4/5

Can you tell I've been busy?
This is not the only space I've been absent from.

I've been missing from the couch in the afternoons after school for a story and a long unhurried chat. I've been missing from the playground watching tricks on the monkey bars and catching up with the school mums.
I've been missing from the rock pools and the beaches and the dams of our normal summer hangouts.
I've been missing from the warm evenings on balconies and front stoeps with girl friends and wine.
I've been missing from the bench in the breeze in my mum's garden.
I've been missing from the couch with two dogs and a cat and my husband and a series on Netflix.
I've been missing from my life.

Job 4/5 ended today.
3 days spent inside a hotel with 300 delegates and a packed agenda. Working in a group which included men with ritual scarification, and women with scars of a different kind but not any less visible. Catching up with old activist comrades and meeting new ones. Intersecting with an age, race and gender mix well out of my norm.
Learning again how good I am at what I do, and how much I enjoy it.
4/5 was a good one.

It's the next one which is scary.

The last month I've been working two jobs, both demanding and challenging and time-pressured and complex.
I've been working two jobs which required minimum 8h a day each, and wouldn't settle for very much less than that.

One of those jobs is done, but I doubt it will make the next any less frantic.

I will still be missing for a while. My husband, my kids, my friends, my life will still have to do without me for a bit.
But tonight I will sleep.
And tomorrow I will start again.
And by the end of this month I'll have done 5/5, and I'll be back.