For the very first time that I can remember, I returned from vacation and my desk was not piled high with items that had materialized for immediate attention in my absence. I spent the morning, as I spend all return-from-vacation mornings, writing short letters and doing assorted short tasks that needed to be done yet failing to accomplish any long term goals. Nonetheless, I finished all such tasks by noon, a new record.

This year�s calendar was my ally. My office was closed both Monday and Tuesday of last week and Monday and Tuesday of this week so, although I was off work for more than a week, I only missed two actual days of work and three theoretical days of work. (I am a part-timer and usually don�t work on Fridays.) Still, it seemed strange to stand there in a tidy office at noon. Doesn�t anyone miss me when I�m gone any more?

It�s not that my clients hadn�t marked my absence. The holiday season seems to compel many of my clients to write just for the contact. The ones who make such contact by heaping abuse on their attorney did so and the ones who get obsequious were. As usual, these contacts were offset by more sincere reaching out. I may not always like my place in the world of my office but I like the feeling that I know exactly what that place is.

I�ve missed my office. I�ve missed my routine. I�ve missed the problem-solving opportunities and the ability to control my immediate space that my office provides. I shook off my doldrums, came home, and really cooked. Vacations revive me and then my life, in turn, revives me after vacation. (It probably helps that I finally shook the migraine that dogged me for three days. It is amazing how perspective improves when pain recedes.)

So, as usual, I love not the work over the leisure or the leisure over the work. Instead, I love the balance�and at least until tomorrow when some crisis may hit either at work or at home, I�m in balance. This life is my highwire act, my balancing act, and it suits me just fine.

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