after the performance

today's blog entry comes to you from the united club at the phoenix international airport. i'm sitting here with a view of the mountains to my right on a sunny and quite warm day, pondering the events of the last couple of days. right now i'm in somewhat of a funk. my energy and enthusiasm are low and all i can think about is getting back home.

this mood has not been helped by the fact that, due to a comedy of errors, i missed the flight i was booked on back to denver. to make a long story short, it appears that my assistant changed my flight to an earlier one but neglected to update it on my calendar. hence, i arrived just as my plane was leaving. good news is that i am now on the flight i originally thought i was going to be on. bad news is it's in not as good a seat and i could have been home three hours earlier.

anyway, the subject at hand came to me as i was driving from the hotel to the airport. well, at least part of it did. something readers here may or may not be aware of (after five years of entries, i've lost track of what i've shared and what i haven't) sometimes an entry title comes to me at the beginning of my writing and sometimes it comes after i've completed the entry. this time it was the former. however, after writing the title, i realized that it could really refer to two situations rather than just the originally intended one.

the original intention was to describe my state now. "the performance" refers to my condition during the conference i was attending this week. i arrived tired, frustrated and kind of down on life in general. not exactly in the mood for a work-related leadership conference. yet, during the time of the conference, i became engaged, vocal, energized with the subject matter at hand. i have often described this state as "my performance gene kicking in." somehow, someway my subconscious mind knows when i need to be "on" and provides my body and conscious self the lift they need to behave in the manner the situation at hand requires of me.

but then comes the after. removed from the situation, i often return back to the state that i was in prior to or even upon entering it. i'm feeling pretty discouraged about life on all sides right now. work feels particularly challenging as it still feels that we are not organized nor have the full complement of talent we need to operate in a way that can address the challenges we are encountering. i keep trying to help but my efforts alone feel insufficient given the enormity of the issues. i am impatient to see progress in our efforts and am at a lost to know how, when or even if that will happen.

on the personal front, i find that i may be growing as weary as michael of living remotely from one another. i know i am beyond weary of the status of my relationship with my mother. i've decided not to go visit her for the holidays. she indicated she was disappointed. i should have indicated that i am tired of having to make a choice between my partner and her at her insistence. i didn't. at least, i haven't yet. progress on both of these personal fronts is also frustratingly elusive as well.

so what of the other situation i indicated earlier to which the title could refer? well, i was treated to a "performance" of another sort yesterday. it was a surprise and gave me an added lift into the day. i think it was not so much what specifically happened as the idea that someone would do something nice for me that brought a smile to my face and a lightness to my heart. i really can't speak to the motivation of the act but i am grateful for the result however fleeting.

and so maybe it's this second meaning that i should look to for some encouragement, if not inspiration. it seems to show that when you're feeling frustrated and discouraged, an unexpected moment of lightness can appear and transform your mood even for a bit. in this season of life, i need more moments like that. a lot more.