email (none), mailed a birthday card. It was 4 p.m.

Big sigh. Is this how it goes? Watching the clock and simultaneously wondering where the time has gone and why it’s moving so slowly?

This is going to take some getting used to.