two burners

Today I was reading an article in a back issue of the new yorker (thanks mom for fed exing! even though I know you never read my blog!) written by David Sedaris. He was talking about this succeed in your career seminar. The woman giving the seminar said people should imagine their life as a four burner stove. The burners are: family, career, health, and friends. At any one time, only two burners can be going at the same time.

I thought that was really interesting because I've been having a bit of a life crisis lately because all I do is work and work out. Even though I thought my assignment in the middle east was going to be less stress and work, it's the same as in the US except that I don't have to fly (thought about going to Muscat or Petra this weekend, but then was like I have to work, and if I went I'd have to get on a plane). Some of my colleagues here think I'm crazy, but I can't stand having something work related looming over my head. Even if I took a day off I wouldn't enjoy it because I would be stressing the whole time about getting my work done.

I guess I'm lucky in a way that my family and friends are geographically dispersed, so they don't expect to see me that much. I actually do pretty good on email though some of my friends don't like that and want me to call them. I never call because I'm always busy working.

I don't know. I've punted things in my career to try to make a relationship work. But the end result is always the same. It drives the pakis that I work with nuts that I am not married and won't even meet their single friends (single, I'm sure, for a reason). I had a long conversation the other night in the office with Dr. T, who was almost thrown out of his family for marrying a european woman. He was going on blah blah blah and finally I was like dude, I have no idea where anyone else in my life will be in 6 months. All I can worry about is where I'm going to be.

The weird thing is, this seems to be working, in some ways, in my favor. A relationship I had that imploded due to my job/master's degree/cancer has come full circle and I'm friends with the guy. And I can't say that for most of my ex boyfriends. And most of my US friends send me supportive emails and pictures to get me through some of the shit show experiences I'm having here.

Maybe some day my priorities will change. After putting in a 16 hour work day on my "saturday" (even though it's friday) all I can think of is laying on a chair tomorrow listening to the waves coming in on the beach.

Though I know, in the back of my mind, I'll be stressing about getting all my stories in order for Banff. Thank allah for sand on the beach. Otherwise I'd be sitting under an umbrella pecking away at the keyboard.