Passing the baby, or "I'm glad it's over."

Brace yourselves. This is going to come as a shock to some of you.

I'm glad the holidays are over.

I'll give you all a minute to gather your thoughts. (Twiddling thumbs, whistling, looking at the clock ...)

OK. Yes. It's true.

The girl who starts counting down days until Christmas on the fourth of July is glad it's over. Why? Because I can get back to life. I was just getting used to my "new normal" when the holidays came and shook things up. I want to go back to adjusting to my new normal again.

It didn't take long for me to grow tired of the faster pace at work and the short work weeks. I'll take five days at about eight or nine hours each over two or three 24-hour days (yes, that's an exaggeration). My regular pace seems "normal" now, which is what I want. I feel like being more creative, and I'm not even back in a regular work week yet. I had Monday off. I want to be at my job again. (Whoa. "Who's the new girl?")

In school, missing a day or so of class meant doing homework outside of school. No matter; many can attest I didn't much go to school anyhow, and therefore the hour or two I spent doing homework was nothing to me. Jobs I had before didn't require that much reorganizing -- if I missed a day babysitting, someone else took care of the baby and kids. If I missed a day at the book buy-back, someone else was there. The school newspaper took a bit more shuffling, but worst-case scenario, Erin goes on a long-weekend trip to Cincinnati, someone was there to pick up where I left off.

As you might have gathered, no one is there to take care of my baby now. My job, that is. Not my actual baby, of which there isn't one. Calm down, man. And I like that. I like being in control of something, and it's challenging, blah blah blah. All that good stuff.

Sure the apartment is bare and colorless (gee, it couldn't be the colorless walls, could it? See my column Sunday at thenorthwestern.com for more on that ...), and there aren't any holiday specials on TV, and my holiday cookies are getting stale (I got a lot of them. A LOT.).

But I sleep better. And longer.